Comic Book Competition Poster

Ben Simpson a.k.a Doctor Simpo is a Senior-Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Animation course at Leeds Arts University. He specialises in traditional 2D sequencing techniques in a comic book format learnt from the cohort of creatives working out of Glasgow's Hope Street Studies of the early naughties; learning from such masters as Dave Alexander, Graham P. Manley, Frank Quitely, Grant Morrison, Jamie Grant and Nulsh. He teachers traditional 2D animation techniques learnt from Bob Godfrey, stop-motion techniques nurtured by Robert Lyons and drawing skills passed on from Quentin Blake. He studied under these three legends whilst attending the Glasgow School of Art, the Pratt Institute in New York and the Royal College of Art; where he received an MA in Animation.

His animations, comic books and illustration based works have been exhibited, published and premiered on a global scale. His cartoon films have been played at the New York Children’s Film Festival, Time Out Film Festival, Holmfirth Film Festival and LIFF. His gag based picture books have been translated in to three different languages and he has drawn caricatures of the English nobility. Some of his original hand lettered drawings from the first ever 3D Scottish comic book ‘Menshies’ hang between a Dali and a Picasso at the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock.

If he could have had any job, anywhere at any time he would have been a ‘Gag-Man’ for MGM Studios in the 1940s. His first solo comic book ‘Things and Stuff’ came out in the spring of 2004 and he has been producing publications in a humorous vein ever since. Presently he is working on a new glow-in-the-dark children’s picture book series that he has plans to animate into a TV series called ‘The Norms’. He also designs and manufactures his own clothes…so watch out for the man in bow-ties!

As a part-time Senior Lecturer in Animation at Leeds Arts University I am lucky enough to aid the education of the next generation of talent that will be moving into the creative and digital industries, within the next few years. Some of these students are lucky enough to get work straight away and others take a while to find fixed positions. The aim of Ameliorate Animation, a fondling collective of creatively talented digital doodlers, animators, illustrators and cartoonists, is to “Give Graduates a Go!”.

At present the studio operates out of Bates Mill situated in post-industrial mill buildings on the inner-outskirts of Huddersfield, in this area there is a specific lack of animators and I am trying to; with the support of the mill owner and my landlord Richard Bates, to build a network of animators with the end goal of creating digital content for all media platforms including television. Along with teaching animation skills to community groups and schools – something that I have personally been doing for nearly 20 years; I even have a newly published book to aid in this educational process.

View my website https://www.ameliorateanimation.com/