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3/7 12 Graphic Novels with Black Protagonists

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3/7 12 Graphic Novels with Black Protagonists

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This year's eclectic batch of African American-relevant graphic novels includes a generous assortment for youthful readers, from adventure tales to romantic comedies to black history-because as Joel Christian Gill likes to say, #28DaysAreNotEnough.

Black Sands: The Seven Kingdoms by Manuel Godoy. illus. by David Lenormand. Black Sands Entertainment. 2018. Gr 4 Up.

A group of youngsters, all children of warriors and warrior gods, come into their powers in this epic adventure series. Places, characters, and events all have basis in Egyptian history and mythology; interspersed text passages explain the sources and how Godoy has tweaked the originals. What does it take to be Pharaoh? The rod-strength, iron discipline, win-or-die? Or the staff-strategy, diplomacy, compassion? The vibrant, glowing art brings to mind Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The Breakaways: Bad at Soccer, Okay at Friends by Cathy G. Johnson. illus. by author. First Second. 2019. Gr 2-5.

Fifth-grader Faith is the youngest misfit among misfits, all of them pushed into the lowest ranked soccer team at school. They make a terrible team since no one wants to play, and they don't like each other much. But the shy Faith (who draws cartoons as a sideline) has good instincts for empathy, and catalyzes change for nearly everyone. The art is notable for its realistically unpretty depictions of the diverse kids, their life issues, and their turbulent emotions.

Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield's First Ride by Joel Christian Gill. illus. by author. Lion Forge. 2019. Gr K-3.

Stringfield was the first African American woman to cross the U.S. on a motorcycle, breaking numerous barriers during the 1930s and 1940s and having many adventures. Here, Gill's imagined younger Bessie proves to a group of boys that not only is she fast on her bicycle, she's faster than they are. Inventive dream sequences show Bessie pedaling through outer space and across bodies of water, underscoring the theme of life's limitless possibilities. Includes sidebars with anecdotes from the real Bessie's life.

The Girl Who Married a Skull: And Other African Stories by various. ed. by C. Spike Trotman, Kate Ashwin, Kel McDonald, and Taneka Stotts. Iron Circus. 2018. Gr 9 Up.

The rousing opener to these fifteen stories introduces a crafty skull who camouflages himself as a swoon-worthy hunk to seduce a young lovely into marriage-yet with equal cleverness, she triumphs. In remaining tales, we meet an underhanded spider god and other misguided, mostly nonhuman characters who get their comeuppance, also. Adapted by different artists, all tales deliver surprising twists and a satisfying moral punch. The varied black-and-white art keeps things visually interesting. Unfortunately, no source notes are supplied.

Luke Cage: Everyman by Anthony Del Col. illus. by Jahnoy Lindsay and Ian Herring. Marvel. 2018. Gr 7 Up.

Hyper-powered good-guy Luke Cage is living in Harlem with his family and coaching school basketball when local rich folks start dying of a strange malady. A mysterious "Everyman" is claiming credit, vowing vengeance against one-percenter greed for destroying the neighborhood. But why has Russian supervillain Omega Red become Everyman's sidekick? Cage must unravel who's doing what, save his buddy Iron Fist as well as Harlem itself, and overcome mysterious symptoms of his own.

Monster Mayhem by Christopher Eliopoulos. illus. by author. Dial. 2018. Gr 3-7.

Little Zoe-the-genius builds a small robot for company because she feels awkward with kids her own age. But she finds herself in bigger trouble than loneliness when a kaiju-type monster that she's inadvertently summoned attracts fellow monsters that start eating the city. And now she must actually ask for help from the schoolmates she's been avoiding-but that's not so hard as she imagined. Lively color art similar to the Amelia Rules series.

New Kid by Jerry Craft. illus. by author. HarperCollins. 2019. Gr 3-7.

Caught between parents, personal dreams, and now two cultures, seventh grader Jordan Banks tries to fit in at his new private school where students of color elicit stereotyped assumptions from teachers and other kids. Actually, cartoonist-wannabe Jordan just wants to go to art school, and so the story incorporates his drawings about his true feelings. This empathic yet humorous story satirizes microaggressions against minorities from well-meaning white people while delivering a compelling account of Jordan's "elite" education.

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell. illus. by Faith Erin Hicks and Sarah Stern. First Second. 2019. Gr 7 Up.

Shy Josiah ("Josie") and bubbly Deja bonded years ago when working their city's Pumpkin Patch harvest festival throughout high school. Now in their last year as festival teammates, Josie despairs of ever connecting with the girl he's been crushing on, while Deja vows to help him despite her own feelings. It takes a whole evening of chaos involving a corn maze, an escaped goat, thieving kids, and numerous tasty concoctions to sort matters out. A lighthearted, feel-good story paying homage to rural America's charms.

Quincredible. Vol. 1: Quest to Be the Best! by Rodney Barnes. illus. by Selina Espiritu. Lion Forge. 2019. Gr 7 Up.

A meteor hitting New Orleans produced superheroes termed "the Enhanced" who get drawn into the ongoing urban unrest. Teenager Quin doesn't realize he's enhanced, only that nothing injures him. The tech-smart loner longs for attention from activist Brittany while keeping to himself, but when he gets woke by one of the Enhanced, he jumps in to disrupt civic sabotage by a misguided would-be savior. Fine writing and individualistic facial art sell the story with disarming realism.

Sanity & Tallulah. Book 1 by Molly Brooks. illus. by author. Disney-Hyperion. 2018. Gr 3-7.

Best friends Sanity and Tallulah live on a space station, where growing up includes schooling in super-advanced technology. In fact, the girls have an unusual pet that Sanity herself has bioengineered-and they keep it hidden from everyone else. But after Tallulah's scientist-mom deduces the pet's existence, the pet disappears and space station tech functions start malfunctioning. Is this the end of the pet, the girls' futures, and the space station? Brooks' mad science bubbles with charm, unique characters, and well-plotted technobabble.

Shuri: The Search for Black Panther. Vol. 1 by Nnedi Okorafor. illus. by Leonardo Romero and Jordie Bellaire. Marvel. 2019. Gr 7 Up.

After her older brother King T'Challa goes off into space to investigate a black hole, Princess Shuri is in charge of Wakanda. But T'Challa doesn't return when expected, and the brainy princess must draw on all her resources as well as on other Marvel superheroes to search for him plus handle multiple crises facing the kingdom. Don't miss the giant space grasshopper.

Urban Legendz by Paul Downs and Nick Bruno. illus. by Michael Yates. BiG:Humanoids. 2019. Gr 7 Up.

Alligators in the toilet, gargoyles run amok, flesh-eating giant bedbugs.... What if they're real? Transplanted from Illinois to Brooklyn after his mother's death, young Dwayne joins up with fellow misfits Cashew, Mya, and Worm, kid-vigilantes investigating strange goings-on around town. But Dwayne's police officer dad remains skeptical until things get completely out of hand. Is it all due to gentrification? The excellent art keeps the monster-Brooklynite encounters a bit funny while still scary.

Martha Cornog reviews graphic novels for Library Journal. She was a judge for the Glyph Awards for African American comics, and co-edited Graphic Novels Beyond the Basics.

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Guest Post: 12 Graphic Novels with Black Protagonists - Good Comics for Kids

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This year's eclectic batch of African American-relevant graphic novels includes a generous assortment for youthful readers, from adventure tales to romantic comedies to black history-because as Joel Christian Gill likes to say, #28DaysAreNotEnough. Black Sands: The Seven Kingdoms by Manuel Godoy. illus. by David Lenormand. Black Sands Entertainment. 2018.

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Shuri (Explained in a Minute) | COMIC BOOK UNIVERSITY

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Shuri (Explained in a Minute) | COMIC BOOK UNIVERSITY

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3/7 The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther

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3/7 The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther

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The first movie I remember seeing in a theater had a black hero. Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, didn't have any superpowers, but he ran his own city. That movie, the 1980 Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, introduced Calrissian as a complicated human being who still did the right thing. That's one reason I grew up knowing I could be the same.

If you are reading this and you are white, seeing people who look like you in mass media probably isn't something you think about often. Every day, the culture reflects not only you but nearly infinite versions of you-executives, poets, garbage collectors, soldiers, nurses and so on. The world shows you that your possibilities are boundless. Now, after a brief respite, you again have a President.

Those of us who are not white have considerably more trouble not only finding representation of ourselves in mass media and other arenas of public life, but also finding representation that indicates that our humanity is multifaceted. Relating to characters onscreen is necessary not merely for us to feel seen and understood, but also for others who need to see and understand us. When it doesn't happen, we are all the poorer for it.

This is one of the many reasons Black Panther is significant. What seems like just another entry in an endless parade of superhero movies is actually something much bigger. It hasn't even hit theaters yet and its cultural footprint is already enormous. It's a movie about what it means to be black in both America and Africa-and, more broadly, in the world. Rather than dodge complicated themes about race and identity, the film grapples head-on with the issues affecting modern-day black life. It is also incredibly entertaining, filled with timely comedy, sharply choreographed action and gorgeously lit people of all colors. "You have superhero films that are gritty dramas or action comedies," director Ryan Coogler tells TIME. But this movie, he says, tackles another important genre: "Superhero films that deal with issues of being of African descent."

Black Panther is the 18th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that has made $13.5 billion at the global box office over the past 10 years. (Marvel is owned by Disney.) It may be the first megabudget movie-not just about superheroes, but about anyone-to have an African-American director and a predominantly black cast. Hollywood has never produced a blockbuster this splendidly black.

The movie, out Feb. 16, comes as the entertainment industry is wrestling with its toxic treatment of women and persons of color. This rapidly expanding reckoning-one that reflects the importance of representation in our culture-is long overdue. Black Panther is poised to prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences. And, more important, that making movies about black lives is part of showing that they matter.

The invitation to the Black Panther premiere read "Royal attire requested." Yet no one showed up to the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on Jan. 29 looking like an extra from a British costume drama. On display instead were crowns of a different sort-ascending head wraps made of various African fabrics. Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o wore her natural hair tightly wrapped above a resplendent bejeweled purple gown. Men, including star Chadwick Boseman and Coogler, wore Afrocentric patterns and clothing, dashikis and boubous. Co-star Daniel Kaluuya, an Oscar nominee for his star turn in Get Out, arrived wearing a kanzu, the formal tunic of his Ugandan ancestry.

After the Obama era, perhaps none of this should feel groundbreaking. But it does. In the midst of a regressive cultural and political moment fueled in part by the white-nativist movement, the very existence of Black Panther feels like resistance. Its themes challenge institutional bias, its characters take unsubtle digs at oppressors, and its narrative includes prismatic perspectives on black life and tradition. The fact that Black Panther is excellent only helps.

Back when the film was announced, in 2014, nobody knew that it would be released into the fraught climate of President Trump's America-where a thriving black future seems more difficult to see. Trump's reaction to the Charlottesville chaos last summer equated those protesting racism with violent neo-Nazis defending a statue honoring a Confederate general. Immigrants from Mexico, Central America and predominantly Muslim countries are some of the President's most frequent scapegoats. So what does it mean to see this film, a vision of unmitigated black excellence, in a moment when the Commander in Chief reportedly, in a recent meeting, dismissed the 54 nations of Africa as "sh-thole countries"?

As is typical of the climate we're in, Black Panther is already running into its share of trolls-including a Facebook group that sought, unsuccessfully, to flood the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes with negative ratings of the film. That Black Panther signifies a threat to some is unsurprising. A fictional African King with the technological war power to destroy you-or, worse, the wealth to buy your land-may not please someone who just wants to consume the latest Marvel chapter without deeper political consideration. Black Panther is emblematic of the most productive responses to bigotry: rather than going for hearts and minds of racists, it celebrates what those who choose to prohibit equal representation and rights are ignoring, willfully or not. They are missing out on the full possibility of the world and the very America they seek to make "great." They cannot stop this representation of it. When considering the folks who preemptively hate Black Panther and seek to stop it from influencing American culture, I echo the response that the movie's hero T'Challa is known to give when warned of those who seek to invade his home country: Let them try.

