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"Your presentation this morning was a revelation." Ann McCarthy, gifted teacher in Virginia |
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Archive for the ‘Comix Creation’ Category
History comix for the iPad
Written on Thursday, February 9th, 2012 [permanent link]
When Apple announced last month that it will push to make digital textbooks more available, many bloggers noted just how few titles are available. Well, now there are eight more titles.
Converting some of the most popular Chester Comix titles from printed book to e-book was one of my big projects in 2011. It feels fantastic to look into Apple’s iTunes store today and now see eight of my books ready for download: American Symbols, Founding Fathers, Moving and Grooving, The Jamestown Journey, Go West Young Crab!, World War 2 Tales, GOVERNMENT, and Revolutionary Rumblings.
If you do a search for “Chester Comix” in the iTunes store, you’ll find these books AND the three apps I published in 2010. The books are clearly for the iPad (much too big to be viewed on the iPhone) and the apps were drawings that I cut specifically to be easily readable on the iPhone and iTouch. Those apps can be viewed on an iPad, but they don’t fill the iPad screen. The commercial success of the iPad meant I could present my Chester adventures in their original vertical design. With even MORE vertical-ness! Part of the process over the past few months was making the page layouts that I drew 10 years ago stretch out to fit the iPad screen’s dimensions. For most readers on most pages, the differences between the print version and iPad version aren’t noticeable. But I as the author got more and more excited to see how the added space gave the drawings more room to breathe. I think these iPad versions are more readable for young people, and the history lessons within them flow more easily. The format has helped the storytelling! (By the end of the five-year run of Chester in the Daily Press newspaper in Newport News, VA, I was clearly trying to tell too much story and cramming too many words and detailed images into the space I was given on the page. You could see that I knew the project was coming to an end, and I was trying to say as much as I could in the pages I had left. Some of the Chester pages make me claustrophobic when I view them now 😉
Please help me share this great news about Chester for the iPad. The goal is to get all 27 titles into the iTunes store this year!
Tags: comic book, graphic novel, history, iPad, reluctant reader
Posted in Author's Purpose, Comix Creation, literacy | No Comments »
Talk20
Written on Friday, March 25th, 2011 [permanent link]
Talk20 is a great idea run by a great group of artists in Richmond, VA. It borrows from a national movement to mix many genres in a casual setting in a rapid-fire way — think fresh vegetables in a Cuisinart in your kitchen packed with friends. With the top of the Cuisinart off. Each artist gets 20 slides (great!) and only 20 seconds to talk about each slide (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!)
I was honored to be invited to this week’s Talk20 at The Corrugated Box Building. But I was nervous about making any sense with only 20 seconds per.
Yes, yes, I’ve spoken in public plenty. It’s a big part of my business! But speaking to elementary school students for 45 minutes seems much easier — there’s time to recover a flub or to cruise through some well-practiced patter or to follow an idea that pops up because of a student question or suggestion. A 45-minute talk is a like a wandering walk with my dog. This was going to be a rollercoaster ride.
They tell me the crowd laughed. I couldn’t tell because the wind was whipping by as I crested the coaster hills. Five minutes? It felt like 60 seconds max.
Here’s what I meant to say (and maybe I did make these points; who knows??! We’ll have to see what the video shows once we post it): It’s taken me 33 years to build this wonderful life I have and to get a mastery of the white space I use. People assume it’s easy for me now after all that practice, but I’ve picked an artform with real tension built into it. The historian part of me wants to add MORE WORDS all the time, but my artist part has to resist and remind the historian that it is always better to SHOW THAN TO TELL. I’m glad I’ve had the chance to explore that fight between word and picture. I’m glad I can make money by communicating ideas through art. Rarely was there a lightning bolt moment that showed me the way. I’ve gotten here by a long, patient exploration of doors — some were wide open, some only cracked a bit, some were closed completely until I turned the handle. It’s not easy to make a career of being an artist, but it can be done. I’ll keep exploring that blank space again tomorrow. 😉
Hmmm, I think that was another 5 minutes right there . . .
The good news is that when I wasn’t speaking I learned a lot from the other artists — muralist Ed Trask reminded me of bold artists that used to hang out at my house because they were my Dad’s students, and culinary artist Ellie Basch reminded me of my sister! And many of the 102 people in attendance seemed glad to get the free comix I handed out and signed for them after the event. And I can’t wait to be in the audience for the next one!!!
Posted in Author's Purpose, Comix Creation | No Comments »
George and Bentley
Written on Friday, February 25th, 2011 [permanent link]
President’s Day was the release party for my new George Washington biography! Mount Vernon was fee free that day and had more than 15,000 visitors. My booksigning table was positioned right where the crowds came up from their new underground museum — so this was the first signing I’ve ever had where I was in real danger of being trampled!!!! It was a steady view of torsos for 4 hours, and I signed a LOT of comix . . .
This is the cover of the book — I’m glad Mount Vernon’s staff chose this idea. It was FUN to draw. I think this and the “Revolutionary City” comic I did for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation are the best history comix I’ve made so far (the GW book is my 29th title!). Can you tell which of the soldiers going in to battle with George is supposed to look like me?? That’s one of the fun things about making your own story — you get to sneak in guest appearances. 😉
For fun, my friend Wendy suggested I also take a picture of all the research I use to make a comic. So here is a look at MOST of the material that informed my writing and drawing of “George Washington Leads the Way” — I did use Internet resources as well, and the historians at Mount Vernon added some important points as they reviewed the drafts. But this pile of paper gives you a good sense of the second step of the author’s process: RESEARCH!
Tags: Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, comic book, George Washington, graphic novel, history education, Mount Vernon
Posted in Author's Purpose, Comix Creation | 1 Comment »
