Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Born From the CCP's Ashes

As the comic project in New Haven ends, one of its students - Zenon, aka "Z" - has started her own webcomic:

Moosey Moose and Gosh!

Keep in mind she's 10, so don't be overly critical of the art, which is entirely mouse drawn (her hand drawn art is much better).

The characters of Moosey Moose and Gosh were created by Z over the course of the CCP, so this is the first webcomic directly spawned by the Create a Comic Project. It's proof that the CCP really is accomplishing its goals of promoting creative writing and webcomics. Groovy!

5/9 and 5/10 Pictures

The Session Gallery and the Workshop Gallery have finally been updated with pictures of the 5/9 and 5/10 gatherings, respectively.

Comic Genesis is still having issues with updating regularly, so it took a while for the gallery pages to update.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

5/23/07 Pictures

The CCP's Misc. Gallery has several new photos taken on 5/23. These photos include pictures of the submission box and of the library's second floor. I also uploaded a stitched together picture giving a 90-degree view of the entryway of the Children's Room.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

CCP Walkthrough Video

CCP Walkthrough

I shot this 5/23/07. The children's room was empty due to a party going on in the lower floors, so I took advantage of the situation and shot this video. It gives a good picture of the facility in the library I use for the CCP.

Friday, May 25, 2007

5/24/07 Workshop

The May 24 workshop went as planned. There were soccer team tryouts for the boys, so attendance was lower than usual - only about 10 kids total. I don't know how many comics they produced yet.

One unfortunate incident occurred with the second group. A 12 year old girl - Lakisha - decided it would be fun to start disrupting the activities by making noises. She refused to listen to me or the other supervisor. Then she began to harass the other students by insulting their clothes and started referring to me as "cracker," the first time that particular epithet has been thrown at me, though not my first encounter with racism (most the slurs directed at me in the past have tended to focus on my non-Caucasian half rather than my Celtic origins).

Several students left because of Lakisha's verbal abuse and others moved into the hallway to do their work without distractions. Because of her actions, Lakisha was banned from the CCP and the DYCLC.

Lakisha is only the second child ever to be barred from participating in the CCP. The first such barring was in the library when a young male child started kicking another student and then tried to stab the other with his pencil. He was promptly expelled from the CCP and from the library in general.

Despite the incident, I'm trying to keep a positive outlook. Several of the students still managed to make some good comics and I managed to pass out several comic tournament registration forms. Hopefully I can convince some of the DYCLC kids to attend the CMT.

5/23/07 Session

The 5/23 session - the second to last one - was canceled at the last minute. The library's donors decided to have a party and scheduled it for 5 PM on Wednesday. The result was the library closed down for all public traffic. I had one girl who gave me some comics she worked on at home; that was the extent of what I collected.

I took the opportunity of being all alone in the Children's Room to take some pictures of the work area. I'll post those under the "Misc. Gallery" when I have a chance. I also made a 3 minute video walk through of the Children's Room, showing a few places that are relevant to the CCP. I'll post that to YouTube soon.

I just hope next week's session isn't interrupted. It's the last one before I move.

Technical Difficulties

Comicgenesis is having problems with the updater, which is why new comics haven't been posted. I'm back on my main computer, so I will post new images when CG is operational again.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Delay in Photos

I'm currently away from my main computer, so photos of last week's session and workshop will be delayed. Also, since I'm out of state, there won't be any CCP activities this week. Next week will proceed as normal.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

5/10/07 Workshop

The 5/10 workshop went well. I covered three specific comic mechanism: captions, monologues, and single panel comics.

As with the first workshop, I had about 20 students with most of them showing up for the second meeting. 120 comics were produced, only slightly less than the first group. I think this is going very well. I wish I'd started the CCP at DYCLC sooner!

Next workshop is 5/24, where I'll introduce them to mini-arcs.

5/9/07 Session

The 5/9 session went as planned. Fortunately, the children's room was able to reopen in time for me to host the comic project, though there was still a lot of water damage from the pipe burst last week.

Because of the cancellation, attendance was low: only 4 children. However, they managed to produce 63 comics, a very good total.

The lesson this week focused on an Unshelved story arc. Specifically, I converted their Book Expo of America comic book into templates and handed those out. The kids enjoyed it, though only one actually managed to finish all the pages.

Friday, May 11, 2007

5/9 and 5/10/07 CCP Videos

I'll be posting my report on how the 5/9 session and 5/10 workshop went later. In the meantime, enjoy these four videos that I just posted:

Video 1 - Short clip of the kids at the 5/9 session fooling around.

Video 2 - One of the students explaining the story of her original character, Moosey Moose.

Video 3 - Alternate take of video 2.

Video 4 - Taken during the 5/10 workshop's first meeting.

I also took lots of photos that will be put online later.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

5/3/07 Pictures and Site Updates

I've redone the site's Gallery page. Thumbnails for different types of images are now on different pages to reduce loading times. Links to the videos are now included. I also put up the pictures from the 5/3/07 workshop.

I also made some modifications to the About and FAQ pages: the About page now includes Robert Anke's first hand account of how he was inspired by the CCP to try it in his own class; and the FAQ now mentions the workshops. When the CCP in New Haven ends, I'll need to convert the FAQ to past tense.

Friday, May 4, 2007

5/3/07 Videos

I've posted the two videos from the 5/3/07 workshop to YouTube. Both videos are from the second meeting at 6-7 PM. This week it was held in the computer room due to a scheduling conflict. Normally it will be in the meeting room.

Video 1 - A pan of the room with all the students and some parents.

Video 2 - A close up video of one of the High Meadow students working with an elementary kid.

A New Comic Joins the CCP

Gene Ambaum has granted permission for me to use Unshelved, the groovy librarian webcomic, in the CCP. Using a comic about working in a library in a project based in a library? What an amazing idea!

4/18/07 Videos

I've uploaded several videos from the 4/18/07 session to YouTube:

Video 1 - Short clip from the very beginning of the session, as the kids did the warm up comic.

Video 2 - Another short clip where I went around the room with the camera. Dynamic!

Video 3 - A clip shot from a higher angle.

Video 4 - First part of my introduction to the Dr. McNinja comic.

Video 5 - Second (and longer) part, where I explain how to use the comic outline page and talk more about Dr. McNinja.

Enjoy!

5/3/07 Workshop

The first workshop at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center has come and gone and it went very well! Over 20 students from the Dixwell community and High Meadow School participated. 112 templates were produced, a very strong showing for their first session!

Since this was the first session, I kept the content simple. We went over basic ground rules for the workshops, rules for dialogue bubbles, and how to read the layouts.

I took many pictures and a couple videos. I'll post them soon.

5/2/07 Session

Unfortunately, the 5/2 session was canceled. A pipe on the library's third floor burst and flooded the second floor where the children's room is, forcing them to close the floor. There were a couple kids on the first floor, though, so I had a short impromptu comic making session with them. 7 comics in all, which is still better than then worst session back in January.

My original plan was to have to the lesson by based on "To Kill a Mockingbird." 5/2 was the day of the Big Read, a coordinated reading marathon at all the New Haven libraries. "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the book chosen for this year. I did, however, get to participate in the read off.