The history of black power and the movement that bore its name can be traced back to the summer of 1966. The activist Stokely Carmichael was searching for something more than mere liberty. To him, integration in a white-dominated America meant assimilation by default. About one year after the assassination of Malcolm X and the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Carmichael took over the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from John Lewis. Carmichael decided to move the organization away from a philosophy of pacifism and escalate the group's militancy to emphasize armed self-defense, black business ownership and community control.

In June of that year, James Meredith, an activist who four years earlier had become the first black person admitted to Ole Miss, started the March Against Fear, a long walk of protest from Memphis to Mississippi, alone. On the second day of the march, he was wounded by a gunman. Carmichael and tens of thousands of others continued in Meredith's absence. Carmichael, who was arrested halfway through the march, was incensed upon his release. "The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over," he declared before a passionate crowd on June 16. "We been saying freedom for six years and we ain't got nothin'. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!"

Black Panther was born in the civil rights era, and he reflected the politics of that time. The month after Carmichael's Black Power declaration, the character debuted in Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four No. 52. Supernatural strength and agility were his main features, but a genius intellect was his best attribute. "Black Panther" wasn't an alter ego; it was the formal title for T'Challa, King of Wakanda, a fictional African nation that, thanks to its exclusive hold on the sound-absorbent metal vibranium, had become the most technologically advanced nation in the world.

It was a vision of black grandeur and, indeed, power in a trying time, when more than 41% of African Americans were at or below the poverty line and comprised nearly a third of the nation's poor. Much like the iconic Lieutenant Uhura character, played by Nichelle Nichols, that debuted in Star Trek in September 1966, Black Panther was an expression of Afrofuturism-an ethos that fuses African mythologies, technology and science fiction and serves to rebuke conventional depictions of (or, worse, efforts to bring about) a future bereft of black people. His white creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, did not consciously conjure a fantasy-world response to Carmichael's call, but the image still held power. T'Challa was not only strong and educated; he was also royalty. He didn't have to take over. He was already in charge.

"You might say that this African nation is fantasy," says Boseman, who portrays T'Challa in the movie. "But to have the opportunity to pull from real ideas, real places and real African concepts, and put it inside of this idea of Wakanda-that's a great opportunity to develop a sense of what that identity is, especially when you're disconnected from it."

The character emerged at a time when the civil rights movement rightfully began to increase its demands of an America that had promised so much and delivered so little to its black population. Fifty-two years after the introduction of T'Challa, those demands have yet to be fully answered. According to the Federal Reserve, the typical African-American family had a median net worth of $17,600 in 2016. In contrast, white households had a median net worth of $171,000. The revolutionary thing about Black Panther is that it envisions a world not devoid of racism but one in which black people have the wealth, technology and military might to level the playing field-a scenario applicable not only to the predominantly white landscape of Hollywood but, more important, to the world at large.

The Black Panther Party, the revolutionary organization founded in Oakland, Calif., a few months after T'Challa's debut, was depicted in the media as a threatening and radical group with goals that differed dramatically from the more pacifist vision of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Lewis. Marvel even briefly changed the character's name to Black Leopard because of the inevitable association with the Panthers, but soon reverted. For some viewers, "Black Panther" may have undeservedly sinister connotations, but the 2018 film reclaims the symbol to be celebrated by all as an avatar for change.

The urgency for change is partly what Carmichael was trying to express in the summer of '66, and the powers that be needed to listen. It's still true in 2018.

Moviegoers first encountered Boseman's T'Challa in Marvel's 2016 ensemble hit Captain America: Civil War, and he instantly cut a striking figure in his sleek vibranium suit. As Black Panther opens, with T'Challa grieving the death of his father and coming to grips with his sudden ascension to the Wakandan throne, it's clear that our hero's royal upbringing has kept him sheltered from the realities of how systemic racism has touched just about every black life across the globe.

The comic, especially in its most recent incarnations as rendered by the writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay, has worked to expunge Eurocentric misconceptions of Africa-and the film's imagery and thematic material follow suit. "People often ask, 'What is Black Panther? What is his power?' And they have a misconception that he only has power through his suit," says Boseman. "The character is existing with power inside power."

Coogler says that Black Panther, like his previous films-including the police-brutality drama Fruitvale Station and his innovative Rocky sequel Creed -explores issues of identity. "That's something I've always struggled with as a person," says the director. "Like the first time that I found out I was black." He's talking less about an epidermal self-awareness than about learning how white society views his black skin. "Not just identity, but names. 'Who are you?' is a question that comes up a lot in this film. T'Challa knows exactly who he is. The antagonist in this film has many names."

That villain comes in the form of Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, a former black-ops soldier with Wakandan ties who seeks to both outwit and beat down T'Challa for the crown. As played by a scene-stealing Michael B. Jordan, Killmonger's motivations illuminate thorny questions about how black people worldwide should best use their power.

In the movie, Killmonger is, like Coogler, a native of Oakland. By exploring the disparate experiences of Africans and African Americans, Coogler shines a bright light on the psychic scars of slavery's legacy and how black Americans endure the real-life consequences of it in the present day. Killmonger's perspective is rendered in full; his rage over how he and other black people across the world have been disenfranchised and disempowered is justifiable.

Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, also includes another important antagonist from the comics: the dastardly and bigoted Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis). "What I love about this experience is that it could have been the idea of black exploitation: he's gonna fight Klaue, he's gonna go after the white man and that's it-that's the enemy," Boseman says. He recognizes that some fans will take issue with a black male villain fighting black protagonists. Killmonger fights not only T'Challa, but also warrior women like the spy Nakia (Nyong'o), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the rest of the Dora Milaje, T'Challa's all-female royal guards. Killmonger and Shuri (Letitia Wright), T'Challa's quippy tech-genius sister, also face off.

T'Challa and Killmonger are mirror images, separated only by the accident of where they were born. "What they don't realize," Boseman says, "is that the greatest conflict you will ever face will be the conflict with yourself."

Both T'Challa and Killmonger had to be compelling in order for the movie to succeed. "Obviously, the superhero is who puts you in the seat," Coogler says.

"That's who you want to see come out on top. But I'll be damned if the villains ain't cool too. They have to be able to stand up to the hero, and have you saying, 'Man, I don't know if the hero's going to make it out of this.'"

"If you don't have that," Boseman says, "you don't have a movie."

This is not just a movie about a black superhero; it's very much a black movie. It carries a weight that neither Thor nor Captain America could lift: serving a black audience that has long gone underrepresented. For so long, films that depict a reality where whiteness isn't the default have been ghettoized, marketed largely to audiences of color as niche entertainment, instead of as part of the mainstream. Think of Tyler Perry's Madea movies, Malcolm D. Lee's surprise 1999 hit The Best Man or the Barbershop franchise that launched in 2002. But over the past year, the success of films including Get Out and Girls Trip have done even bigger business at the box office, led to commercial acclaim and minted new stars like Kaluuya and Tiffany Haddish. Those two hits have only bolstered an argument that has persisted since well before Spike Lee made his debut: black films with black themes and black stars can and should be marketed like any other. No one talks about Woody Allen and Wes Anderson movies as "white movies" to be marketed only to that audience.

Black Panther marks the biggest move yet in this wave: it's both a black film and the newest entrant in the most bankable movie franchise in history. For a wary and risk-averse film business, led largely by white film executives who have been historically predisposed to greenlight projects featuring characters who look like them, Black Panther will offer proof that a depiction of a reality of something other than whiteness can make a ton of money.

The film's positive reception-as of Feb. 6, the day initial reviews surfaced, it had a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes-bodes well for its commercial prospects. Variety predicted that it could threaten the Presidents' Day weekend record of $152 million, set in 2016 by Deadpool.

Some of the film's early success can be credited to Nate Moore, an African-American executive producer in Marvel's film division who has been vocal about the importance of including black characters in the Marvel universe. But beyond Wakanda, the questions of power and responsibility, it seems, are not only applicable to the characters in Black Panther. Once this film blows the doors off, as expected, Hollywood must do more to reckon with that issue than merely greenlight more black stories. It also needs more Nate Moores.

"I know people [in the entertainment industry] are going to see this and aspire to it," Boseman says. "But this is also having people inside spaces-gatekeeper positions, people who can open doors and take that idea. How can this be done? How can we be represented in a way that is aspirational?"

Because Black Panther marks such an unprecedented moment that excitement for the film feels almost kinetic. Black Panther parties are being organized, pre- and post-film soirées for fans new and old. A video of young Atlanta students dancing in their classroom once they learned they were going to see the film together went viral in early February. Oscar winner Octavia Spencer announced on her Instagram account that she'll be in Mississippi when Black Panther opens and that she plans to buy out a theater "in an underserved community there to ensure that all our brown children can see themselves as a superhero."

Many civil rights pioneers and other trailblazing forebears have received lavish cinematic treatments, in films including Malcolm X, Selma and Hidden Figures. Jackie Robinson even portrayed himself onscreen. Fictional celluloid champions have included Virgil Tibbs, John Shaft and Foxy Brown. Lando, too. But Black Panther matters more, because he is our best chance for people of every color to see a black hero. That is its own kind of power.
Jamil Smith is a journalist born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Behind the Revolutionary Power of Black Panther

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The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther Marvel's new movie marks a major milestone By JAMIL SMITH The first movie I remember seeing in a theater...

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3/7 How Marvel’s First Black Writer Finally Made Black Panther’s T’Challa an Iconic Hero

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Comic book OG Christopher Priest was reluctant about writing what turned out to be his greatest work. It was 1998 and Marvel, which had just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was desperate for a comeback when the company started the edgier Marvel Knights imprint. Priest-who holds the distinction of being the first full-time black writer at either DC or Marvel-was enlisted to write a new Black Panther series for the endeavor.

This obvious challenge was that Black Panther hadn't been relevant in years, and the character itself had become a B-lister-at-best after debuting as a Fantastic Four adversary in 1966. Plus, there was the existential weight of being a black writer known for openly weaving race into his work. "I stopped being a writer, or being thought of as a writer," Priest told in a recent interview, "and started being thought of as a 'black writer.'" This wasn't Priest distancing himself from his racial identity. There's a version of inclusivity that states black voices are credible in specific lanes even if it's under this wider umbrella of diversity. This ideology would lead someone to say, "Sure, Priest has been writing for decades, but he doesn't quite have the experience to write about Superman, though." It's one of the many anxieties of being black in a white-dominated space.

Despite those initial roadblocks, Priest not only took on the job he excelled at it. Ultimately what made his blockbuster film, which is rooted in Priest's work, doesn't exist without it. But the decades of appreciation for Priest's work comes from how much depth it applied to Black Panther as a concept. T'Challa's duties as the king of Wakanda and responsibilities in America form a tension that propels the 62-issue series, and it's a thread that continues on in author Black Panther run (1998-2003​) so reinvigorating was that it delivered a hero who wasn't confined by any preconceived constructs. T'Challa's a black polymath with his own set of ethics and king to a sovereign nation. This iteration of the character is crucial because the record-breaking Black Panther Ta-Nehisi Coates ' more recent saga. The idea of a powerful African nation with its own complexities is a central audacity that ties into the allure of the movie.

T'Challa doesn't explicitly concern himself with race in Priest's run, but the black-centric philosophy. In an effort to not just make a "black book," Priest told Black Panther 's story through the lens of Everett K. Ross, a just-past-competent U.S. State Department officer assigned to escort Black Panther during his visit to America. Self-effacing and full of pop culture references, Ross becomes a stand-in for the audience, and his everyman nature forces us to see T'Challa with a sense of awe. When Black Panther conveniently escapes in a hidden ship during a pivotal chase scene in issue No. 11, for instance, Ross is right there to rein us in to contextualize: "[T'Challa's] a full-bird monarch from one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet. And, somehow, we keep forgetting that."

The titular Black Panther is a bit too stoic to work as a narrator, but he does work as a character nonetheless because Priest outlines very concisely what T'Challa is about: He has an undying love of his people and dedication to his homeland. They're a small set of traits that are malleable enough to jump from supernatural fantasy to political thriller. Black Panther's triumph over satanic ​villain​ Mephisto in the series' opening arc isn't simply about good vs. evil as it is about connecting T'Challa to a mythos (the Panther God in this case), setting the tone of what's to come. When it's revealed that the only reason that Black Panther has been hanging with the Avengers is just to keep tabs on them, the shock is in how logical this reveal is. After all, why should an African king 100-percent trust a Westerner running around in tights and a star-and-stripes shield?

