ScottishPower Foundation unveils winners of comic drawing competition

Today (Wednesday, 16 December), the ScottishPower Foundation announced the three winners of Comic Generation, its comic drawing competition for young people in Dumfries and Galloway. The young artists who wowed the judging panel with their comic illustrations were; Brogan Kerr and Laura Laird both 14, from Sanquhar and Michael Syme, 14, from Kirkcudbrightshire.

Established by the ScottishPower Foundation, to celebrate its sponsorship of the Wigtown Book Festival, Comic Generation challenged budding illustrators, aged 11-18 in Dumfries and Galloway, to create their own superhero with energy related powers. Now in its second year, the initiative looked for not one, but three winners, whose characters would come together to form The Wigtown Avengers.

Putting the Marvel Avengers and Fantastic Four aside, the Wigtown Avengers includes three unique, all-powerful original superheroes:

• ‘The Viper’ by Brogan Kerr: a crime fighting superhero who uses a solar powered eyepatch to fuel his snakelike powers. Helping him creep up quietly, surprise evil doers and bring them to justice.
• ‘Storm Throw’, by Laura Laird: supermodel by day, superhero by night. Storm Throw harnesses the power of the elements with her hands and uses the weather to protect the citizens of Wigtown.
• ‘Inker’ by Michael Syme: the Spiderman of the sea, an ocean dwelling superhero with squid-like powers. Inker shoots sticky black ink from his tentacles to help him travel around the ocean and protect its inhabitants.

The young artists gathered today in Wigtown, where they were presented with their prizes - an iPad mini, to help them work on their digital drawing skills and a life sized version of their comic creation.

Heather McDonald, Group Sponsorships Manager, ScottishPower, said: "This year’s Comic Generation competition has been better than ever. The standard of entries was phenomenal and I’d like to congratulate Brogan, Laura and Michael for creating three unique original superheroes and for their imagination, artistic talent and attention to detail.”

“The ScottishPower Foundation is committed to supporting community programmes that inspire young people to get more out of education, arts, culture and science. We’re proud to support the Wigtown Book Festival, one of the UK’s best-loved literary events and in particular its programme for young people in Dumfries and Galloway.”

Anne Barclay, Operational Director, Wigtown Book Festival, said: "It was a pleasure to judge this year’s Comic Generation competition. We were blown away by the standard of entries and I believe we have selected three worthy winners. Comic Generation is part of our Wigtown The Festival (WTF) programme, which aims to encourage greater participation from young people in literature and the arts.”

For further information please contact Emma Paul or Laura Blyth at Stripe Communications on 0131 561 8628. You can also email the team at spfoundation@stripecommunications.com