I've been thinking about ways to keep OJ stuff coming out between episodes, and maybe an ongoing comic series is the way to do it. I used to publish an independent comic waaaaay back in the day (maybe I'll scan some pages from Shadowtown and post 'em someday), and with Comic Life the production time involved would be much quicker than animating.

I wrote a script for a 20-page comic that I think works as an Orlando's Joint comic book spin-off (I'll see if I still dig it in a couple days). I'll keep working the comic idea as I finish up the OJ DVD -- right now I'm thinking it'll be digital, with new pages posted on the sight twice a week. BLAM! POW!

One of my pet interests in archaeology is utilized glass, that is, glass that has been repurposed for cutting or scraping.  One of the best examples of this are the glass points of Ishi, a collection that I studied and wrote up during my first year of grad school.  Since then I haven't worked much with utilized glass, so it came as a lovely surprise to find so much of it at Kalaupapa.  James and I planned and collected a large scatter that came up as at least 50% utilized after we looked at it in the lab.

We washed all the glass, then sorted and drew pieces that were either utilized or had identifying marks on them.  A lot of the glass looked really modern, as in, about 100 years old or so.  You can figure out a bottle's age by color and by morphology, particularly by how the bottle's neck and base were fixed to the body.  If you'd like to find out more about how to do this, one of the best references is the Parks Canada Glass Glossary, available here.

But we going "chicken blind" (as my darling Serbian friend Marina would term it) and we were starting to doubt our analyses.  So we did a little experimental archaeology.

Thanks Colleen.

Functional Writing

Reading - Summary

I was also able to talk about how we have used it in Imaginative Writing, Science, Blogging and Communicating with Stakeholders...

What an excellent tool.

Hurrah!  Those lovely folks in their ICT tower have installed comic life on all our network machines.  It was previously only on my classroom pc, which is now dead.  This will enable us to work with whole classes when using comic life, rather than just working with the class as a whole.  Does that even make sense?

Planning to use it for:

• Writing: instructions (functional), games guide (functional), comic story strip (imaginative).
• Reading: giving a review of a story, or summarising main points
• Other subjects: alternative way to report back in science etc... to then be put into jotters, or blogged.
• Blogging

Any other suggestions?

In his chapter "The Cognitive Style of Power Point: Pitching Out Corrupts Within" from Beautiful Evidence (September, 2003) Edward Tufte lays out an argument that Power Point (PP) is not content oriented or audience oriented (p. 158). There were many points made in this chapter by Tufte that I agree with as a teacher. 

One argument that Tufte makes is that PP "reduces the intellectual level of the content passing through the system" (p. 158). I completely agree with this statement.  Even at the middle school level I have found that when students use PP to present their learnings they don't fully understand the information they have put on their slides. Why is this? I believe it is because students have become very good at pulling out facts from a textbook and putting then into a bullet point slide with out really thinking about those facts and the importance of the facts to their research questions.  

It is for this reason that I have banned PP from my classroom. Instead I like to give students a bucket list of software choices that they can choose from when it comes time to make a multimedia product in my classroom. This list usually includes software such as Comic Life, iWeb, GarageBand, MediaBlender, and Pages to name a few.  I think these software options allow students to create products that lead higher levels of thinking.  For example if students are making a podcast one of the requirements is that they write a script. When writing a script students have to take their research information and analyze and synthesie it in order for the script to make sense.

Power Point is a boring presentation tool.  Below I have attached two examples of poems that my students wrote using Comic Life.  I think it easy for people to see why I had the students use Comic Life and not PP to present their poems.  These poems are much more engaging and interesting to look at than a Power Point slide.

I do disagree some with Tufte when he says that "it is scandalous that there is no coherent software for serious presentations" (p. 183).  This might be true in the business world, but in the school setting I have found that there are plenty of other tools for students to use to create presentations.  Should schools be teaching PP any more? Who knows, but for me and my classes we are going to focus on different tools that promote critical thinking and engagement.