This iteration of the black panther is crucial because the record-breaking blockbuster film, which is rooted in Priest's work, doesn't exist without it.

The subversive premise needles at entire concept of what it means to be a hero because Western civilization isn't a priority for Black Panther. At one point, he sends the global economy into a tailspin to thwart his arch-nemesis Erik Killmonger's plan to takeover Wakanda. The question of racial identity sneaks in directly in issue No. 6, where a crowd of black people form outside of a New York Hilton reception because of an invitation oversight (the organizers forgot to invite any black people). King T'Challa appears in front of the mass and proclaims that the Avengers are " their heroes" and that the Black Panther is " our hero." He goes on to deny that title, saying, "In any country-among all peoples! We should not become polarized by self-interest-but embrace common humanity." T'Challa hasn't been rolling around spouting hotep-isms at the Avengers; his existence in America comes with tangential significance.

Not to sound all "their earlier stuff was better," but the best storylines of Priest's run are in issues 1-12, which cover Black Panther's meeting with Mephisto and Enemy of the State-a transcontinental summertime blockbuster that finds Wakanda hi-jacked thanks to a farmer-turned-madman and some rogue U.S. Intelligence factions. Must-see showdowns like Black Panther's battle of attrition against Killmonger and damn-near causing World War III with Atlantis provided worthy follow-ups, but sales eventually declined midway through Bush's first term. By issue No. 50, T'Challa was written out as the star of the series in favor of a new Black Panther: a New York officer that looked more like "Vin Diesel" than kingly.

"None of the artists could convey the BET/gangsta rap sensibility Marvel had requested; qualities Marvel insisted were missing from T'Challa," Priest said about the misfire . "The thinking seemed to be, if we made Black Panther more 'street,' it would sell better."

As absurd as the change-up was, Black Panther-for-the-streets wasn't enough to sully what was a groundbreaking take on an underdeveloped character. There are plenty of mainstream black heroes, including John Stewart as the Green Lantern, Static, Falcon, and Luke Cage, to name a few. But Black Panther's universe carries a specific sense of gravity because of how rigorous and thrillingly it explores the idea of an African superpower that was void of Western influence. Priest is solely responsible for making that premise real on the pages he commanded and now there's the chance for a new generation to see that world come to life on the big screen.

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How Marvel's First Black Writer Finally Made Black Panther's T'Challa an Iconic Hero

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Comic book OG Christopher Priest was reluctant about writing what turned out to be his greatest work. It was 1998 and Marvel, which had just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was desperate for a comeback when the company started the edgier Marvel Knights imprint.

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Writing Seminar: Sci Fi Stories that Imagine a Future Africa

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Writing Seminar: Sci Fi Stories that Imagine a Future Africa

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Nnedi Okorafor: Sci-fi stories that imagine a future Africa

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"My science fiction has different ancestors -- African ones," says writer Nnedi Okorafor. In between excerpts from her "Binti" series and her novel "Lagoon," Okorafor discusses the inspiration and roots of her work -- and how she opens strange doors through her Afrofuturist writing.

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Writing Seminar: The Clues to a Great Story

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Writing Seminar: The Clues to a Great Story

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Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (“Toy Story,” “WALL-E”) shares what he knows about storytelling -- starting at the end and working back to the beginning. Contains graphic language ... (Note: this talk is not available for download.)

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Writing Seminar: How to Build a Fictional World

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Writing Seminar: How to Build a Fictional World

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Kate Messner: How to build a fictional world

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Why is J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy so compelling? How about The Matrix or Harry Potter? What makes these disparate worlds come alive are clear, consistent rules for how people, societies -- and even the laws of physics -- function in these fictional universes.

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Writing Seminar: Websites for Teen Writers

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Writing Seminar: Websites for Teen Writers

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It's exciting when your bookworm teen announces his or her plans to be a writer. But teenagers can be a finicky lot: if the adults in their lives are too excited or too supportive of a new goal, suddenly that aspiration is gone. (And having a teen with the writer's temperament means you're likely dealing with a moody teenager squared.)

Rather than bombard them with fancy pens and motivational reading, direct them to a comfort zone: the Internet. These sites are great resources and landing spots for future storytellers. Suggest them to your teen writer (or maybe just leave this list lying around somewhere where it'll be seen).

Figment - Specially tailored for the teen reader/writer, Figment is a community dedicated to reading and writing stories online. Addictively fun, users can rate stories by whether they made them laugh, blush, cry, or just say "wow." The site frequently runs contests and features work from well-known authors and editors who sometimes drop in for Figment chats with the site's community.

Wattpad - The largest online reading platform, Wattpad is considered the YouTube of writing because it allows authors to share their work with the world. Well-known writers such as Margaret Atwood and Cory Doctorow even post their work here. Teens can find and follow their favorite authors and release their own works as serial novels. Access to an audience in the millions - the site has 25 million members, and that number is always growing - has led to big-name book deals for successful Wattpad authors.

Teen Ink - Supported by the nonprofit Young Authors Foundation, Teen Ink is the twenty-five-year veteran in the fostering-teen-writers game. The magazine, book series, and website are devoted entirely to writing, art, and photos by teens. It's also a go-to for teens interested in writing and publishing nonfiction essays and articles as well as poetry.

One Teen Story - Direct kids here to introduce them to the nonprofit's monthly magazine. Each issue features one short story about the teen experience, usually from a known young adult author. Teens drawn to the short story form can also submit their work for consideration in an annual issue that features a story written by a teen for teens.

NaNoWriMo - Short for National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo is an awesome thirty-day adventure for any writer, but teens might be especially inclined to join. In November, would-be novelists the world over attempt to write a 50,000-word (or more, if they can do it) book in thirty days. For teens with pressing homework demands, the Young Writers Program might be a better fit, as it allows authors to set their own word-count goal to meet before the month is out.

Tumblr - The blogging platform is of course a wonderful place for self-expression, but it also doubles as a go-to for young literary enthusiasts, bookworms, and those in need of some writing motivation. Some to check out: The Writer's Helpers (for advice on everything from grammar to plot); Writing Prompts (just what it says, provided in fun visual ways by a ninth-grade teacher); and John Green's Tumblr (the Tumblr account of YA author John Green, which is just fun and inspiring).

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6 Great Websites for Teen Writers | Brightly

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It's exciting when your bookworm teen announces his or her plans to be a writer. But teenagers can be a finicky lot: if the adults in their lives are too excited or too supportive of a new goal, suddenly that aspiration is gone.

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Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 03:39PM

Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of "story basics" over the past month and a half - guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories:
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. #2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different. #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won't see what the story is actually about til you're at the end of it. Now rewrite. #4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. #5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free. #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal? #7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front. #8: Finish your story, let go even if it's not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time. #9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. #10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it. #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone. #12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th - get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself. #13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience. #14: Why must you tell THIS story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it. #15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations. #16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don't succeed? Stack the odds against. #17: No work is ever wasted. If it's not working, let go and move on - it'll come back around to be useful later. #18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining. #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. #20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d'you rearrange them into what you DO like? #21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can't just write 'cool'. What would make YOU act that way? #22: What's the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
Presumably she'll have more to come. Also, watch for her personal side project, a science-fiction short called , to come to a festival near you.

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The Pixar Touch - history of Pixar - Blog - Pixar story rules (one version)

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Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 03:39PM Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of "story basics" over the past month and a half - guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories: #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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(This is the way.)

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How To Draw Valentine's Baby Yoda (Grogu)

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2/21 Using Comic Book Characters to Define Your True Self

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2/21 Using Comic Book Characters to Define Your True Self

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Using comic book characters to identify your true self: Comicbookgirl19 at TEDxClaremontColleges

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2/21 Definition of Love as Told by Children

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2/21 Definition of Love as Told by Children

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This is from a post I found. A group of 4 to 8 year-olds were asked the question, "What does love mean?"
Below are their answers. So pure and true. If you have your definition of love to add, please comment!

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate," Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody . You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." (what an image) Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross." Mark - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8

And the final one - Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry"
Photo credit: Conor Keller

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Definition of Love - As Told by Children

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This is from a post I found. A group of 4 to 8 year-olds were asked the question, "What does love mean?" Below are their answers. So pure and true. If you have your definition of love to add, pleas...

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What makes a superhero? | Stan Lee | TEDxGateway 2013

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1/24  Assignment: How did John Lewis embody UU values? How can he inspire us with is graphic memoir?

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1/24  Assignment: How did John Lewis embody UU values? How can he inspire us with is graphic memoir?

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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1/24 The Danger of a Single Story - Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

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1/24 The Danger of a Single Story - Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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1/24  John Lewis' Speech at March on Washington

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1/24  John Lewis' Speech at March on Washington

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Rep  John Lewis’ Speech at March on Washington

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How to read a graphic novel: March (2016) by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

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1/10 Assignment: What moments in your life stand out? What would make a great graphic memoir?

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1/10 Assignment: What moments in your life stand out? What would make a great graphic memoir?

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Writing Memoir - Think Aloud 2b - Outline the Memoir

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Writing Memoir - Step 1 - Brainstorm Your Ideas

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Common Sense Media editors help you choose Best Memoirs for Kids and Teens. Riveting autobiographies show real-life stories of struggle and triumph.

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Professional Comic Artist Colors Captain America

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Professional Comic Artist Colors Captain America

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Professional Artist Colors a CHILDRENS Coloring Book..? | Captain America | 6

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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12/13 Combine background and character to create your own scene!

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12/13 Combine background and character to create your own scene!

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Colouring comics is the best job in the art world, as far as I'm concerned, because it leans heavily towards the fun part of art: the storytelling. In this article, I'm going to take you through my top tips for adding colour to black and white drawings to bring your scenery and character designs to life.

Colour can help expand the scope of a comic, turning each panel from a two-dimensional drawing into a window to a rich, nuanced world. The colour in those panels can flow together to set the pace, like a song. I'll start by answering some key questions, before sharing some tips for getting the most from colour. If you're after drawing tips, take a look at our article on how to create a comic page.

Why use colour in comic art?

This might seem like an inane question, but it's worth thinking about what benefits colour can bring to an illustration that black and white can't. Colour can convey things like mood, time of day, change of scene, image planes and depth of field.

Colour can be a great visual shorthand to help a reader grasp what's going on, without hammering them over their head with dialogue or having to draw absolutely everything in a scene. Something as simple as a yellow background and blue shadows can tell you that it's sunrise.

What software should I use?

Until recently, Photoshop CC was the de facto software used in comic book colouring, but Clip Studio Paint has been changing that. Clip is much faster with some tasks like laying in flat colours, primarily due to its advanced Paint Bucket tolerance settings that auto-trap and detect line gaps when filling inked shapes. A huge time saver!

That said, I still prefer the brushes available in Photoshop for rendering. Beyond the desktop, I'll sometimes work on my iPad Pro using either Clip or Procreate as well. Not sure which app is right for you? Take a look at our guide to the best software for digital artists.

01. Start with flat colours

Laying in 'flats' is a standard step for colourists in the US comic industry. Flatting is the process in which flat, contiguous, aliased shapes are laid in on a separate layer from the line art to make it possible to select areas when rendering.

Like most colourists, I usually subcontract this step to a professional flatter to save time. Once I get a batch of flats back I'll go over them all with a Paint Bucket to change the base colours accordingly.

02. Don't use too many layers

I've seen colourists use dozens of Photoshop layers on a page. I find it hard to keep track of so many (read: I think that's crazy), so I usually limit myself to three or four. This will generally consist of my flats, a duplicate of those flats to render on, and a layer with my lines on it. Clean and simple. I might have a layer or two for colour-holds (coloured line art) and/or glows and lighting effects, but that's generally it.

