2007 In Review, Part 1

The end of 2007 is here, so it's time to look back at the progress the CCP has made. Some of the major accomplishments in the last year:

1. Motivating one of my students to start her own webcomic.

2. Hosting the first Comic Making Tournament, which was sponsored by Yale University, New Haven Reads, and several local businesses.

3. Winning a grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.

4. Reaching out to impoverished youths at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center.

5. Starting the exploration of other educational uses of the project through the CCP Modules, thus laying the groundwork for future research ventures.

6. Inspiring Robert Anke to use the CCP in his classroom.

7. Receiving coverage from several local papers: the Yale Daily News, New Haven Advocate, and the New Haven Register.

8. Celebrating the 1 year anniversary with guest comics posted by various comic creators across the Internet.

9. A workshop at the Toonseum, heralding a return to form by the CCP in its new home town.

10. Keeping the comic site and blog regularly updated!

Overall, a good year. However, I am never one to rest on my laurels. I fully intend to make 2008 even better!

Site Updates

The FAQ page has been updated with current info, removing some of the out of date speculation.

The Links page has had a slight reorg to separate links related to places and organizations tied to the CCP from those that are simply relevant. Links to the Toonseum and Human Services Center have been added.

12/29 Workshop Part 2

This workshop used over 50 different templates from 32 different comics, a record for most template diversity in a single workshop. All of the templates were brand new, created for the next stage of the CCP's development. One of the benefits of using so many comics was that it gave me a chance to see which of those templates had the most potential.

As stated in Part 1, I was only able to collect a fraction of the comics created by the students, as most of them understandably wanted to take their comics home. Templates were divided into 4 groups of varying sizes for each stage of the activity, ordered by difficulty. 83 pieces were collected from templates based on 21 comics:

Applegeeks
Coffee Achievers
Cosmobear
Daisy is Dead
Goats
Jellaby
Little Dee
Lil' Formers
Narbonic
No Pink Ponies
Okashina Okashi
Penny and Aggie
Planet Karen
Planet Saturday
Questionable Content
Shortpacked
Sluggy Freelance
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Seasons of Constancy
Tracy and Tristan
xkcd

Comics used for the first time are in italics. This leaves 11 comics with templates that can't currently be assessed; I'll use them again in later workshops.

And Shine Heaven Now
Faking Life
Girl Genius
Lil' Mell
Piled Higher and Deeper
Phoenix
Something Like Life
Tea Club
Templar, AZ
Tsunami Channel
Venus Envy

I tried to include all of the "first generation" comics (OO, QC, ASHN, etc.) because I knew their content worked well. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to produce Chugworth, Krakow, Penny Arcade, Rob and Elliot, or SGVY templates for use this time. They'll be a priority for the upcoming HSC workshop.

Gallery Update

A small addition to the Misc. Gallery: a couple pictures of the new Can of Inspiration (which I used in the 12/29 workshop) and some additional fliers. One of the fliers was designed to be printed out and then folded into a triangle to stand on tables. It didn't work that well, unfortunately.

One thing I need to do for the second Comic Making Tournament is design a new flier that uses some of the recent comics who've joined.

12/29 Workshop Part 1

The 12/29 Workshop - the first in Pittsburgh - is over! Things went very well: 10 children in all of various ages plus their parents. With only an hour, I didn't have time to go over a lot of material, but I did manage to get through a free-form pacing exercise, a quick guide on how to read a comic, and the relationship of words and images. The children and their parents were highly entertained for the entire hour, with the CCP earning accolades from the adults present.

The Toonseum was a great sponsor. The curator, Joe Wos, likes the CCP and made a number of great suggestions I'll be incorporating into future workshops there. The pacing exercise, for example, was a suggestion he gave based on his own work teaching cartooning. He also recommended that the CCP be presented as a parent-child joint activity, which would allow me to reach even younger age groups than I have in the past.

I had a chance to meet Kelli Kane of Planet Saturday, the first CCP-affiliated webcomic artist I've met in person. It's nice seeing the people who've supported the comic project by lending their art!

I used ~50 different templates from various comics, though I was only able to collect a fraction of the total comics made (I'll have numbers later). There aren't any pictures or video, as the Toonseum requires release forms for those. I'll make efforts to get some images with later workshops.

