Sisterson

Sisterson! A short-run comic book which ran for three or four issues around 1990 and which was circulated among London comic shops. "Sisterson!" was a "Jam Comic", i.e. a collection of comic strips each of which was an unplanned collaborative effort, with one creator drawing the first frame and then passing it on to another to be continued, usually resulting in a comic strip far more strange and unpredictable than any one artist would be likely to devise.

Although "Jam Comics" no doubt have many other origins, "Sisterson" was named after a particular example that took place in the Humour Comic Strip class at the London Cartoon Centre, a series of comic strip classes that took place at various venues in West London in the late 1990s and early 1990s. Taking an idea from then-student/future LCC course director Steve Marchant, one of the attendees, Dennis Sisterson, initiated a jam comic, and it became a regular feature of the class. Tutor Donald Rooum dubbed it "The Sisterson Game" and the name stuck; years later it re-emerged as a postal game.

Rules were developed over the years by various players, eventually distilling into this form: It's a game for three or more people. You cannot draw a panel if one of your previous drawings appears within the two prior panels. You should follow the story through sequentially, panel by panel, and not cop out by skipping a panel or two because you cannot think what should go next. No unnecessary sex or violence.

One variety played at the Cartoon Centre involved placing your frame at any unused point in the strip, not necessarily the frame following the one previously drawn, but this made things just a bit too difficult.

Among the participants at the original London Cartoon Centre class were comic artist/teacher Steve Marchant and writer Andrew Pilcher.