03. Decide on your painting style

By using an aliased Lasso or the Pencil tool, I can render in a flat, 'anime' colour style that's easy to edit with the Paint Bucket. Using an Airbrush or painterly brushes can be more artistically expressive, but makes changes more time consuming. Having the flats layer as a backup for each shape's selection makes that editing easier, however. Both styles have merits, and they can be combined. I'll often paint my backgrounds, and use flat shapes for characters. Or I might leave shadows flat and render into the highlight areas.

04. Consider how much detail to include

A hyper-realistic, detailed style can add weight to a story via grit, texture, stubble and so on, while a simple style can let the reader mentally fill some blanks and speed up the reading experience, without having to work through a glut of detail.

A simpler rendering can allow for more expressive hits of colour. I'm not trying to sell detail short here. Detail adds gravity and that counts for a lot. There are pros and cons to dropping out details, and I hum and haw over rendering options every time I start a new gig.

05. Add some personality

A lot of colourists, veteran and newbie alike, worry that their colour should fade into the background to let the line art shine. I don't really subscribe to this school of thought. Collaborative art should be collaborative! I hope my work is recognisable regardless of the rendering style I use, through my colour choices and the sorts of shapes I use in my rendering.

Collaborative art is like being in a band. Everyone needs to play to their strengths and show their personal style. Otherwise the art you make together becomes boring.

06. Use colour and shape to tell a story

Colour can be a great way to direct the reader's eye via shadow lines, colour patterns and the like. While the main characters and action do their thing on the page, I can subtly reinforce the eye line and direct the action without clubbing people over the head with it. In the case of this page from LOW, I've used a triad of red shapes to quickly draw the eye to our heroes, despite the chaos of the rest of the image.

07. Build mood with your colour choices

I try to use colour to help support the story. There are plenty of standards like blue or desaturated tones suggesting quiet or melancholy, while orange or green might hint at toxic chemicals in the air. A saturated red warns of imminent danger.

Colour shorthand like this can be a great way to help the reader understand what's happening beyond and between the panels, and help separate scenes. If I'm working on a longer project, creating custom colour cues (and sticking to them) can be a great way to set that project's world-building apart from the pack as well.

08. Use value to create planes and silhouettes

I tend to use desaturated, dark values for one plane, and saturated, light values for another. Popping things off those planes in a third value range with as much contrast as possible helps to focus the eye on the subject of the panel. These values don't necessarily have to be different hues.

I often find that when people think about colour they focus too much on hue, and forget about value. As far as I'm concerned, value is the absolute, most important element in a colour, then it's saturation and hue.

09. Check your page in greyscale

Photoshop makes it easy to check my values. If I'm working on something with complicated, overlapping planes, I'll open a new window for it and change the proof setup to Grey. This enables me to work on the colour file while getting real-time feedback for my values in that second tab. For less-complex pages, I'll just use a hotkey to flip to Grey proof mode from the regular view occasionally to keep myself in check, making sure that bright reds among other colours aren't throwing things off value-wise.

10. Limit your colour palette

I try to stick with value choices, and limit my colour palette to what's necessary to tell the story. Colour should have a reason for being there, and if something isn't key, it often helps the story to use values in some neutral colour instead of hues to help it sink into the background. The simpler you keep your colour, the more impact a change in colour will have, helping the reader understand that something important is happening.

11. Expand the canvas through colour

You can imply a whole world off-panel with colour, which is one of my favourite parts of being a colourist. I tend to put a lot of thought into the environment that a story takes place in. What materials are things made of? How dusty are they? What's the sun's position in the sky? How many minutes, hours or seconds have elapsed since the last panel? Are any lights turned on off-panel? I ask myself questions like this all day long. It's not just about colouring what you can see on the page.

12. Make notes before you start

I take notes on a script before starting an issue - marking time of day, scene changes and emotional beats. Do this in advance if you don't have much artwork in and you need to get started anyway.

That said, if time allows it can be useful to look at all your flat colours together for a book, to make sure that the 'musicality' of that colour works. Building themes, carrying them across different scenes, maybe using pop colours to emphasise important story elements. You're taking the reader on a colourful journey, so make it enjoyable for them!
This article was originally published in ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy Read more: or .

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Colouring comics is the best job in the art world, as far as I'm concerned, because it leans heavily towards the fun part of art: the storytelling. In this article, I'm going to take you through my top tips for adding colour to black and white drawings to bring your scenery and character designs to life.

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I just finished Issue #2 of a promotional comic series for Consol Alliance, a shipping company in Australia. Here's a step-by-step look into the complicated process of how I create comic book art.
Step 1: Rough Pencils
After reading the script, I initially do a very loose drawing of the characters and scenes in each panel. I work in Manga Studio EX 4 with a Cintiq tablet. At this stage, I'm mostly concerned with the layout of the page, and not any details. Although it looks pretty rough, this is one of the most time-consuming stages for me, because it's so important to get it right, because it literally serves as the foundation of everything that follows. I usually get an OK from the client at this stage before moving forward.
Step 2: Pencils
On a new layer, I go back in and draw the details of everything. This is another time-consuming process. I normally spend some time gathering photo reference for complicated angles. For this story, I also spent some time researching modern day pirates. I tried to reflect the look here of a juxtaposed band of misfits from all different backgrounds. Their weapons and clothing are all quite different from each other as well - there's no dress code here.
Step 3: Inking
Of all the steps in the process, I find inking the most time-consuming. But it's also the most mindless. I usually turn my brain off and the TV on. I ink in Manga Studio EX 4. I normally keep a second window open with a small area zoomed into 100%. That way I can see the part of the page I'm working on at the actual print size - this prevents me from zooming in to far, and working on details that won't end up being visible when printed.
Step 4: Flats
So here's my least favorite stage of the whole process, but it's a necessary evil. This is commonly known as "flatting" in the comic book world. It's the horrible, horrible process of putting in all the flat colors of the different elements. As you can see, I haven't paid much attention the actual colors of things. The objective is simply to create an image that I can create quick selections of when I do the real color. I do this in Manga Studio EX 4 as well - it has a really smart paint bucket and selection toolset that makes this process much easier than doing it in Photoshop (for me, anyway).
Step 5: Coloring!
This is has become one of my favorite stages, because you can really start to see things coming together. I move my whole workflow to Photoshop by exporting my file from Manga Studio EX (which exports everything perfectly, keeping all my layers intact). I first convert my Flats layer to grayscale, and then make a copy of it (I always lock my Flats layer, otherwise, I will eventually destroy it by mistake). I normally color the background first, to set the mood. Then, I get out my magic wand tool, click on (for example) Livewire's face, switch to my soft airbrush, and start laying down color. Once everything has been colored, I then go back in with my lasso tool, and start making cuts to put in the hard shadows and highlights. I recently purchased a Razer Nostromo (which is a small ergonomic keyboard for gamers) which has really sped up processes like these, where I'm constantly switching back and fourth between tools.
Step 6: Lettering and Effects
At this point, the pages are finished. This is usually the stage where I realize I didn't leave enough room for text bubbles, and I panic a little. In Photoshop, I go through and type up the text, and then create a speech bubble around it. Overtime I've built up a lot of presets for fonts, bubbles, and styles, so I can move through this stage relatively quickly. And finally, on a new layer above the artwork, I add the effects (such as highlights on the water, and lots of bursts. If there's time, I do a few knockouts (this is where the black lineart is colored to give the effect of brightness). For this book, I did it only in a few places: the cigarette burning and the rising sun are good examples of this.

And we're done! Special thanks to my friends at Consol Alliance for making this project happen.
About Flyland Designs:
Flyland Designs is a freelance illustration studio founded in 2006 by illustrator and graphic designer, Brian Allen. With over 10 years of industry experience, Allen has designed mascots, apparel, retail packaging and book and album covers for clients including Hard Rock Café, Jostens, Hasbro, American Greetings and Half Time. Allen's creative aesthetic attracts children and adults alike. For more information, visit www.flylanddesigns.com.

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I just finished Issue #2 of a promotional comic series for Consol Alliance, a shipping company in Australia. Here's a step-by-step look into the complicated process of how I create comic book art. Step 1: Rough Pencils After reading the script, I initially do a very loose drawing of the characters and scenes in each panel.

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Fun drawing tutorials with Art for Kids Hub

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Fun drawing tutorials with Art for Kids Hub

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Hey, art friends! Welcome to Art For Kids Hub! 🎨✏️ Here, you’ll discover all sorts of awesome art lessons, from drawing to painting, and even some super cool origami. Whether you’re a beginner or a budding artist, there’s something fun for everyone! I’m Rob, and along with my amazing wife, Teryn, and our four creative kids, Jack, Hadley, Austin, and Olivia, we make art together as a family and love sharing it with you. ❤️ Ready to jump in and start creating? Most of our art lessons are self-contained, so grab your favorite black marker, some paper, and your coloring supplies, and let’s get drawing! 🖍️📒 Join us on this colorful adventure, and let’s make art that brings smiles and joy. Happy creating! 🌟

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12/6 Assignment: What do you know about UU history? What stories do you think might make good comics?

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12/6 Assignment: What do you know about UU history? What stories do you think might make good comics?

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Read more posts by the author of prologue, gigi

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Aside from a few minor issues around the site I need to fix up (like adding link banners,) we're ready to go! I hope you enjoy.

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Children's author and illustrator, Mika Song's portfolio.

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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When I was a kid, I loved drawing. I loved the way it felt to make marks on a page, the sound of the graphite scratching against the paper, the feel of the pencil against my fingers.

I liked the sensation of moving my hand and arm in swooping or looping gestures. And I liked the marks left by these gestures: lines against a surface, the visual contrast and tension. With a little imagination, I could see characters who'd never existed before come to life. But drawing was also an activity that got me in trouble. At school If I had a sheet of paper in front of me, I doodled on it. I would draw in my notebook instead of work on what I was supposed to be doing. Drawing was often seen as an off-task activity. At home, my artistic endeavors were appreciated, but not regarded as something to aspire to. As the child of immigrants, I was encouraged to focus on more serious, scholarly pursuits. I grew up believing that the thing I loved and cared about didn't really matter. So eventually, I just stopped doing it.

Like me, many children use drawing as a primary way of responding to and representing experiences, ideas, and imaginings. Before we can form words, we make marks on a page to tell stories about who we are and what we care about.

We draw what frightens us, perplexes us, and excites us. Our early drawings were opportunities to examine ourselves in the world, to challenge concepts and beliefs, and to imagine who we might be in the future. As an act, drawing is deeply entangled with literacy development, but doesn't often receive the same attention or regard as language.

Drawing helps us discover what we know. It gives shape to our often divergent and nonlinear thoughts. It helps us construct new knowledge, by offering a non-verbal approach to thinking through logic and causality. But drawing is also a deeply embodied act that activates the body by privileging sensation and desire over linearity and discursiveness. Drawing emphasizes our subjective rationality, highlights our material constraints, and creates the conditions for surprise and delight. Drawing allows us to sidestep the structures of language to speak without saying, to know without articulating, and to sense without containing. Drawing cares more about how we feel than what we think.

Okay, I never really stopped drawing. I just pushed it to the margins for a long time, and hid it in places other people couldn't see. I could never really shake it. In fact, there were times when my body seemed to need it. In the darkest of times, I found that drawing in my sketchbook was the only thing that would help me feel better. It didn't matter how well I drew, and it didn't matter if anyone even saw it. Drawing helped me be present with my feelings, it helped me endure confounding thoughts, it helped me wait out the darkness for the light. And this is still how it works for me.

Not everything we feel or everything we know can be articulated through language. As a cultural-historical system, language not only gives shape to our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, it tells us what they'll be as well. In order to share (or prove) what we know or how we feel, we necessarily have to render it in language, an act we all struggle with from time to time. Think about all those times we resort to metaphor to explain that what we mean is more than the words we're using to say it. We've been moving from thoughts to words for so long, it's easy to believe that the only way to know something, is to put it into language. It's even easy to mistake thought and language as the same thing.

Can we know something if we can't say it?

Can we think through drawing?

What are feelings before we've named them?

I'm a sucker for cartoon characters. I love how improbable they are. Their impossibility. Their absurdity. As caricatured humans, they also help reveal and uncover the limits of our humanity.

