We have bold new experiment ready for you to enjoy this week – the very first ComicFuel Workshop podcast! Bizhan Khodabendeh’s “Panel Layout: The Golden Ratio” from 2014 is our most popular article ever posted on our website. So, for season 1 of Gutter Talk we’ve decided to revisit the article in the form of a FREE WORKSHOP.
That’s right! We said FREE WORKSHOP!!!
Have you ever wanted to ask your favorite comic creator a question? Maybe listened to a podcast and thought, I could ask a better question than that? Well, here’s your chance.
We at MakingComics.com are working on designing a new Gutter Talk project (which may potentially be unveiled as a panel at San Diego Comic-Con International 2018 – yes, THAT Comic-Con) and both the questions and the guests will be determined by you. We’ve been so blown away by the overwhelming positive response by learners in our “How To Make A Comic Book” Coursera course that we’ve decided we want you to be the center of what we are doing next.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:14:06 — 122.8MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
“…it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
Rocky Balboa’s inspirational speech to his son in the 2006 installment into the Rocky franchise is definitely the inspiration for this show. There’re a lot of projects I work on right. Art, design, and educational experiences I am currently slaving away over. I spend a lot of time, and incur a good deal of mental anguish, trying to figure out what the “right” thing to do is as a day job. When Rocky talks about taking hits, in my context that is all about my own personal demons regarding my design process. My own shadow/devil on my shoulder telling me I’m wasting my time.
Last month, I’ll be honest, I almost considered #ComicFuel a waste of my time. Three episodes in and I was ready to give up.
I almost didn’t finish episode 3. Even during the process of doing it, I didn’t want to finish it. I did finish, barely, and then I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do another episode the same way again (if I did another episode). So I called Adam and asked him to record a quick episode where we powered through a ton of questions. It turned into a longer episode.
As I sat down with Adam Greenfield this week to record the fourth episode of #ComicFuel I was reminded why I do this. Sure, this episode is WAY too long ( cough-2hoursand14minutes-cough ), but who cares? I got to sit down with my friend and answer some student questions and talk about how to practice art. In my ideal retirement scenario I would spend every day doing this.
I was reminded that MakingComics.com is the purely “good” thing that I have in my life. For me this is the one sacred space in this whole universe where everything we do is just good. We aren’t always active, or on time with our products, and they aren’t always produced with the kind of quality I’d like – but at their core they are good. We’ve made decision after decision to not turn this into a project that will go anywhere (i.e we are staying here for good). It isn’t a startup business – it is a public service. That is what makes it “good”. It hasn’t been tainted by the threats of being economically unviable – because it isn’t.
I thought I was done after my 2 hour session with Adam. Then…
I was staring angrily at my computer screen. My final in my advanced composition class was due, and I was hours later in the process than I thought I would be at the time. My phone rang. On the other end was the excited voice of my younger sister who had just graduated from high school and was making her way slowly through her freshman year. I was starting my second year as a graphic design major and was struggling to take care of myself.
“Patrick! You’ll never guess what I discovered today!” I was annoyed at the sound of her voice. Mostly I was agitated at being behind on my assignment and was only thinking about how quickly I could get off of the phone with her.
“Yeah, what exactly did you discover?” I grumbled into my bulky Nokia cell phone (it was 2004).
“I’m an artist! I just took an elective art class and I absolutely loved it! I’m an artist like you!” I choked at the sound of this. How could she think that she was an artist after taking just one class? I had been trying to become an artist since I was ten and here was my 19 year old sister claiming that she was an artist after only one day.
“Well, that’s great sis. You know though, you aren’t a real artist.”
“W-what…?”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:54 — 79.5MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:47 — ) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
Once again, the Making Comics crew invades Wondercon and this year’s raid was pretty epic. Ok, maybe epic is overstating things and perhaps overused but it sure as heck felt that way. Why did it feel that way? Because this year we not only had our standard Gutter Talk panel but we partnered up with high school students from the Graphic Novel Project at High Tech High in Chula Vista, CA, too. To put the proverbial cherry on top, we even had a table in a prime location on the floor.
