I came across this interesting blog resource called Art&Story, which focuses in on resources around the art of comics. It’s wonderful. This video is a presentation that delves into the importance of character development for writing, whether comics or short stories or novels. A good character will drive a story forward.
There are other neat videos, too, including a tour of an art studio and using some advanced art tools. Check it out: http://cvcomics.com/video/
Peace (in character),
Kevin
Category Archives: comics
Reflecting on running a Comic Camp for Kids
I decided to do a reflection on running a Comic Camp for middle school students over at The Graphic Classroom, where I am a staff reviewer and contributor. I hope my reflections are useful to anyone else considering this kind of camp, which really engaged young writers in meaningful ways.
Peace (within the drawings),
Kevin
Making Music: My First Gig
It’s Monday, so I am continuing to share out my evolving webcomic series about my life in music, as told through ToonDoo. This comic centers on the first time I played solo in front of an audience and the likely perceptions that were at play.
And here is the ongoing ebook collection:
Peace (in the notes),
Kevin
Another Day at Claymation/Comics Camp
We had an interesting day at our Claymation and Comic Camps yesterday, as kids in the movie section worked hard on their longer claymation movies (which have to be completed today for family) and we had two visitors to our Comic Camp — Hilary Price, whose comic Rhymes with Orange runs in about 150 newspapers, and Bryant Paul Johnson, a webcomic who is now working on a historical fiction graphic novel.
First, here are two movies show some of the claymation work of a blob coming to life and also a character I created out of Bendaroos called Cal the Clayman as he visits the “sets” of the movies.
And then, here are some photos from the visits to the clay camp:
Peace (on our last day),
Kevin
Sharing out: Claymation and Comics Summer Camp
We’re about half-way through with the four-day summer camps — one that focuses in claymation/stopmotion movies and the other that centers on comics and graphic novels. Both have been incredibly interesting and the middle school students (mostly boys) are very engaged in the work they are doing.
In the movie camp, they have been working on a variety of movies, but are now focused in on creating a longer Claymation Movie around the theme of a “buddy/friend” adventure. There are some pretty fascinating stories developing, including one that begins in the world of Pivot Stickfigure and then transforms into the “real world” with stick figures made out of Bendaroos (bendable sticks).
Here are some pictures of some of the scenes coming to life:
In the comic camp, we are doing a mix of paper work and using technology tools. We worked with ComicLife yesterday and then continued to use our ToonDoo site for webcomics. ToonDoo is a huge hit with many of them, and one student is even working on a 100-part series (yes, 100 pages) that is a spy mystery of sorts. I showed him how to create an ebook in our ToonDoo space, so that the reader can follow the story in sequence. Very cool.
Here are a few pictures from yesterday as they worked on a paper comic:
And here are some comics made in camp:
Peace (in the creative world),
Kevin
Making Monday Music
Here is another installment of my series of webcomics about my life in music. In this one, I remember the excitement of getting my first saxophone. It was something that set me off on a lifetime of music, really, and although I don’t have that saxophone anymore, I still carry it with me in my heart.
And here is the ebook I am creating for this series of comics:
Peace (in reflection),
Kevin
The last Boolean Squared (for now)
Persepolis 2.0, the unofficial remix
This will probably run right into the Copyright wall, but while it lasts, check out this remix version of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis graphic novels about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. This remix takes her art and puts the story context into today’s Iran, with its simmering election turmoil. It’s fascinating and you have to wonder if Satrapi will approve or not.
For now, though, take a look and experience another way into modern day Iran at the Persepolis 2.0 website where you can read the remix or download it as a PDF (you may want to do that).
Peace (please),
Kevin
Some odds and ends: How Students Think We Can Use Comics
I have a few posts here and there that I never got around to publishing before the school year ends and this is one of them. While we were using our closed ToonDoo comic space for Comic Strip Poetry, I asked my students in a survey for some suggestions on how I could integrate the use of comics into various projects throughout the year. I enjoyed reading their suggestions.
On a side note, I also came across this great resource for comics in the classroom (I think it was put together by my friend, Glen) with ComicLife software. Whether you use ComicLife or not, this site has a ton of ideas and possibilities, and includes some great links. Take a look.
And now, my students’ ideas:
- Use it to design Quidditch logo (use shadows and shapes)
- You could make a mystery poem; since there’s black and white slides.
- making a comic book project
- make story books
- make an end of the year book.
- We could do something on how to write a poem, because everyone seems to think that they’re so hard, even though they’re really not (especially if you use an online rhyming dictionary).
- for plays
- Have a writing period where we can show what we have made in ToonDoo.
- Writing digital story books for next year
- Next year you could have an adventure comic rather than an adventure story.
- Science-mitosis
- Social Studies-Egyptians
- We could do a story on how your last year at Norris was.
- We could use it in math and make toons to show how to do a certain equation.
- To make your own wanted posters on toondoo about a criminal.
- We could take any of the prompts we have wrote this year and make then into books. I also think it would be cool to make books about things we a learning to help us remember things.
- I think it would be a good idea to use it in writing class but also maybe in literature class. I think it would be fun to use in literature.
- I think you should do a mystery comic strip poem or on the Harris Burdick story. That would be cool. You should also introduce this site to the younger kids.
- I think we can use this site for many different things for ex. you can probably use this for just an activity after MCAS and create a comic strip of what they thought of MCAS and if they thought it was easy or hard for them and that kind of stuff.
- For songs.
- Maybe we can make multiple strips and put them into a book so after each comic is done, it will be like one giant book.
- We could use it to show our favorite part of Norris School.
- We can use them with the comic book thing to create mini graphic novels and of course more poems and our freewrites in our notebooks.
- We could use them to make stories (a short story writing prompt) into a funny comic that still shows the story.
- I think we could make our own book- maybe a story about how our elementary years at Norris have been.
- I think we could use the toon do site for making a book about our favorite thing that we did in writing. 🙂
Peace (in the frames),
Kevin
It’s Just Another Music Monday …
Today, I offer up my second installment of my new Webcomic series about my life in music called Making Music, using ToonDoo as my composition site. I made some changes this week, as I started to use ToonDoo’s Traitr program to create my own comic version of myself, instead of using one of the prefab characters. It was fun but tricky to try to try to mirror myself as a comic character, particularly as the character needs to get older as the comic strips develop. The art element of comics has always been my weakest link (ie, see Boolean Squared).
And here is the Making Music book itself:
Anyway, here is this week’s Making Music comic. If you are looking at this in your RSS reader (hey, there!), then you most likely can’t see the comic, so here is a link to this week’s comic, entitled “Six Strings” in which my mom tried her hand at guitar. And here is a link to a ToonDoo book that I am creating with the comics.
Peace (on the funny pages),
Kevin