It makes sense to me that cartoon characters would emerge from drawing. It's true, of course, that drawing can be used to document and look more closely at the world around us. It can be used to uncover the depth of our thoughts, to reveal the complexity of our world. It can be used inquire. But what excites me most is drawing's ability-through the ambiguity of line-to render the unimaginable in a visible form, free from the constraints of logic or reason. Drawing offers us an opportunity to imagine new trajectories for ourselves and for the world around us. When I draw, I can act on what I sense-those vibrations and movements in my body-without having to figure out what they are or what they mean.

In a few months, my own graphic novel, Red Panda & Moon Bea r, comes out. It's a wish fulfilled for my twelve-year-old self. A book full of monsters and creatures, impossible happenings. It's also got characters who remind me a lot of myself. They're silly and irreverent. They care deeply about the people around them. They're powerful and strong. They know a lot of stuff, but they also make a ton of mistakes. They're helpful and destructive. Beings of contradiction and ambiguity. Just like all of us. The narrative in this book is itself a kind of line drawing: meandering and diverging. It splits apart, goes in separate directions, rejoins itself later. It moves in odd shapes, full of surprise. It resists logic and reason. It's motivated not by what should come next, but by what could come next.

Now I'm all grown up-a college professor-and I teach comics and cartooning in a creative writing program. I've discovered that people who like to tell stories, often (used to) like drawing as well. I've had countless adult students come to my office to confess their desire to to drawing. I get to hear stories about drawing with parents as children, making their own comics and zines, and the too-often abandonment of these activities. The older I've gotten, the more my actions have been motivated by a desire to retrieve my own past. Like my students, I'm looking for the things I love, and so many of them began in my childhood. Maybe it's because we're getting farther and farther away from it. Maybe we're worried it'll disappear entirely. Maybe we're scared to forget. But maybe you still feel that desire to draw, the tingle of excitement in your body. Maybe, when you pick up a comic or watch a cartoon, you get that rushing sensation, that urge to make something. Maybe you left drawing, but drawing never left you.

So, I'll quote the cartoonist and educator, Lynda Barry: "To all the kids who quit drawing...come back!"

Some drawing and art-making resources:

1. Marjorie & Brent Wilson's book, Teaching Children to Draw , is not just a resource for working with children, but an exploration of what it means to draw.

2. Andrea Kantrowitz's article, Drawn to Discover, details a cognitive approach to drawing. http://www.andreakantrowitz.com/drawn-to-discover.html

3. Nick Sousanis's essay in comics form, The Shape of Our Thoughts, explores the way drawing comics approximates human thought. His book, Unflattening , furthers and continues this conversation. http://spinweaveandcut.com/the-shape-of-our-thoughts/

4. Deanna Petherbridge's, The Primacy of Drawing , is an theoretical and historical text on the ways drawing helps us construct knowledge and the ways we think through drawing.

5. Elliot Eisner's The Arts and the Creation of Mind , is an argument for art-making in an educational context, and draws from a lifetime of research in art education.

6. Dave Eggers' short short story, How the Water Feels to the Fishes , is a great example of the ways we use metaphor to articulate sensations of the body.

7. Maxine Greene's collection of essays, Releasing the Imagination, approaches art-making (including writing and literacy) from a curricular and pedagogical perspective, and situates it as an imaginative endeavor that can be used to construct a more equitable future.

8. My article/comic, Drawing with Milo, documents the ways drawing is entangled in the life of a ten-year-old boy. https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2013/iss30/12/

Jarod Roselló is a Cuban-American cartoonist, writer, and teacher originally from Miami, Florida. He is the author/artist of the middle grade graphic novel, Red Panda & Moon Bear, and the forthcoming (adult) graphic novel, Those Bears. He teaches fiction and comics in the creative writing program at University of South Florida. You can find him at www.jarodrosello.com and on Twitter and Instagram at @jarodrosello.

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When I was a kid, I loved drawing. I loved the way it felt to make marks on a page, the sound of the graphite scratching against the paper, the feel of the pencil against my fingers. I liked the se...

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12/6 Pre-Drawing Techniques with Jarrett

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12/6 Pre-Drawing Techniques with Jarrett

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Camp Kinda with Jarrett Lerner - Day 1 - 2

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Camp Kinda with Jarrett Lerner - Day 1 - 1

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11/22 Kid's Guide to the Basics of Comic Creation

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11/22 Kid's Guide to the Basics of Comic Creation

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11/22 Activity: Star Wars Rebels: Art Attack

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11/22 Activity: Star Wars Rebels: Art Attack

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If you had to outline this and turn it into a comic script, what dialogue and actions would you pick as most important? How would you divide it up into panels?

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11/22 Sample Comic Book Script: Green Lantern

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11/22 Sample Comic Book Script: Green Lantern

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11/22 COMICS WRITING 101: GETTING STARTED IN SEQUENTIAL STORYTELLING

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11/22 COMICS WRITING 101: GETTING STARTED IN SEQUENTIAL STORYTELLING

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"I have this great idea for a comic!" people tell me and my comics-writing friends after a convention writing panel. "We don't want to hear it," we reply. "Go! Take your idea and make a comic!"

So you want to be a comic book writer. You're crazy about comics, you have an innate love of writing, and now you want to tell sequential stories to the world. Here are the basics of how to get your feet wet writing comics. This doesn't mean you'll soon be writing Spider-Man for Marvel Comics. This is about writing your own original creations, which will be drawn by yourself or another awesome artist. Besides, the big superhero publishers only look at writers with previous published credits, and that means your own stuff.

Developing an Idea

What is the story about, and what is it really about?

In the case of my Dark Horse comic, Amala's Blade, the overall story was about a divided kingdom called Naamaron, split into two countries locked in a civil war. That's what the story is about, commonly called the setting.

What the story is really about (a.k.a. the plot) goes much deeper: it's about a young woman named Amala, once foretold to be the spiritual leader that would unite Naamaron. Instead, she's an assassin for hire. What happens when she's given a mission she can't possibly carry out?

You may have a giant epic story in mind with huge worlds and dozens of characters. That's great. To start with, hyper-focus in on a set of the most interesting characters in one part of the world, throw a plot obstacle at them, and see how they react, grow, and change when confronted with it.

What does the main character want?

Part of what you need to answer when coming up with a comic is what a character wants. What is their primary motivation? What do they not have in life that they desperately want, and what will they do to achieve that?

What is standing in that character's way?

Obstacles, conflict, and hardship are what makes good drama. Throw things in the character's way. Make their life garbage, so that their victory, if they do indeed achieve it, is that much sweeter.

Practicing Script Writing

OK, now you've developed an idea. How is a comic book script put together in a way that will make sense to an artist, even if that artist is you?

There's no one way to write a comic book script, but it's generally accepted that you do the following:

1. Stick to one typewritten page of script per page of art. Don't go overboard with description.

2. Don't be too sparse, either. If a gun goes off on page 5, you need to make sure it's described on page 1.

3. Don't put too many panels on a page. The average page has five.

4. Number dialogue throughout a page to make it easier on the letterer.

5. Use lowercase letters for standard dialogue and captions and boldface for emphasis, rather than all caps.

Check out the Comic Book Script Archive for hundreds of examples of scripts from masters of comics writing.

Finding a Great Artist

You've got your developed idea and you've written a solid script. Now to find an artist to draw it! The best way is to network. Find fellow comic book creator friends on places like Twitter and Tumblr and take a look at who they're retweeting for even more followers. Eventually, they will follow you back and you'll build up a great mini-network of talented peers.

Have a solid idea and script in place when you approach the artist, and perhaps he or she will be willing to draw your comic. It also helps to have money to pay the artist. If you can afford that, the quality of your artist will go way up.

You've Made a Comic!

Once the book is put together, you can find a local printer to print it up. Congrats. You've made your first comic.
Image Credits: Dark Horse Comics, DC Entertainment/Vertigo
Feature Image Credit: IDW Publishing

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Comics Writing 101: Getting Started in Sequential Storytelling | Geek and Sundry

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"I have this great idea for a comic!" people tell me and my comics-writing friends after a convention writing panel. "We don't want to hear it," we reply. "Go! Take your idea and make a comic!" So you want to be a comic book writer.

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11/22 Create a Comic Book in 10 'Simple' Steps

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11/22 Create a Comic Book in 10 'Simple' Steps

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Comics and other graphic texts are one of the fastest growing areas of publishing, and they seem to be getting stronger each year. If you haven't considered getting graphic, you might want to. This post is for creators, especially writers, who are interested in graphic story-telling. Even if your art skills are limited to crooked, one-armed stick figures, comic books and other graphic texts might help you discover new stories to tell, and new ways to build narratives. I get asked a lot about how I created Broken Saviors as an independent comic, so in the interest of helping out fellow creators, here's the process broken down into ten basic steps: Step 1: Discover what's out there.
If you haven't looked into comics and graphic texts lately, you're in for a treat. Right now, the comic book/graphic text world is exploding with possibilities ( here's a list of some traditional trade paperback comics that go way beyond the typical heroes-in-tights genre). Or you could just start here: Broken Saviors Issues 1, 2, & 3.

But don't just limit yourself to comics and graphic novels. Explore all the new ways visual art is becoming part of narratives in hybrid-texts like The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Mrs. Pergrine's Home for Peculiar Children, The Familiar, and Diary of a Part-Time Indian (to name just a couple. If you discover any good hybrid-texts, please mention them in the comments below!).

Changes in technology are leading to changes in what's economically possible in publishing, which are leading to some exciting changes in how art is being used to create texts.
Step 2: Learn to think visually.
This takes practice. When I travel, I like to keep a visual journal. Although I'm a terrible artist, I've found that drawing helps me pay attention to things I might otherwise miss. And the more I draw, the more I notice and remember things. Also, the way I perceive experiences changes when I draw them. By learning to think visually, you'll discover stories you might not have thought of before, and ways to tell them that you might not have considered.

Try it-with enough practice, you'll see what I mean.
Step 3: Find a story that demands to be told visually.
Creating a comic book is a lot of work. I'd wager it's at least twice the amount of work you think it is, even if you already think that it's a lot of work. But it's also extremely rewarding. That said, if a story could be told with just plain words, I'd write it with plain words. Don't force something to become a comic or a graphic text. The art needs to be an integral part of the story (not an after thought, or an illustration).

So if a story comes to you that demands to be told visually, and it won't go away, then welcome to the journey.
Step 4: Determine the format that fits the story and the audience you want to reach.
Some folks might suggest doing this after you've written a script, but I think it's best to do it before, because the format is more than just a publishing platform or the shape of the page. It's going to determine how the story is structured and paced, and what the style of the story might be. So ask yourself early on, "What do I want this story to look like, and where do I want it to end up?"

Are you going for a traditional trade paperback comic format? A graphic novel? American manga? An online, digital comic? A black & white graphic memoir? A collaboration or writer/artist work? An art book or short letter press book? And are you looking for a commercial publication, to self-publish, a small independent press, online publishing, or something else?

Consider what the size and shape of the pages will be. What colors and styles the story demands. And what effect you want the format to have on the reader. Then find the form that best fits those needs and the needs of the audiences you want to reach (reading other books that are reaching that audience is a good way to do this).
Step 5: Write a Script.
The most important thing to remember in writing the script is that the images must tell part most of the story (that's why it helps to think visually first). Also try to advance the story as much as possible through dialogue (rather than text blocks). And try not to crowd your pages with too many words or panels. Artists usually like to work with larger panels that can show more rather than a bunch of small panels. Note: with different formats, you'll have different numbers of panels per page. For instance, with a typical trade paperback comic book format, 9 panels per page should be considered the max. Less is better though, and variety is good.

Also, as you're writing the script, think about what will be on the left or right hand page (depending on the format), and try to get opposing pages to either complement or contrast with each other. Try to pace scenes out so they happen on one page, and so moments of tension happen on the page turn. Try to vary backgrounds and settings, and keep things active and visual.

There is no industry standard right now on how to format a script, but Dark Horse's handy Script Format is good for most publishers. Read and follow these guidelines carefully. And remember, panel descriptions are also part of the script (just don't go crazy with them like certain famous writers have been known to do).
Step 6: Revise your script many times.
Two things to keep in mind here: 1) Less is more; and 2) it's much easier to revise things in the script than in later stages. So revise like crazy.

