Last week I wrote quite a rant about comics, and about how I don’t find them to be a bad thing. I tried to also stress the point that this hasn’t made me blind to the state of the world, doesn’t make me a child. Well, somewhere in the process of writing the rant, I got it all pretty much out of my system.
Which was a good thing, because the next day, I had the opportunity to see graphic novelist Kazu Kibuishi presenting on “Making Comics and Graphic Novels.” And I pretty much came at this with my mind clear, which led to five and a half pages of notes (taken on my iPhone no less). There’s no way I can include all of the insights from Kazu, so at the very least, I need to pretty much leave myself out from here.
Kazu is known for a number of his different works, including as the editor on Explorer and Flight, the cover artist on the 15th-anniversary covers to Harry Potter, as the author of the webcomic Copper and the author of Amulet. His work is exploding in schools right now, but I have been far enough removed from those that I had not heard of his work until I knew he was coming. So Holly and I have been reading Amulet, as Holly mentioned, and it’s pretty amazing. It’s sad to think that it’s not done yet (volume 6 came out recently, out of a total of 9), and we’ll have to join all the other fans now in waiting for new issues! But it will be worth it. So allow me to explore the world of comics and graphic novels from the perspective of Kazu Kibuishi!
Comparative Geeks 