This will be the first time while instructing these last 4 years that our workshop at Venice Arts has ever been given a grant by the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power to create a water and energy conservation comic book... This will also be my 9th anthology-based comic with Venice Arts, a non-profits arts organization that gives low-income families a free multimedia arts experience in film, photography and comics.
We as a class, write, draw, ink, letter, color and lastly, edit (if there's time ; ) our own stories together within either a summer course (4 weeks/5days/wk) or the academic years (23 weeks-1day/wk).
The experience is awesome. Filled with discovery for everyone. We break down the medium as much as we can with the wonderful world of comics instructive literature, such as Scott McCloud's 'Understanding Comics', our growing and large comics collection, and my very own research and exploratory development I've made over the years making my own comics.
Most of all, I love to empower the students to keep going. Keep expressing themselves in this amazing free-form storytelling medium ^_^
Below: Our last 8 comic book covers. More at: www.venicearts.org
Thanks,
Michael J.