For instance, with traditional trade paperback comics, a typical issue will be 22 pages. Some publishers are stricter than other ones on this, but with publishers I've worked with, 22 pages on the nose was demanded. So, to come up with a good 22 page issue ( like this one), I'd start by writing at least 40-50 pages for the script. Then I'd cut it down relentlessly, removing every word, scene, or moment that wasn't adding something good, or that was getting in the way of the art, until I arrived at that magical 22 page. In comics, you can imply a lot more through the art than you might think (and the audiences demands for the pace of the story are faster than you might think), so it's best to start with a longer script, and make the writing minimal. Finding a writing group can help you with this.

Even with a lot of script revision, revision will also need to happen during the production phase, so make sure you find an artist who's willing to revise (see Step 7). Ask the artist to share layouts, pencils, and inks with you, and look over every panel careful as things are developing. Chances are, when you see the visual story, you'll want to go back and make changes in the script.
Step 7: No one wants to read your script, so find an artist or draw it yourself.
You'll have an easier time finding hippies at a Donald Trump rally than publishers looking for unsolicited scripts from writers, so save yourself some time and either create the art yourself, or find an artist interested in a collaboration.

Personally, I love collaborations. Writing is a lonely enough business as it is, and a good collaboration can bring unanticipated synergy to a project. In order to create a good collaboration, though, you need to have clear expectations for what the artist will do (pencils, inks, colors, letters?), and you need to know what sort of art you're looking for (hand drawn, painted, digital, collage, realistic, abstract, other?).

Deviant Art is a great site to join to discover artists and get a sense of their work. One note: Artists for comic books rarely fulfill all the visual roles. Some might just do cover art. Some might be great with layouts and sequential images, but not so good with inks or colors. Some might be masters at painted colors, or digital colors. And some might be skilled at lettering (hand or digital) and design. It's rare to find an artist willing to do all of this, or skilled at all of this. Don't be surprised if you end up collaborating with different artists for the inks and the colors. Make sure you spell out the artist's role and payment clearly (with clauses on revision, deadlines, image rights, and such) in a contract you both are willing to agree to before starting work.

And if you end up doing the lettering yourself Manga Studio is great for this (see step 9).
Step 8: Pay the artists.
Yup-pay them! You're asking them to do an incredible amount of work on your project. Even if they love the story, they should be paid. Why? Because it will vastly improve your writing, and the economy of your prose, if you need to pay an artist $100 for every page.

Besides, artists (and writers) deserve to be paid for their work. Granted, you're a writer, and you're probably going to lose money on your project. I know I usually do. But if you believe in a story, then it's worth it. And if it's not worth it to you, create something else. Great art requires dedication and sacrifice.

Also, if you offer to pay artists a decent amount, you'll get a lot more portfolios sent to you for consideration, and you'll attract more professional work.

In regards to how much to pay, that depends on what the artist is doing. I would try to budget around $100 a page with colors for sequential art. So if an artist is only doing pencils and inks, you might pay them $60-80 a page. Some artists get paid per panel ($20-40 per panel). A decent colorist might work for $20-40$ a page.

Note: These are all below industry payment standards. Artists working for big publishers often get much more than this (depending on the publisher and the project), so if you want a true collaboration, know that you'll need to offer the artist more than just upfront payment (like their name on the cover, and a share of the royalties after publication...). Think of the payment as a small advance against royalties for their work.
Step 9: Lettering
The lettering usually comes after the art and colors are done, so make sure the artists you're working with are leaving room for it. Also, decide on the style of the lettering you want to use. Depending on the format, you might go old school and do hand lettering, but most letters are done digitally these days. You'll probably need to purchase the font you want to use.

Here's a good site for purchasing comic book fonts.

And here's a list of handy guidelines and quirks for comic book lettering.
Step 10: Publishing or sharing your work
You've created something brilliant-now share it! There are a lot of possibilities here, and it seems like I discover a new one every day. Still, breaking into traditional publishing with comic books is incredibly hard because the cost of producing a new comic is so high.

Crazy as it sounds, most big comic book publishers are only interested in comics that are already produced and have a proven following. Most publishers will not accept unsolicited manuscripts or issues.

Every now and then, some creator-owned publishers (like Oni Press, or Shadowline, or Image ...) will put out a call for pitches. When they do, they usually request 5-10 finished pages, along with a short synopsis of the first few issues. So, get started right away creating sample pages or a sample issue that you can send out. And make sure to follow the submission guidelines exactly.

There are a lot of other ways to publish comics and get a following than traditional publishers, though. Comixology, Graphicaly, and iVerse are some great places to check out (especially for digital comics) once you've created a few issues. And self publishing through print on demand services is another possibility.

Many comic creators these days are using crowd-funding as a way to support production costs. Personally, I owe a lot to Backers on Kickstarter for funding Issues 2 & 3 of Broken Saviors. If you're going the crowd-funding route, though, I highly recommend creating at least one sample issue first. And know that the most successful projects tend to be ones that offer a full printed volume (so you might want to develop several issues before you turn to crowd funding to fund a print issue) Also, crowd-funding is a community thing, so if you're considering this route, start by Backing some comic projects yourself. For more tips on running a crowd-funding campaign, check this out.

One final note: If you're sharing your comic online, or sending it to friend, or posting it on a website, please for the love of all that is good and digital keep the file size small and accessible! PDFs that are under 10mb are generally the easiest to share and download, although if you're going to go digital you might consider other formats. To shrink your file size, you might need to shrink your images first. This can be done by opening them in iPhoto (or a similar program), then exporting them as Medium quality 1000px (or less) images (experiment to find what works best for your format). Then take those smaller .jpegs and join them together into one easy to download .pdf on Adobe or using Preview (or other programs).
That's it! Let me know if you create a comic. You can share a link to it in the comments below!

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Create a Comic Book in 10 (simple?) Steps

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Comics and other graphic texts are one of the fastest growing areas of publishing, and they seem to be getting stronger each year. If you haven't considered getting graphic, you might want to. This post is for creators, especially writers, who are interested in graphic story-telling.

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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In a recent newsletter, Last Call Media introduced a new feature. Colin Panetta, our Director of UX/UI, has many talents and one of them is drawing comics. He has lately focused that talent on the Yeti character that you can find all over our site. Now you can sometimes find Yetis in a comic in our newsletter. The Yeti is surprising, inquisitive, inscrutable, transformable, and much more. Colin and Molly Taffe, our Graphic & Motion Designer, have been having fun doing lots of creative things with the Yetis, so you can look forward to seeing their ideas come to life.

When I saw the first comic, the second thought I had (right after "Wow, so cool!") was "I wonder if that can be made accessible?" I have to admit that I'm not a regular comics reader, and I had not ever thought about accessibility in the context of comics. So, I posted a question in one of my favorite online communities, the WebAIM Web Accessibility Email Discussion List. As expected I got some good answers, and I spent most of my time over the next few days thinking and reading based on those responses.

To alt or not to alt?

My simplistic assumption about making comics accessible was that each panel would be treated as a separate image, and that the image for each panel would be provided with alt text. I learned that this is sometimes partially correct, but not always completely correct. As with all things regarding alt text, context is everything.

Is alt text needed?

When I posted my question in the WebAIM forum, the very first responses posed one of the key alt text questions - is it functional or is it decorative?
Are the comics just for entertainment? Or do they convey important information or ideas?...How much do the comics rely on the visual aspect, and how much not? If the comics are just for entertainment purposes, and rely heavily on the visual aspect, then you might want to forgo ALT text.
Colin's comic is highly visual (the few that I've seen have no text at all), and are definitely intended to be for entertainment. So there is a solid argument that we could just enter null alt text (alt=" ") and move on. Screen reader users without sight would skip right over the comic and not know it is there, and screen reader users with limited sight would see that they are missing something. But, I think that is a missed opportunity for both sides.

The comic is indeed entertaining, so why assume that users of assistive technology don't want to be entertained? In addition, since we strive to be inclusive in our work every day, composing alt text for each comic provides the author with another opportunity to be thinking about the broadest audience possible. Things like thinking inclusively and writing good alt text are like developing a muscle - the more you do these things the better you get at them and the easier they become. So, while there certainly may be times when it would be appropriate to enter a null alt attribute, I decided that was not the approach I wanted for Colin's comic.

For the relatively simple comic included in the LCM newsletter, all three panels were combined in a single image. Since the action in this series was relatively simple and there is no dialog, alt text is completely adequate. Below is the first comic in the series, which has the alt text "A 3 panel comic strip showing a Yeti jauntily trotting along its merry way"

(Update! You can follow the adventures of the silly yeti character on our Yeti Comic page!)

Alt text is not for "easter eggs"! (what not to do)

I saw the idea of using the alt attribute in an odd way mentioned a few times, mostly in posts that were a few years old. As described, the alt attribute can used to plant hidden surprises for clever readers. ...many web comics feature alt text, language that pops up when the reader mouses over the image. This made no sense to me, since alt text is only exposed to users of assistive technologies - it does not 'pop up' on mouse over.

I wondered if these were actually references to using the title attribute, which is revealed when a mouse user hovers over an image. What I discovered from looking at a few examples, is that some comic writers do both. Amazing Super Powers, which was referenced in the article that discussed this idea, is an example of this. A four-panel sequence that introduces the main character and sets the stage for upcoming activity has alt text and title text that says He's aliiiiive! (unlike most creatures around him). A screen reader would announce this text with no context, which is probably not helpful or interesting. Unfortunately, the story in the comic is not available to screen reader users, nor is the image text beneath which reads What happens next to our fearless hero? Play the game to find out!

I wish I could say that this misadventure in alt text was just one article and one comic, but unfortunately I saw a number of similar examples.

Key resource for comic alt text

Veronica Lewis has written a comprehensive article on How to write alt text for comics. Here are some quick points:

it's not necessary to mention that it's a comic if that would already be apparent from context

introduce the characters

share the dialog

describe what the characters are doing

it's not necessary to describe recurring characters in every post

She also describes in the article how she reads comics on Instagram, noting that she can only really read them if there is a separate image for each panel.

Veronica posts on Pinterest and at veroniiiica.com about a wide-ranging array of topics such as a review of the Marvel Comics App as a low vision reader, using pillow pets as assistive technology, and low vision horror stories in six words or less. Also, if you ever wondered why the drive-up ATM has braille, she's got that covered as well!

Text transcript

While alt text can be the right strategy for describing simple multi-panels or single panel comics, many webcomics have a bigger story to tell. And, quite often, the panels are presented in a single image, not as separate images. The best solution for making these comics accessible is to take a page from the time-based media (i.e. audio and video content) play book and add a transcript. Transcripts make your content available to screen readers, but also to braille output devices and search engine crawlers. They can also be easily translated, so your comic can be read by fans all around the world.

Option 1 - Basic Transcript

Robot Hugs is a webcomic that approaches difficult topics such as mental health, relationships, identity and social issues with insightful humor. The author includes a transcript below the comic in an accordion area that is visible but collapsed so a sighted user can easily skip over it to the content below. The transcript is exactly that - the text in the panels is reproduced in a format that is available to users of assistive technologies. If a screen reader could read the comic, this is exactly what would be announced. The alt attribute contains the title of the comic.

This is a totally valid approach and it definitely gets the basic idea of the comic across. I personally found the transcripts for this comic to be a little more sparse than I would have liked. Although I appreciate the inclusion of the transcript, if it was all I had access to I probably would not find this comic nearly as interesting as a sighted reader would. The thing that makes comics special and distinct from prose is, in fact, the information that is conveyed in the images.

As an experiment, I opened a few comics and went directly to the transcript without looking at the images. I often found it difficult to understand which character was talking, because the speaker for each bit of text is not identified as they would be in a well presented podcast transcript, for example. Also, when I looked at the panels of the comic after reading the transcript, I often found that there were panels that conveyed information without any text, but they had been skipped over in the transcript. Sometimes there was non-conversational text, such as "2 hours later", that was not included in the transcript. So, as great as it was to have a transcript, I think if there was a little more information this comic could be more fully enjoyed by a screen reader user.