No prizes for guessing how.

But this is a good place to start.

Anyway, here's my sample sheet. I haven't decided which look I'm going for. Opinions welcome, state your preferences if you have any. My story's probably going to be about loneliness and bereavement, so something sombre is required.

More posts will follow.

Lantas, naah ini yang terbaru, tadi siang saya ketemu link ke toondoo.com. Ini juga layanan membuat komik yang keren punya.  Hebatnya, dia juga dilengkapi dengan RSS bagi yang mau berlangganan komik anda. Bisa juga di embed ke beberapa layanan blog baik dengan flash maupun html. Siapa bilang bikin komik itu susah? ;)

Ini salah satu buatan saya dengan tema "Baju Seragam Koruptor" (hehe.. teteeeuupp). Versi yang lebih besarnya ada di blog komik saya di rane.wordpress.com.   Selamat mencoba!

Kategorie: Fotografie
Erschienen: 10.07.2008
Sprache: Englisch, Französisch
Entwickler: plasq LLC
Preis: 3,99€
Geeignet für: iPhone/iPod Touch

-Download-

1,8 MB stehen im iTunes App Store zum laden bereit:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284959707&mt=8

-Installation-

Das Tool ist sehr zügig geladen und ist auch zeitnah installiert.

-Programmumfang-

Comic Touch die abgespeckte Version von Comic Life fürs iPhone. Bei Comic Life hat man die Möglichkeit komplette Comics zu erstelen. Es geht los von der Seitenaufteilung bis hin zu Comic selbst. So umfangreich ist Comic Touch natürlich nicht. Bei Comic Touch kann man Foto/Bild zu Komic werden lassen. Aber von vorn:

Zuerst wird man gefragt, ob man ein Bild per Camera aufnehmen will, oder sich eins aus der Photo Library aussuchen möchte. Wenn man das gewünschte Bild gewählt hat stehen einem (am unteren Rand des Touchscreens) vier verschiedene Sprechblasen-Typen zur Auswahl (sprechen, denken, flüstern oder rufen/schreien) zur Verfügung. Damit kann man dem Bild dann seinen Comic-touch verleihen. Lass die Bilder sprechen kann hier das Motto sein. Ein Viereckiges Kästchen zum befüllen ist auch noch da, als Überschrift oder ähnliches tauglich. Wählt man die Sprechblase seiner Wahl aus, kann man Sprechblase an den Ort seiner Wahl hinschieben und dann die Sprechblasen Zuordnung durch ziehen des (ich nenne es mal) Zipfel in Richtung der sprechenden Person eindeutlig festlegen. Zum ausfüllen der Sprechblase muss man kurz doppelt drauf Tippen. Schon öffnet sich eine neue Seite, wo man nun seinen Text eingeben kann. Die Blase vergrößert sich automatisch mit dem Textinhalt. Hat man den Text fertig, bestätigt man mit "Done", darauf hin gelangt man zu den Details, dort kann man noch die Schriftgröße und das Blasen/Textverhältnis von schwarz/weiss zu weiss/schwarz ändern. Ist man auch damit fertig geht man über "Back" zurück zum Bild und sieht nun die ausgefüllte Blase. Und so gestaltet man nun das Bild seiner Wahl. Oben am Touchscreen stehen dann folgende 5 Buttons zur Verfügung: Neues Bild, EfFects (hier kann 5 Bildeffekte: Aufwölbung, Beule, Enge, Stretschen und Heiligenschein zum Bild entfremden aussuchen, welche sich im jeweiligen Bild dann auch noch verschieben lassen), Sharing (Bild mit Email versenden oder ins auf einen Wbspace per Email hochladen), Comics Archiv (hier sind alle erstellten Comics zu finden) und natürlich Mülleimer zum löschen des Bildes.

