Category Archives: comics

Webcomic: Walking the Web (intro)

Date
Posted by
Comments0

Yesterday, I shared out a resource that creates a timeline of the development of the World Wide Web. I was so intrigued that I got inspired to create another webcomic series called Walking the Web, in which two characters — Ralph and Carl — invent a machine (The Wayback Machine, which is a website in real life that does allow you to view websites from long ago) to go back to various points in the development of the Web, and meet some folks. I’m hoping to have some fun with recent history. I hope you enjoy it, too. It will be a short-run series, although I can’t quite say how long that will be.

And now: Walking the Web
Walking the Web comic 1

Walking the Web Comic 1a

Peace (in the frame),
Kevin

 

Middleweb Book Review: The Graphic Novel Classroom

Date
Posted by
Comments0

 

I had the pleasure of reviewing a book — The Graphic Novel Classroom by Maureen Bakis — for the Middleweb website (which is a fantastic resource for middle school teachers). Bakis does an excellent job of showing how graphic novels and comics can have a place in the high school curriculum. (The comic above was my addition to my review. I figured it made sense to have a companion piece to the writing, given the subject matter.)

Read my review here.

Peace (in the review),
Kevin

Juggling the Common Core: A Webcomic Representation

Date
Posted by
Comments1

Jugglin the Core
During professional development sessions around introducing the Common Core to teachers, I often stop at some point and ask them to create a visual image of their relationship to the Common Core. You’d be surprised the varied responses that  we get, and how engaged teachers are when you ask them to draw (stick figures are OK). I often share the basics of mine, which is this idea of a juggling act in which various elements of the Common Core and my curriculum and myself are all precariously balancing in the air. Sometimes, something drops (as in the comic).

What would your visual look like?

Peace (in the comic),
Kevin

 

“The Tweets” Come to an End

Date
Posted by
Comments0

Tweets title

I was tweeting out about The Tweets comic yesterday, releasing the series of comics in a series of tweets w/comics through the course of the day (except for the final one, which I had not yet finished). I had a few good responses but I am going to just put the rest of the series here in this post and provide you with a link to the Flickr set where the short-run comic resides now. If you missed yesterday, The Tweets was inspired by a news story about politicians paying for fake followers on Twitter. I got to wondering: who would get that kind of job? Well, Stew did. And Frank was there, too.

Go to The Tweets

Tweets 3
Tweets 4
Tweets 5
Tweets 6
Tweets 7
Tweets 8 final
Thanks for reading.

Peace (in the frames),
Kevin

PS — you may notice my reference to another webcomic character, Boolean, in that last strip. I imagined he might be friends with these two dudes.
 

My New Webcomic: The Tweets

Date
Posted by
Comments1

I heard a news story the other day in which presidential candidate Mitt Romney was accused of having “fake” Twitter followers as a way (I guess) of buffering up his likeability quotient. The piece then said that some companies will get paid to create fake Twitter followers (although Twitter will ban folks for life for doing that) and it occurred to me that someone’s job might involve being a fake follower. Thus, a quick webcomic about two friends who are unemployed called The Tweets. It’s nothing fancy. But I hope you get a chuckle. This will be a short-run comic. In other words, it’ll be over quick!
Here are the first two comics in the series. The guys are Stewie (tall dude) and Frank (small dude).
Tweets 1
Tweets 2

 

Peace (in what I hope is your funny bone),
Kevin

PS — I am using the webcomic site — Strip Generator — for this one.
 

The Recursive Response System

Date
Posted by
Comments0

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I posted an introduction to a P2PU study group that I am part of around digital curation. I used a webcomic to create my intro (see yesterday’s post). And then, my friend Terry, who is part of the study group, took my comic and used a screencapture program to respond to my points about identity and curation. His views of my points was fascinating to listen to.
I decided to go another step, and grabbed his video of his response, put it into Vialogues (which allows for discussions of videos), and then responded to his responses, which he (of course) added further responses, too. It’s an interesting concept, how these tools allow for interactions on a variety of levels (from comic to video and voice to chat), and I appreciate Terry for coming along for the ride with me as I explored the possibilities (plus, he gave me a new hat — see the end of the video to understand). You can join in, too.

Peace (in the response),
Kevin

Webcomic: Curation and Identity

Date
Posted by
Comments1

I am taking part in an online study group over at P2PU (with friend Paul Oh, of the National Writing Project) around the idea of “curation” of our digital lives. Here is an introduction that I created for our first activity, using Bitstrips to create a webcomic intro. The comic is embedded down below as a flash comic but you can also access it over at Flickr:

 

Peace (in the comic),
Kevin