Example of a basic transcript

Here is an example transcript from a Robot Hugs comic titled Despair:

These problems are too big. We'll never solve them in time.
They're big but lots of people care. I am one of those people.
-
If you're not helping in the best, most efficient way, you shouldn't even bother.
When I see a better way, I'll do that. Perfect is the enemy of good.
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You're just wasting your time.
Time spent caring is never wasted.
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You can't get rid of me, you know.
I know I can't get rid of you.
But I don't have to feed you.
And I'm gonna keep moving.
You'll have to keep up.

If you follow the link above, you'll see that there are two speakers, the protagonist and a gigantic purple monster that is trying to smother them while taunting them. I think that knowing this information would have made the transcript more helpful to me.

Option 2 - Text transcript with details

Two nice examples of comics that provide a transcript with additional descriptive details are Postcards in Braille and Walking To Do. Postcards in Braille ran for about 4 years with a story line about a university graduate named Sigma, and his girlfriend, Xi, and his best friend, Rho, as Sigma (who is blind) makes his way through the world of independent life after university. Walking To Do is a somewhat autobiographical webcomic recently started by the same author. Both of these comics include a fully visible transcript below the comic. Each panel is enumerated and described in a separate paragraph. In addition to the text of the conversation there are descriptive details about the context, the physical surroundings, who is speaking. Panels that include no text or conversation are described with enough detail for a reader to understand what is going on.

Again, I experimented by going directly to the transcript of a few comics, then looking at the panels afterwards. I didn't find anything important that I had missed in the description, I just was able to enjoy the drawings along with the story line. These were comics that I could imagine following as a comics enthusiast who is blind or low vision. In addition, readers who might have difficulty understanding relationships or social context from images alone might have an easier time understanding the story. The story line is fully conveyed by the the transcript and description provided.

Example of transcript with details

Here is an example of a transcript with additional details from a Postcards in Braille comic called Omni's Got Talent:
Panel 1: Rho's apartment. Rho and Xi are sitting on the couch, watching TV (off-panel). A caption coming from the TV says "On today's episode of "Omni's Got Talent..."". Rho is holding his head with both hands in awe, and says "Whoaaaaa" in big, bold letters. Xi is just raising her eyebrows with a neutral expression. Panel 2: Sigma is carefully chopping a potato in the kitchen. Rho says (off-panel), "Dude, there's a guy on TV chopping onions with a blindfold on!!". Sigma replies, "Sounds cool, Rho..." Panel 3: Sigma quickly chopping potatoes with a blank expression.
In this case, upon looking at the illustrated comic I found that the transcript had provided all of the information I needed. It was clear who was speaking, sufficient context was provided so that I knew where each character was was located and what they were doing.

Key resource for comic transcript

Cordelia McGee-Tubb gave a fun and thought-provoking talk titled Accessible Comics!!! as part of the online conference Inclusive Design 24 in June 2017. I have to thank my friends on the WebAIM forum for suggesting this! The title of this post is an homage to her webcast, which sent me off in many new learning tangents that are reflected here. If you don't have time to listen to the whole show (although you should!), some excellent notes on Cordelia's webinar were posted by Lireo Designs or you can take a pass through the slide deck.

Cordelia is a Master of Comics - for real, she has a degree! You can tell she is a master when she starts talking about ComicsML, procedurally generated comics and tactile comics. She is also a web developer and accessibility advocate. You can find some of her own comics (with transcripts, of course) and links to talks she has given on a variety of topics related to comics and accessibility at her website, cordeliadillon.com.

Full description text

For comics with a lot of subtlety, complexity and visual detail, it might be desirable to provide more information than is typically included in a transcript. In this case, a full description of the story would provide the best experience for people who can't see all of the visual details. An example of this treatment was mentioned in Cordelia McGee-Tubb's talk that I mentioned above.

Broodhollow is a horror/adventure comic set in the 1930s in a fictional American town. Full detailed descriptions of the comic have been provided not by the artist, but by a reader who describes comics for a friend who is blind. Liana Kerr, who wrote the descriptions, contacted the comic's artist with her work and now her text descriptions of Broodhollow comics are available for everyone.

Examples of full description text

Here is an example of descriptive text for the second row of panels for an episode of the Broodhollow comic called All Aboard:
Panel 4: Zane is at a train station, walking backwards and grimacing as he pulls his heavy trunk, one leg out to the side in a cartoonish pose. He's wearing a button-up shirt, suspenders, pants and a hat, and beads of sweat are jumping off his face. He's near Platform C, and clocks in the area show that it's 8:01. Although it's a large station there are only two other people at this end, a man in a suit with a suitcase in each hand walking further down the platform, and a uniformed porter checking a pocket watch. Panel 5: As Zane passes the porter, he asks "Excuse me! Is this the train for Broodhollow?" Panel 6: The porter points to the left, and Zane looks in that direction. His eager gaze is represented cartoonishly, with a dotted line. The porter says, "Nope. That is." Panel 7: The train the porter was pointing to is a bright red train with gold accents. It looks like it's quite old, and it's covered with blotchy rust or dirt. The porter says "She's actually the last train in service on that gauge of track." Zane replies "I'm, uh. Honored." The previous panels showing the sky have rendered it in a shade of light blue, but in this panel the sky is a shade of light teal, giving it a subtly eerie feeling.
The example above demonstrates the attention given to subtle details about the context and surroundings for each panel. I find it very much like reading a book. While most of the episodes include conversation, at the end of Book two the story becomes almost entirely visual. In an episode called The Cairns the protagonist, Zane, enters a mysterious chamber. Below is the text description for just one panel:
Panel 3: A closer view of the pile of stones, or the cairn. It appears to be about four feet high and is made of several wide, thin stones piled on top of each other. The form is far too uniform and well-balanced to have been created by nature. There are smaller stones near the top, over which the small blue light hovers. Seen closer, there's one larger light surrounded by a nebulous cloud of smaller, fainter lights. The pattern of abstract red lines reaches from the base to the top of the stones, and appears to have been painted on. The pattern doesn't resemble anything, but could be described as a tall, thin X shape with several extra lines coming from the center and from the ends of the X, or perhaps as an extremely abstract tree-like shape. It seems to be the same pattern as was on the creature that Zane saw on his trip back from the hospital in Book 1. A couple of the other cairns are visible, and although the red pattern is not visible on them they have the glowing blue lights at the tip. There are a few small stones on the floor, but aside from that the floor is perfectly flat, and there's no green patches or mushrooms on the floor or on the walls. The light source to the left causes the cairns and the small rocks on the ground to cast long shadows to the right.
Since the text description is provided by a reader, not the author, the writer's uncertainty about what she is seeing and what might be important is clear. I thought that this might actually be a better way for a blind follower of the series to experience the story than a description from the author, who already knows much more than the reader. Her underlying uncertainty served to present the sense of mystery within the story line.

Key resource for comic full description

Liana Kerr, the author of the text descriptions for Broodhollow, wrote a an article titled On Describing Comics where she goes into details of her process. It's very thoughtful and reveals the broad array of considerations that come into play when writing the descriptions. Below are a few of the points that I found especially interesting.

small details often turn out to be important later on, so she tries to describe everything that's new or relevant

in addition to what the characters are doing or saying, she might describe body language or an overall tone or mood of the panel, which could be conveyed by a change in the background color

providing a high level of detail in her descriptions may reveal things that many sighted readers might overlook, rendering a somewhat different experience

there is a danger of the descriptions becoming too clinical and losing the mood of the comic

Although I only read a few episodes from each book, I definitely found that I was more aware of details after reading the descriptions. Liana says it took her about fifteen minutes to write the description for each episode.

Yes, Accessible Comics!!!

There are many ways of supporting blind and low-vision comic fans, both in terms of the technical approach and the prose. One of the people who responded to my question in the WebAIM forum note that watching Cordelia McGee-Tubb's talk had changed the way he thought about alt text in general. I can definitely say the same. This has been a great exercise for thinking about what is important in an image, and how that can change with context.

I hope this somewhat lengthy post has been as much fun for you as it was for me.

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In a recent newsletter, Last Call Media introduced a new feature. Colin Panetta, our Director of UX/UI, has many talents and one of them is drawing comics. He has lately focused that talent on the Yeti character that you can find all over our site.

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Activity: Think of some visual symbols/descriptions we could use to describe our church and our values!

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Activity: Think of some visual symbols/descriptions we could use to describe our church and our values!

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Legend of Korra TURF WARS Part 1 live reading

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Legend of Korra TURF WARS Part 1 live reading

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How does hearing the voice actors reading the comic affect how you experience the comic? (SPOILERS FOR THE END OF LEGEND OF KORRA!)

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Legend of Korra  TURF WARS  Part 1 live reading

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Look at this alphabet from the Netflix series: She-Ra. What does this alphabet say about "the First Ones." If you had to design an alphabet, what would it look like? What does your handwriting look like?

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Making Comics with Graphic Novelist Nate Powell 

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Making Comics with Graphic Novelist Nate Powell 

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Making Comics with Graphic Novelist Nate Powell (MARCH, COME AGAIN) | [Indi]android Ep. 18

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Superhero Comic Artist Behind the Scenes

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Superhero Comic Artist Behind the Scenes

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Superhero Comic Artist: Behind the Scenes

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Professional comic artist Sean Chen, a comic creator for 20 years, shares his secrets for drawing stand-out superhero covers from Spider-Man and Iron Man to Wolverine. Watch as he creates a superhero cover of "Off Duty" host, Wendy Bounds. Subscribe to WSJ Live HERE: http://bit.ly/Kpz7Ab WSJ Live brings you original programming from The Wall Street Journal.

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Do you agree? What is YOUR favorite superhero logo?

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Top 15 Superhero Logos of All Time - Tailor Brands

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Are you looking for superhero logo ideas or inspiration? We've gathered a list of the world's most iconic designs. Check it out here!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Look down! Look down! There are updates to see!

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Hey, Graphic Novels friends! Don't forget to scroll down to see all our fun updates!

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this comic is one of my favorite pieces of art ever

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this comic is one of my favorite pieces of art ever https://t.co/tgT0XNBgq6

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this comic is one of my favorite pieces of art ever pic.twitter.com/tgT0XNBgq6
— salem (@vodkaoatmilk) September 30, 2020

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this comic is one of my favorite pieces of art ever https://t.co/tgT0XNBgq6

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this comic is one of my favorite pieces of art ever https://t.co/tgT0XNBgq6

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this comic is one of my favorite pieces of art ever

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10/25 Assignment: Design Your Own Superhero Symbol!

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10/25 Assignment: Design Your Own Superhero Symbol!

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Bring it (and your Lego blocks!) to class on 11/1

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Emanata and Symbols in Comics

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"What is "Emanta"? And were you cursing?!" No, those are Grawlixes, and think emoticons.
Emanata and Grawlixes are symbolic icons. They are just two names for a few examples, of a wide array of symbolic little cartoon elements and various other parts of comics, described thoroughly in the satirical but also utterly functional Lexicon of Comicana by Mort Walker! As well as mentioned in most decent texts since.

Emanata are typically found close to the head of characters, and used in comics to describe feelings, states of mind, thoughts? Or even editorial commentary on the part of the author sometimes! 😉

Here below are a few examples from Mort Walker out of the book. They bring a lot of utility in quick expression, and let the artists off the hook just a little when it comes to capturing mood with pantomime and acting.

Posted here as well is this is a really nice simple example given of a few from DW-WP!

Matt Madden did one of his ' 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style ' comics too!

And this one is by Howard Simpson! He also listed some of them in a post here! That probably gives you a good idea, but note there is a lot of room for invention here. Fill a sketchbook page or two inventing some of your own!

Grawlix are typographical symbols like @#$%&! used in cartoons and comic strips to represent swear words. Plural: grawlixes. Also known I read as jarns, nittles, and obscenicons? Ok. This one is all new to me! Grawlixes are described as usually appearing in ' maledicta balloons '. It's fun learning their are already names for things you've used for years! 🙂

Both can be found in The Lexicon of Comicana (1980) by Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey! Done for fun it's reputedly an indispensable little text.

