I can’t even remember the last time I posted so thank you my ever loyal web audience for hanging in there. I’ve just finished up teaching a 6-week comics course (2 classes a day, producing roughly 15 hand-drawn, inked and scanned 8-page minicomics every 10 days), the fruits of which (not to mention the labour) you can see below:
Subject-wise, we had (deep breath): evil pillows; talking dogs; mice catching live cheese; toxic gloop; a shelter for made-up creatures called ‘hubs’; a talking cat bent on taking over the world; meteors; robot beauty pageants; musclemen (of course); talking pillows
(obviously a pillow trend going around 5-6th graders); time machines;
vampires; talking muffins; fratricidal ghosts; talking flying fish;
mysterious packages containing penguins; cute campers who have to
butcher a bear to survive out in the woods; twin weiner dogs; a halo
take-off; insurance clerks; talking toast; a water droplet and a
transvestite called Gerald. That’s all off the top of my head.
Whilst that’s been going on we’ve also -almost-managed to put to bed the Stanford Graphic Novel’s latest oeuvre. An amazing graphic novel set in one of the DR Congo’s National parks, it’s some 200 odd pages and is a testament to the drive, passion and commitment of everyone involved that it was first started back in January. Here’s a sneak preview of some of the revisions that are currently being frantically re-inked:
Just when you thought I was going to take a break (or maybe that’s just my loving and tolerant wife), I’ve also turned my hand to animation, which is timely given the fact that as of tomorrow I’ll be teaching 3 weeks of Flash animation at San Jose’s tech museum. I’ll post my latest cartoon below, fingers crossed it works. Thanks to Queen for providing the soundtrack. I’ve also stuck some new watercolours up in the Gallery section for those of you interested in seeing my new colourful direction – quite how I can embrace that whilst not tripling how long it takes me to finish a page is, as yet, beyond me. Feel free to send in any suggestions.
Lastly, but by no means leastly, the hardhats piece continues to trundle along like the inky juggernaut it is – up to p.18 at the last count, though I’m reluctant to post any more pages up given the zany idea of actually making some money by having it published. News of that will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.
Here’s that cartoon I promised:
Part 2 of the Comic Book Creators’ excerpts, as well as the good news that a regular publisher of my monthly comics, London’sThe Other Side Magazine, was recently featured in The Guardian‘s media section. Click here to read the interview with Sam, TOS’s fresh-faced Editor.
Details aplenty from Nate:
As promised, here are a few excerpts from the comics created by my students over the course of the last 2 weeks. In no apparent order, we have:
Pablo the Sacred Runyip by Spencer
The Epic of Mibus by Gavin
The Sweet Escape by Maggie A Ghost Aghast by Haley
Yep, that’s right. The Comic Book Creators session at Galileo Summer Quest came to an end today, with nearly all of my 32 students walking away with 10 copies of their very own comics (see below for proof). And not just comics they’d banged out in clipart a la David Rees (not to knock the magnificent Get Your War On), but real comics that they’d thumbnailed, pencilled, inked, scanned, photoshopped and coloured. Not bad for 9 days work!
I’m so proud of all the students in both my classes (spanning 5-8th grades) that I’m going to stop gushing and sit down with their comics for a good read. What better praise is there.
I’ll post excerpts over the weekend, but just to whet your appetites, we had comics covering: an escape from a haunted town; a star wars take-off, done with sausages; an epic knight’s tale; a man who’s shrunk and can only communicate with his dog; a space story with a twist in the tale; Hercules fighting Kung-Fu Panda; a nature documentary featuring a Runyip (from Star Wars – come ON); unemployed taxi drivers panhandling; more plots to take over the world than I could ever have imagined; and even the odd (semi) wordless piece. An ink-stained pat on the back to everyone involved.
PS It’s also given me an idea for posting tutorials on this site, which I’ll do imminently. Keep your eyes peeled for a new section on the main menu bar.