Wednesday Comics are here!

Today was the day the first Wednesday Comics came out. I sat down to read them and Nathan immediately crawled into my lap to be read to. One of my favorite childhood memories is Mom or Dad reading the Sunday Funnies, and this new weekly comic from DC provides the same kind of weekly serial reading experience. The difference is that they are all adventure stories about Superman, Batman and many other superheroes, including some of the lesser known characters like Kamandi, Metamorpho, and the Metal Men.

It looks like they have some of the very best writers and artists working on this. Some of the art looks very retro -- which makes me happy because I say, "There's no school like the old school."
Wednesday Comics can be found at your nearest comic shop.

ABC Challenge #20: Black Dots

The Art by Committee challenge is a sketch game I play each month. It's sponsored by the Gurney Journey, and I just figured out that this is my 20th challenge. My responses to these challenges have generated 40 pages of comics.

As an experiment, what I've been doing, is trying to make as many of the prompts as I can go into the same story. By jumping around a lot, I can make a lot of them fit. As it turns out, the two pages I made for this month's challenge flows nicely into the very first one I did! Because it makes a nice punchline, I'm reprinting it at the bottom of this post.

Eventually, they'll all appear in an issue of Eclectic Comics.

Anyway, this month's challenge was to interpret this random, out of context line from a science fiction novel:

“But when the dots did not vanish even after he scrubbed his fists across his eyes three times, he shouted hoarsely…”

Here we go!

100 Tips for Teaching with Comics

Someone compiled a massive list for different ways to use comics to teach all kind of things. Some of them I had already been familiar with, but many are new to me. This list is a gold mine!

James Gurney pointed out to me that #11 was a description of his visit to my art room!

If you're interested, check out the list of 100 Tips for Teaching with Comics.

Father's Day Roast Comics - Part 2

It's a little late, but here is Dan's contribution to the Father's Day Comics Roast at the Wales' house. Not only is it funny, but it's actually a pretty realistic portrayal of what it's like when I need his help with computers! He will be a good IT person, because he can patiently explain things to me!

Wednesday Comics

This is something I'm looking forward to seeing. In July, DC Comics is going to start putting out a weekly comic in 14 x 20 broadsheet format. "Wednesday Comics" will look similar to what we're familiar with in our Sunday newspaper comics. Each week, you'll get 16 weekly strips -- serialized installments to stories about Superman, Wonder Woman, Sgt. Rock, Kamandi, and many others. To give you and idea of the size, the person above is holding a sample copy. Below are some of the previews of what we'll see, minus the speech ballons.

Father's Day Roast Comics

In lieu of aftershave and ties, I asked my kids to make me a comic strip for Father's Day instead. I know they're broke, and I've got enough Brut by Faberge. Well, before I share their comics, let me show you this piece of art (above) first. I sat down with the first graders one day while they were making Paper People (they aren't called Paper Dolls anymore). I made a set that looked like my family. I brought it home and put it where all great art goes -- on the fridge.

The trick to making Paper People is to fit all the details for each person within the same general shape. The uniformity and repetition evokes a child-like aesthetic. My daughter Anna (third from left) had just gotten a haircut that was alarmingly short. I was soon to pay dearly for my frank, but accurate portrayal, as you will see later.
Great comic, huh?

My daughter attends BBC, or Baptist Bible College. It's a good school, but they're pretty strict about what they allow on the television in the lounge. I have to keep her informed on what she misses because of this media blackout.

Next comes David's. First, he draws Andar as he might behave if he were under the control of the Puppet Master.
Next, it appears that someone has turned me into a snowman. I really like my Father's Day gifts!

A Drifting Life

This book was recommended to me by Marek Bennett. It is a huge (over 800 pages) autobiography told in comic strip form by one of the manga masters of Japan, Yoshihiro Tatsumi. I thought it was fascinating to learn about the history of manga from its humble beginnings in post-war Japan and the devotion and creativity of the young men who showed amazing devotion and innovation to their craft.
Manga, or Japanese comics is an amazing story in itself. Tatsumi explained in an interview,

Manga owes itself to the phenomenon of rental shops. This was a time when the Japanese had no disposable income but for five cents, kids could check out 10 comics and could be influenced by 10 totally different styles. It’s because of this economy of comics that everybody was able to read all these different things and that’s why I think that manga is what it is today, because everyone had a chance to read a lot of different manga.

Manga was born in a time of economic hardship in Japan. And here we are in the present with one magazine after another tanking. Shojo Beat, then Nick Mag. I don't think it spells doom for comics. Look at the comics that kids are eating up. They can get a lot of story for $10 with manga or pay $4 for hardly any story from DC or Marvel. It was neat to read in A Drifting Life how manga at that time really invited reader participation and showcased the efforts of the kid creators. We could learn something from their approach. Make it cheap, and invite kids to participate. I don't think the slickness and glossiness of American comics really matters to kids.

I highly recommend this book to adult readers interested in the comics making process or this time period. Due to some adult situations in the book, however, parental guidance is suggested.