New Cartoonist for the "Flashlight"

There's a new cartoonist for the college newspaper at Mansfield University, my daughter Anna! About 22 years ago, I drew a comic for them as well. I think her first comics she's done for them are awesome! Here's a couple from her blog.

The Castaways -- "Art Appreciation"

I create something for every issue of Fun for Kidz Magazine called The Castaways. Sometimes it's a comic strip and sometimes it's an illustrated story about a family of hares that have been shipwrecked on a deserted island. The characters vaguely resemble my family members, and this particular comic is based on something that happened to Anna, Nathan and I.

New York City

Just got back from having a very enjoyable four days in New York City. I was invited to submit a proposal to present at the National Conference of Teachers of English on the topic of using comics to teach literary devices. My proposal was accepted and I traveled with my fellow members of the Endless Mountains Writing Project to New York City.

It never would have occurred to me to attend a conference for English teachers, but there were dozens of sessions that dealt with the integration of the visual arts into language instruction, etc. And, there was almost always at least one session going on that dealt with using comics to teach!

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, veteran writer and artist of the comics industry. They are also the editor and writer of the fantastic new graphic adaptation of the 9-11 Report. They basically took something that was unreadable to most people and made it understandable through graphics in the comics format. This book is being used in high schools and colleges now. At their session they explained the process of making the book and answered questions about it.









I picked up a free copy of the book and asked them to sign it for my son. They wrote "To Dan the Man". Ernie is most famous for the 25 years he spent drawing Casper the Friendly Ghost comics so I asked him to draw Casper in my sketchbook. Sid remarked, "You still got it!"


I read their book and highly recommend it. I'll post one page of it below to give you an idea of the quality. It's not a dramatization. They are trying to remain objective and present the facts for us to draw our own conclusions.

Challenge #12: Make a Photo Comic

This was our challenge this week at 52 Comics Challenges:

Homework for Artists & Writers:
Take photos of your friends to use as the drawings in your comic. Create a 1 - 2 page coming using only photos. Reuse photos if necessary, but try to use at least 6-10 photos. Once you have your photos, create your comic like normal, using word balloons, captions and sound effects.

Well, I had to make a flier by Monday to take with me to the National Conference of Teachers of English. I'm not following the guidelines to the challenge exactly, but I did use a couple photos in comic format. I'm afraid it's the best I can do at this point.

I'll be presenting at the conference on the topic of Using Comics to Teach Literary Devices. The flier is to have available in case anyone would want me to come speak at their school on the topic.

The flier I created is here.

Wham! ....smurchle....

Just one panel from an unpublished story I've submitted to an anthology. Can't show you the whole story for free, or who would buy the anthology? Actually, I don't know yet if my story made it in. As soon as I know myself, I'll tell ya!

Dino Daze

Below is a poster I designed to advertise an upcoming event at the school where I teach.

Spaced Out in Color

Dan colored this panel from the comic strip I did called "Spaced Out". You can see the rest of the strip in black and white here.