A project created by the children of St Vincent’s School for the blind in Liverpool has inspired two Hollywood stars to fly over and pay a visit to the school. Chyler Leigh, star of the US TV series, ‘Supergirl’, and her musician/actor husband, Nathan West, were so impressed by the students’ creation of a brand new super-hero comic book featuring the pupils themselves showing how everyone can help to make the world a better place, even without super-powers, that they have arranged to drop into the school and give a few drama lessons at the end of May.
Tim Quinn writes:
Having spent many years of my career editing the extraordinary characters of Marvel Comics, the last thing I expected on my return to my hometown of Liverpool was to find real-life super-heroes wandering the corridors of a local school. But that is exactly what happened when I visited St Vincent’s School. I’d been invited into the school by the Head Teacher, Dr John Patterson who told me that his pupils were crazy for all things super-hero. I hadn’t realised it was a school for the blind until I turned up there early one morning. I was moved to see that all of the students were dressed as super-heroes. It was an extraordinary sight to see them walking the school corridors with capes, masks, canes and seeing eye dogs.
“I love the colours,” said a girl, blind from birth.
“I like that they want to help everybody,” explained another student.
The children had been pulled into the super-hero world by listening to the award winning American TV series ‘Supergirl’.
Turns out that the students also enjoyed helping everybody. They had come up with a project to raise funds to send to people suffering from the blight of Black Fly in Africa. The dreaded Black Fly lays eggs in water systems causing people to go blind. Obviously a cause close to the children of St Vincent’s hearts. I’ve found a lot of heart at St Vincent’s School.
Inspired by the children, I worked with a fellow Marvel artist to create a brand new super-hero team based on St Vincent’s amazing pupils. The comic book tells the story of how they have come together to help people less fortunate than themselves. We call the team THE FAB 4000 – The World’s Largest Super-hero Team. We invite readers from other schools to get involved and become members of the team by following a simple super-hero charter that is featured in the comic.
I’m very happy to relate that the work of St Vincent’s pupils has come to the attention of the stars of ‘Supergirl’. Chyler Leigh and her actor/musician husband Nathan West were so moved to hear the story that they have arranged to fly over to the UK to visit the school and produce 2 benefit concerts for the school at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Chyler and Nathan will be making a documentary about the children of the school and their extraordinary concept while they are in town. Chyler explains, “We think this idea is brilliant and we want to help to make it go global. We are so looking forward to our first visit to Merseyside.”
4pm show:
https://www.cavernclub.org/events/event/east-eli-ft-chyler-leigh-benefit-concert-afternoon/
8pm show:
https://www.cavernclub.org/events/event/east-eli-ft-chyler-leigh-benefit-concert-evening-vip/
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East of Eli and Chyler Leigh links:
I'm hereby failing to contain my amusement at the idea of telling a school of blind children that Supergirl has flown over from America to visit them. It sounds as though they have a sense of humour themselves.
ReplyDeleteAlso I remember when Marvel UK's largest superhero team was the Fantastic 400...
Well Robert, you've spectacularly misread the post entirely because that's NOT the case at all.
ReplyDeleteAlso, The Fantastic 400 was created by Tim Quinn so I'm sure you'll allow him the use of The Fab 4000 for his latest project.