If you’re not familiar with the Graphic Novel Project, it’s an after school student volunteer program that is designed to teach students the ins and outs of making a comic, from conceptualization to production to even the business side of marketing and selling the product. What made it really special was that the students got to participate in this year’s Gutter Talk panel. Imagine being a 15 year old student sitting up on stage at one of the more major comic conventions in the country and talking about yourself and the work you put into the project. Those opportunities don’t come along all that often and as you’ll hear in this episode, the students understand this.
In this Gutter Talk episode, Adam narrates the way through the various topics. On the panel along with the students is the Making Comics CEO and head elf, Patrick Yurick, his wife and our education guru, Kay Flewelling, and the student mentor and Making Comics editor-in-chief Kevin Cullen. We cover a wide range of topics from an artist’s diet to the transformation from a single comic into a collection of comics to how and why the group shrank from thirteen students to five. And no, it wasn’t because they ate the weak ones.
Reposted from Medium.com
In November 2015 Coursera granted the High Tech High Graduate School of Education & Making Comics Worldwide $10,000 to create a project oriented massive open online course based on a proposal I submitted in October. This may sound like a lot of money, but it isn’t. Last year I created a course that was half of the size and had roughly five times the budget called the “Learning Mindsets & Skills MOOC”. To be fair, the LMS MOOC was one that had a more content specialist involvement and multimedia generated for it (videos, podcasts, etc.). For the comic MOOC I was able to draw on a multitude of great readings & podcasts from within MakingComics.com and from outside of it — as well as my own exptertise as a comic book educator.
Before there was MakingComics.com, Making Comics Worldwide, or even before there was Underdogs – there was the after-school program “Graphic Novel Project” (GNP). In the winter of 2009 Patrick Yurick, founder of Making Comics Worldwide, started an after-school comic book project with 15 students at the High Tech High Chula Vista campus.
There’s nothing we at Making Comics Worldwide like more than when an artist shares their creative process. In fact, that’s really what’s at the heart of these podcasts. So when an artist is willing to give others a backstage pass into their creative process and not just talk about the process but provide pictures of it, too, we get excited because of how much of a visual educational tool that is for others. Plus, it’s just really cool of the artist to be that open. So when Elaine Tipping, artist and co-creator of Dubious Company and others, sent over the images of her process, we weren’t sure if we could wait long enough to share the podcast and pictures. Join Adam and Marisa as they sit down with Elaine to discuss everything from kotatsu to her current Kickstarter project.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:16:16 — 69.8MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
We make no claim to know everything. But what we do know is there is change happening in the education system, both good and bad, and the options are limited but simple: You can either fight it or you can figure out a way to positively affect that change. Adam and Patrick sit down to discuss not just some of the changes that are currently happening and why, but also to discuss how and why we here at Making Comics Worldwide plan on being part of that change.
To some our goals may seem lofty. To us, it’s an opportunity to assist in making a difference and learning in an artistic and creative manner. Click play or download this week’s Gutter Talk episode to understand why we feel that is so important and worth the effort.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:30:50 — 83.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
Currently, there’s a revolution happening in the education realm. We here at Making Comics Worldwide (soon to be our new name!) are helping to fuel the fire of this revolution with our ever expanding repertoire of articles, tutorials, and even podcasts, just to name a few. We feel a change is needed and we don’t need no stinkin’ phone booth; we already have our costume on. That said, we thought the “origin story” of the education system was needed in order to lay down the foundation of our budding empire, as discussed here with Adam and Making Comics Worldwide CEO Patrick Yurick.
Before you click play or download this episode, please know the podcast you are about to listen to is more of an outline of the history of education than it is a lecture on the subject. There are key points in time we felt needed to be mentioned in order to get to where we find ourselves today, yet another turning point in the history of education. And we plan on being right there on the front lines fighting the good fight. Worldwide.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:51 — 73.1MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
(more…)
