This is vacation week and my older boys have been working with a neighbor friend to create their own “newspaper” of events in our ‘hood. It’s been fun to watch them talk about what they will report on (creating a new bike path through our back woods, a profile of a neighbor who promotes baseball, the ‘dirt pile’ on a neighbor’s yard, etc.) My older son worked on a few comics yesterday that we will be putting up on his blog — Crazy Cartoonz — in the next few days. He did the layout on ComicLife and then he drew the artwork by hand, and I just laughed at his comics.
And just for comparison between dad and son, here is today’s Boolean Squared, in which Urth is trying to figure out which tech pioneer to do his research project on and Boolean takes a nice dig at teachers in the “lounge”:
Click on the comics to get the larger versions
(PS — the follow-up to this comic will be Urth creating an entry on Wikipedia about their beloved teacher, Mr. Teach, and causing a bit of … well … concern).
As some of you know, I publish a webcomic about education and the so-called Digital Divide between kids and adults. I call it Boolean Squared and it is an experiment for me that I have been enjoying. Recently, I learned that there was going to be a huge Webcomic Convention in the town next door, so how could I not at least check it out? I thought I could get my older son — himself, an avid comic reader and creator — to come along, but he wasn’t interested.
It was a massive geek fest, to be true. It was jam-packed with people — hundreds had registered in one day, shutting down the registry system. (another indicator of the power of comics as literature). But I was on a mission as well as driven by curiosity. As a staff writer for The Graphic Classroom, I review graphic novels and comics with an eye to the classroom. So, I took along my fairly new Flip HD video camera and decided to interview a few of the webcomic creators about what inspired them to begin writing comics, what support did they have in school and what advice they might give to young writers. I intend to show this to my students as well as share it out at The Graphic Classroom.
Plus, it was the first time I used this Flip camera (I have others, not High Definition video, though) and my impression is, again: wow. It is simple to use (although the view window is too small), simple to edit with the Flip software that comes with it, and makes a high quality video. I uploaded it into my Vimeo account, which allows some HD video uploads (although I took quite some time).
I keep exploring new comic sites, wondering about applications for the classroom. Here is one called Pixton, which does have an educational package that can be purchased (not yet sure if it is worth it) as well as a public site, where it seems content could get inappropriate.
It is not as initially easy to use as some others — such as Make Beliefs Comics or ToonDoo — but the potential for creating your own series of comics seems doable with Pixton. There are a wide range of characters and flexibility — you can use templated ideas from Pixton or build your own.
One thing I am intrigued by is the coming development of a tool there that will allow you to animate your comics. (see preview). I wonder how this will work.
Here is a comic I created yesterday in about 15 minutes:
This is an incredible chart. I hung it up in my room and all the kids are crowding around it, checking it out. I think they are both drawn to the comic element, but also to the way that this artist has cross-pollinated our expectations of characters.
I am excited to have learned about this webcomic convention going on in the town right next door later this month, which is pretty cool, I think. I tried to send them my information to at least get added to the guest list, but I am not there (on the list) nor did I get any response. I guess Boolean Squared ain’t in the Big Leagues yet. Still, it will be fun to check it out.
I hope I can interview some of the webcomic folks about aspects of learning and education — such as, was their art supported in their classrooms and what might they tell teachers today? — and maybe even recruit some local folks for my upcoming summer camp I am running on graphic novels and comics (more about that later).
My slice of life is quick — I am updating my website home of my webcomic, Boolean Squared, this morning — adding in recent comics about the use of language when it comes to kids and teachers. This three-comic series begins with Boolean questioning why he and his friends get in trouble for not using proper English only to be taught the beauty of Jabberwocky and all of its invented words. Later, the students create their own words on a wiki (as I do with mine at our Crazy Dictionary project).
Visit Boolean Squared for more shenanigans. This week, the comic pokes fun at assemblies on Cyberbullying. (And here is the RSS feed from the newspaper where Boolean Squared runs once a week)
My thoughts this morning as snow came down and school was closed.
I used The Grimace Project (a free flash-based face generator based one the work of Scott McCloud and the concepts of facial expressions in comics) and then ComicLife, in case you are wondering.
Over at my webcomic, Boolean Squared, I have been exploring the antics of a play written by Mr. Teach and performed by his students. The play is a twist on Alice in Wonderland, with a technological bent to it (Boolean is a virus, for example). This particular comic strip story was one of the first Boolean Squared I had done (back when I was using Strip Generator) and it was inspired by a play/musical that I wrote during my Summer Institute with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. The play — called The Note Who Got Lost in the Masterpiece — is not about technology but about music, and I always envisioned doing it with my sixth graders. So far, I have chickened out, in part because of the time needed. But a few years ago, the play won a national competition and was performed by a youth theater group in Amherst and it was an amazing experience to watch the story unfold on the stage.
The comic strip allowed me to make fun of the process of putting on a play with young kids, particularly when the teacher is the writer and an actor is Boolean (he envisions being cloned, with multiple Booleans running rampant around the stage).