As 2008 approaches, there are several plans for the CCP's future in Pittsburgh. Joe Wos proposed taking the CCP to a local community center, where they have a strong need for volunteers. In April, I'm working on holding a special health education event to coincide with National Public Health Week, in cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

In addition to all that, there's still an upcoming workshop with the Human Service Center in Turtle Creek (which has been delayed due to construction) and work to research and quantify the CCP's effect on children's learning. And, of course, there's the Second Comic Making Tournament at New Haven on March 8, a chance for me to take what I've learned here in Pittsburgh and bring it back to the CCP's point of genesis.

Site Updates

The Links page has been updated to include a link and banner for Planet Karen. I also moved Shortpacked, Ghastly, and Planet Saturday to the top since they've linked to the CCP. The copyright notice on the bottom has been updated.

The About page has a quote from David Willis as well as links to the Shortpacked guest comics and a new Fleen mention.

Planet Karen Joins the CCP

Planet Karen by Karen Ellis has joined the CCP. With over 500 daily comics, I should be able to make quite a few good templates from her work.

Guest Comics

Some more CCP guest comics have been posted:

1. Ghastly posted the anniversary comic on his blog.

2. David Willis has posted both parts of the anniversary comic sent to him, Part 1 and Part 2.

Welcome to any new readers brought here from these two places! I hope you stick around and browse the archives.

12/29 Workshop Preparation II

The 12/29 Workshop will be from 2 - 3 PM. I'll be going to the Toonseum sometime this coming week to prepare by printing and photocopying the new templates.

I haven't gone through any unexplored archives yet, but I have managed to add some more comic templates. New ones since the last update:

Cosmobear
Ghost Hunters
I Come From Mars
Marilith
Planet Saturday Comics

I also expanded Penny Arcade, Shortpacked, and Hate Song's template selection. There are still a few archives I want to at least skim.

12/29 Workshop Confirmed

The 12/29 CCP Workshop is official. I recently confirmed it with the head of programming at the Toonseum. The exact time hasn't been set yet, but it'll be a single 1-hour workshop. Due to the last minute nature, the expected turn out isn't large - estimates put it at about 10-15 people, normal for the CCP but small by Toonseum standards.

The purpose of this workshop will be to get used to the Toonseum setting, as well as testing new material. I'll be going to the museum some time next week to prep materials (printing, photocopying, etc.). Future plans include larger (maybe longer) workshops, inviting local schools to the Toonseum for field trips, and community outreach on behalf of the Toonseum.

12/10/07 Module

As a final test of the CCP Module, I had students take comics home and fill them out for extra credit to their homework grade. The results were interesting: I collected fewer comics total, but those I collected were complete and generally of higher quality than those from class. This means the module may be best used as a take home rather than in-class work.

60+ comics were collected. Because this was a take home, no pictures or videos exist. I used templates from:

And Shine Heaven Now
Chugworth Academy
Coffee Achievers
Daisy is Dead
Dicebox
Dr. McNinja
Fans!
Flipside
Girl Genius
Hate Song
Jellaby
Little Dee
Lovarian Adventures
Narbonic
No Rest For the Wicked
Okashina Okashi
Penny and Aggie
Saturnalia
Seasons of Constancy
Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
Sluggy Freelance
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Comics that haven't been used before in a module are in italics. All of the templates were brand new, as opposed to the last two modules that mixed in templates from New Haven.

12/29 Workshop Preparation

While the Human Services Center had to cancel both workshops, there is a new hope: Pittsburgh's Toonseum, part of the Children's Museum, has expressed interest in hosting a workshop on 12/29. This is by no means definitive; details still need to be worked out. However, I am preparing for it as thought it'll occur.

Since my last post concerning preparations for the 11/20 workshop, I've gone through the archives of several more comics:

Coffee Achievers
Ghost Hunters
Goats
I Come From Mars
Lil' Mell
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Templar, AZ
Venus Envy

I still need to go through Planet Saturday Comics, Demonology 101, and Punks and Nerds, among others.