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"What is "Emanta"? And were you cursing?!" No, those are Grawlixes, and think emoticons. Emanata and Grawlixes are symbolic icons. They are just two names for a few examples, of a wide array of symbolic little cartoon elements and various other parts of comics, described thoroughly in the satirical but also utterly functional Lexicon of Comicana by Mort Walker!

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10/25 Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World

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10/25 Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World

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The Bestiary in the Medieval World

A kind of encyclopedia of animals, the bestiary was among the most popular illuminated texts in northern Europe during the Middle Ages (about 500-1500). Because medieval Christians understood every element of the world as a manifestation of God, the book largely focused on each animal's religious meaning. The bestiary brought creatures both real and fantastic to life before the reader's eyes, offering devotional inspiration as well as entertainment.

The beasts and their tales became so familiar that they often escaped from the pages to inhabit an array of works of art, ranging from ivories and metalwork to stained glass and tapestries. The bestiary also provided the basis for the emerging field of natural history in the late Middle Ages and established a far-reaching legacy that still impacts the visual arts today.

This exhibition, the first ever dedicated to the bestiary, gathers together more than a hundred works from institutions across the United States and Europe, including one-third of the world's surviving illuminated bestiaries. These works of art are a vibrant testimony to the power of the medieval imagination.

Animals as Symbols: The Case of the Unicorn

Unicorn from Ashmole Bestiary (text in Latin), English, about 1210-1220, artist unknown. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Ms. Ashmole 1511, fol. 14v

The bestiary was one of the most popular sources of information on animals in the Middle Ages. It presented real and legendary creatures as living allegories, with their physical and behavioral characteristics symbolizing central aspects of the Christian faith. A prime example is the unicorn, a pure creature whose tale of capture and killing was associated with the biblical narrative of Christ's death for the salvation of humanity. The unicorn became one of the most beloved animals in art of the period, largely due to its connection to Christ. This quintessentially medieval beast serves as an introduction to the exhibition by underscoring how the bestiary played a vital role in establishing animal stories and their Christian connotations in the minds of audiences.

The Bestiary: Text and Image

Adam Naming the Animals from Northumberland Bestiary (text in Latin), English, about 1250-1260, artist unknown. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 100 (2007.16), fol. 5v

Medieval bestiaries contained anywhere from a few dozen to more than a hundred descriptions of animals, each accompanied by an iconic image. Although the essential elements of the text and imagery associated with each creature remained largely consistent across manuscripts, the bestiary was not a standardized book. The selection and order of the beasts varied, though many bestiaries divided them into a hierarchy of land animals, birds, serpents, and sea creatures. Some descriptions explained an animal's Christian significance, such as the unicorn as a symbol for Christ, while others focused on physical characteristics.

The aim of the stories and illuminations was not to impart factual information or visual accuracy but rather to convey the wonder, variety, or hidden meaning found in the natural world. Originally, the bestiary was intended for religious education within the church, but it was eventually sought after by wealthy member of society for devotional reading as well as entertainment. The bestiary was also translated from Latin in other languages, notably French, further extending its popular reach.

Beyond the Bestiary

Sculpture with Pelicans, Western European, 1500's, artist unknown, painted linden and willow wood. Swiss National Museum, Zurich, LM-3972, DIG-10683

The bestiary's stories and images were so popular that medieval artists readily adapted them for other kinds of manuscripts as well as various works of art ranging from diminutive ivory carvings to enormous tapestries. Because many bestiary animals communicated complex religious messages, they often appeared in liturgical and devotional contexts where worshippers could easily link them to Christian ideology.

In addition, the well-known characteristics associated with numerous beasts-the unicorn, the elephant, and the fox, among others-were effortlessly appropriated for secular works made for the elite realm of the court. Over time, the memorable creatures that were central to the bestiary tradition pervaded the visual vocabulary of the medieval world, becoming some of the most common symbols in art of the period.

Even beyond the European Christian tradition, the use of animals as allegories for human virtues and vices was a widespread phenomenon that underscores the capacity of beasts to serve as moral exemplars.

Manuscript Illumination: Creation and Copying

Hunter; Beaver (detail) from a model book, French, about 1230-1250, artist unknown. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Gift of Philip Hofer in honor of Roger S. Wieck, 1983, Ms. Typ 101, fol. 13

Medieval manuscript illumination was all done by hand. First the artist, or illuminator, created a line drawing with lead point or ink. Next, areas to receive gold or silver were covered with a sticky material such as refined red clay or tree sap, over which the metal leaf was laid. Then tempera colors were applied, working from paler to darker hues. These paints were made from various colorants-ground minerals and metals, plant-based dyes, and chemically produced pigments-mixed with water and a binding medium, usually egg white or gum. Lastly, details such as black outlines and white highlights were added. Illumination was integral to the bestiary genre. The majority of surviving copies are illuminated, with images on almost every page. In fact, bestiaries have a higher ratio of image to text than most other types of medieval manuscripts. Moreover, there are groups of bestiaries with remarkably similar illuminations, suggesting that they were copied from one book to the next. This fidelity to a particular set of images is relatively rare, setting the illuminating practice in the bestiary tradition apart from other manuscript genres in Europe during the Middle Ages.

The Bestiary and Natural History

Grid with Nine Animals (detail) from On the Properties of Things (text in French), French, about 1400-1415; artist unknown, author, Bartholomaeus Anglicus. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA, HM 27523, fol. 228

The medieval bestiary was never intended as a scientific work, but much of its lore was eventually incorporated in to nascent field of natural history. The period of the bestiary's greatest popularity (1100-1300) corresponded with a movement toward the creation of encyclopedias intended to gather together all knowledge. Many of these included a section devoted to animals, which relied heavily on the bestiary but often stripped away the Christian symbolism.

At the same time, the European conception of the world was being broadened by a growth in trade and travel that increasingly linked the West with other parts of the globe. In the developing field of cartography, maps and navigational charts represented the world's creatures in their respective regions. Mapped species included legendary people believed to live beyond the bound of Europe, which fascinated medieval audiences. The stories popularized through the bestiary continued to influence natural history texts and images well into the sixteenth century.

Legacy of the Bestiary

Sit, Stand, Kneel, 2019, Janet Macpherson, slip-cast porcelain, paper clay, gold lustre, and plaster. Collection of the artist, created with support from the Canadian Council for the Arts. © Janet Macpherson

In the visual arts, the rich legacy of the bestiary lasted far beyond the Middle Ages. Twentieth-century artists revived the pairing of animal imagery and text, calling their creations "bestiaries" after the medieval example. Today the term often refers to any collection of descriptions of animals, whether in words or images, but not necessarily with associated allegories or Christian connotations. Modern bestiaries, as well as contemporary works of art made in an array of media, draw on the medieval tradition while also introducing elements from the artists' own time and place.

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Animals tumble, soar, and race through the pages of the bestiary, a popular type of medieval book describing the beasts of the world. Abounding with vibrant and fascinating images, the bestiary brought real and fantastical creatures to life for readers.

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10/25 Australian Aboriginal Art Symbols and Their Meaning

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10/25 Australian Aboriginal Art Symbols and Their Meaning

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Australian Aboriginal Art Symbols & Meanings - Japingka Gallery

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Australian Aboriginal artists use symbols to express the stories of their culture. Understanding the meaning behind symbols requires context.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum

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10/11 Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages

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10/11 Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages

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Welcome to the world of comic art, where a wide variety of visual and narrative storytelling styles have evolved from panels in early newspapers to contemporary comic images. Through unique original drawings and printed pages, this exhibition features the artistic skills of master artists and emerging talents who have created some of the most famous, funny, and frightening characters to appear in print.

One early comic figure, the Yellow Kid, debuted in a full-size panel in the color pages of the New York World newspaper in 1895 and sparked the rise of comics as a popular new American art form. By the mid-1900s, in addition to the growing number of mainstream comic creators, diverse independent artists were creating comic art that examined their own life stories and commented on culture and politics. These innovators and change makers expanded the art form to include mini comics, graphic novels, fanzines, and web comics.

The lively visual content, dramatic narrative, and strong character development found in comics have attracted devoted audiences who follow the latest installment in whatever format the story appears. Over time, comic art and its characters have permeated film, television, books, and marketing-making characters familiar to viewers who may or may not read comics themselves.

The generous support of the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon and gifts in kind from the Small Press Expo have made this exhibition possible. All works are from the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division and the Serial and Government Publications Division at the Library of Congress.

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Explore | Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages | Exhibitions at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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Welcome to the world of comic art, where a wide variety of visual and narrative storytelling styles have evolved from panels in early newspapers to contemporary comic images. Through unique original drawings and printed pages, this exhibition features the artistic skills of master artists and emerging talents who have created some of the most famous, funny, and frightening characters to appear in print.

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10/11 How Does the Met Decide Where to Hang Art?

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10/11 How Does the Met Decide Where to Hang Art?

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum

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#MetKids-How Does the Met Decide How and Where to Hang the Art?

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Go behind the scenes with Sophie, age 10, as she learns about the choices curators make when they decide what art to put on view.

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Review significant moments in art history from all over the globe. For each of the six regions below there are three or four timelines, each covering a specific era. The timelines feature brief summaries of important events in the visual arts; many of the summaries are accompanied by an image, and all link to articles in Grove Art Online for further reading.

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Review significant moments in art history from all over the globe. For each of the six regions below there are three or four timelines, each covering a specific era. The timelines feature brief summaries of important events in the visual arts; many of the summaries are accompanied by an image, and all link to articles in Grove Art Online for further reading.

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10/11: How Can Art Tell Us About Who We Are

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10/11: How Can Art Tell Us About Who We Are

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum

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#MetKids-How Can Art Tell Us About Who We Are?

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What is art for? Alain de Botton's animated guide | Art and design

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The complex geometry of Islamic design - Eric Broug

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Calvin and Hobbes is the greatest newspaper comic strip ever. In honor of the strip, I have accumulated 25 of my favorite C&H strips. I was going to do 100 strips, then 50 but I didn't want any mediocre strips on my list, I wanted the best of the best. So here we go starting at 25 and going down.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

25.

It's probably a little hard to read, but this in my opinion is the best Calvin and Hobbes poem ever.

24.

I love the artwork in this one. No one but Bill Watterson could possibly draw something as awesome as that.

23.

All the fake information stories are always great. This is one of the best. My favorite part is at the end when Calvin wants to be as smart as his dad.

22.

Another of the fake stories from dad. Definitely a classic strip.

21.

When summer comes along, Calvin earned the right to say this.

Here we go, the infamous classical music strip. There is no need for words, the pictures speak for themselves.

19.

18.

6.

Another infamous C&H strip. I don't even get why Watterson used it. To promote anti-smoking? Calvin's mom would never let him smoke.

5.

This one is hilarious. I love the first panel on the bottom, Calvin's eyes are awesome.

4.

Many consider this to be the first funny C&H strip. And funny it is indeed.

3.

These last three are some of my other first favorites. This one is just a normal joke, but it is hilarious.

2.

Heh, this doesn't even sound like the dad at all. "Party Naked T-Shirt and a keg". You gotta love it.

1.

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Calvin and Hobbes is the greatest newspaper comic strip ever. In honor of the strip, I have accumulated 25 of my favorite C&H strips. I was going to do 100 strips, then 50 but I didn't want any mediocre strips on my list, I wanted the best of the best.

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A family comic strip about a boy, his Mastiff best friend, and his two dads.

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9/27: Audrey's Magic Nine Ch. 1: Approval

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9/27: Audrey's Magic Nine Ch. 1: Approval

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The Magic Nine Free Online Web Comic by Penny Farthing Productions

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Chapter One - Approval Archives - The Magic Nine Free Online Web Comic by Penny Farthing Productions

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We should break out the wine and celebrate. Well, in this case we should probably break out the sparkling grape juice instead 🙂 Also be sure to vote for us on TWC to see this week's sketch.

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Start here to learn about comic books!

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Graphic Novels vs. Comic Books || What is the difference?

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9/27: What is a graphic novel? Here's a great description!

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9/27: What is a graphic novel? Here's a great description!

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After reading this, go explore some webcomics and graphic novels!