I've also been hard at work creating new templates. Here's a complete list of every comic that currently has templates (new ones since last time are in italics):

And Shine Heaven Now
Applegeeks
Awkward Zombie
Chugworth Academy
Coffee Achievers
Copper
Daisy is Dead
Dicebox
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Faking Life
Fans!
Flight (scanned in art from Kazu Kibuishi and Kean Soo)
Flipside
Girl Genius
Goats
Hate Song
Jellaby
Krakow
Lil' Formers
Lil' Mell
Little Dee
Lovarian Adventures
Mac Hall/Three Panel Soul
Narbonic
No Pink Ponies
No Rest for the Wicked
Okashina Okashi
Penny & Aggie
Penny Arcade
Phoenix
Piled Higher and Deeper
Questionable Content
Return of Stickman
Rob and Elliot
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Saturnalia
Seasons of Constancy
Shortpacked/It's Walky
Sluggy Freelance
Something Like Life
Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
Tea Club
Templar, AZ
Tracy and Tristan
Tsunami Channel
Venus Envy
xkcd

In addition to the new comics, I've also increased the number of templates for most of the pre-existing ones, such as Rob and Elliot, Narbonic, and Applegeeks. I still need to add templates for Ghost Hunters, I Come From Mars, and add more Dr. McNinja. As it stands, all the comics used in the CCP 2.0, except for a few, are set to be used again in CCP 2.5.

According to Excel, there are over 1050 different templates so far. It's doubtful all of the above will be used in the 12/29 workshop. Depending on how long I have, I may not be able to cover long-form stories, which will exclude several of them from use. Still, it's better to have more than I need just in case I underestimate.

Site Updates

The Links page now has links to the two newest comics: Planet Saturday Comics and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Both comics are also now in the copyright info. Susan Douglas sent me a banner for Tracy and Tristan, which has been added.

The About page has a new quote from Kelli and Monty Kane.

11/7 and 12/3 Videos Removed

Due to some objections by the class participants, videos from the two Module sessions have been removed from YouTube.

New Comic Joins the Project

Pittsburgh residents Monty and Kelli Kane have agreed to allow the comic project to use Planet Saturday Comics! Kelli has also offered to help find new venues for the project to reach out to kids, including a local school district and the Children's Museum.

12/3 Videos

The two videos from the 12/3 Module have been posted:

Video 1
Video 2

Both of them have been added to the Video Gallery. Neither is very long; the camera's batteries were starting to run low so I had to keep them short. Images (20 of them) will follow soon.

12/20 Workshop Canceled

Unfortunately, the Human Services Center, in addition to changing offices (which canceled the 11/20 session) is going to begin construction of new classrooms and offices. As a result, the entire center will be closing later this week and won't reopen until sometime in January. This means the 12/20 workshop, which I had previously been assured would go without trouble, has to be canceled.

I'm currently looking for some other location to hold a comic workshop over Christmas break.

12/3/07 Module

The second Create a Comic Project module was held today with the same class as before. This should tell me whether comics can detect a change in knowledge. Many pictures and a couple videos were taken. They'll be posted soon.

25 templates were used and 73 comics were collected, somewhat less than last time. This is likely due to fewer people attending this class. Again, the module was met with great enthusiasm and humor by the students. Many excellent comics were produced. It's amazing how many jokes about this topic can be made.

Not every comic used in the first module was used again. As before, templates were divided between those used before in New Haven and brand new ones. Comics used in the module:

And Shine Heaven Now
Applegeeks
Dr. McNinja
Faking Life
Flipside
Girl Genius
Hate Song
Krakow
Mac Hall
No Pink Ponies
Penny and Aggie
Penny Arcade
Piled Higher and Deeper
Phoenix
Rob and Elliot
Shortpacked
Tsunami Channel
Venus Envy
xkcd

Italics indicate comics not used in the previous module.

As a bonus, the professor of the class was nice enough to allow me to use the comics as a "special extra credit" assignment. 27 templates - all brand new - were chosen for this take-home version of the module. We'll see how many students take advantage of it.

1-year Anniversary Round-Up

The Create a Comic Project's 1-year Anniversary has come and gone. It went rather well. Welcome to all the new viewers! I hope you enjoy your stay.

Here are links to the guest comics that were posted:

Strange Candy
And Shine Heaven Now
Dr. McNinja
Faking Life
Krakow
John Su (DevArt)

Fleen ran an article celebrating the milestone: "A Significant Anniversary."

I've updated the About page. It now has links to all the CCP guest comics that others have posted.