So, das war jetzt die Funktionen im schnell Durchlauf. Alles in allem ein sehr umfangreiches Tool, welches aber natürlich noch Verbesserungspotential hat.

-Der (tägliche) Gebrauch-

Klar, vom täglichen Gebrauch kann ich nicht sprechen. Aber ich finde s Lustig, wenn ich freunden anstatt ein normales Bild auch mal schnell ein Comic senden kann. Oder wie kürzlich habe ich einem Freundeskreis so mal schnell eine lsutige Einladung zu einer Feier genastelt und per Mail zukommen lassen. Es lassen sich wirklich erstaunlich viele Bilder damit aufpeppen und persönlicher bzw. Aussagekräftiger erstellen. Wenn man eine künstlerische Ader hat, ist das für den iPod Touch oder das iPhone ein nettes Tool.

-Vor- und Nachteile-

+ Schnell erstellbares Comic
+ sehr einfach zu bedienen und übersichtlich
+ gute ausgereifte Effekte
+ unschlagbares Partytool

- Farbenauswahl für Sprechblasen zu gering
- Die Formen der Blasen lassen sich nicht selbst bestimmen/anpassen

-FAZIT-

Klasse Tool. Für 3.99€ ein faires App. Klar sind hier und da noch ein paar Verbesserungen notwendig, aber im nächsten Update sollte das dann schon mit drin sein. Ich selbst finde das Tool klasse und setze es immer öfter ein. Als mobilen Ersatz für Comic Life kann man es natürlich nicht sehen, aber diesen Anspruch will es ja auch gar nicht erfüllen. 

Wertung in Schulnoten: 2

A nice program to use which is available on both Mac & PC. For a free 30 day trial for Windows click here!

Do you use Comic Life? How good do you think it is?

I also see on the website that a lite version is available for your Ipod Touch - how cool is that!

A oui! et c'est mon 100ème billet, il parait que ça se fête, alors faites péter les ficelles de string!!

We're not alone. Comic Life has sponsored this tour by providing a great draw give-away: free copies of Comic Life! This is a program that I personally have fallen in love with, and have used it as a unique way of blogging my author adventures. You can read a little about the sponsorship here.

So far, we've visited Chapters and Indigo in Kamloops and Banff.  Kamloops was fantastic, and they made us feel very welcome. The people we met there were interested in writing, and had some great questions. We would return there in a heartbeat.

Now we're in Calgary, with two venues planned for tomorrow. At 1pm we'll be presenting at Monkeyshines, and then at 7pm we'll be at Owl's Nest Bookstore. Thursday at 2pm we'll be at the Red Deer Library, and at 7pm we'll be at the Cochrane Library. Friday, we're back in Calgary at Pages on Kensington at 7pm. Then, on Saturday, come see us at Spirit Quest books in Salmon Arm! Then, for our final stop, we'll be in the Kelowna Chapters on Sunday at 6pm.

For more info hop on over to my blog.

Or kc's blog.

I think most Intel Mac's have Comic Life preinstalled. So anyway whats neat about it could be an awesome storyboarding tool, but the best thing is the multiple pictures per page idea, that would take a fair amout of effort in photoshop(or microsoft paint). Its gonna be pretty neat to tell a picture essay or story.

Imagining all the emails to home would now be in a single file, with neat little bubbles at an unobtrusive corner. Graphic novels now would be neat little picture stories. Anyway heres an example :

A squirrel in America that took a public bus.

Maybe that could be a pickup line.

Mac Tip : Ever wanted to take screenshots of your Mac? There is a shortcut for it : apple+shift+3 for the whole screen and apple+shift+4 for selected area.

]]> http://pikkipi.wordpress.com/?p=21 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:32:40 +0000 gordonpbaty http://pikkipi.fr.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/make-a-webcomic-without-the-need-for-drawing-skills/ If you wish to create a webcomic but don't have drawing skills, Pikkipi does the work for you - it allows you to make up different character models, put them in poses, and compose scenes that can be inserted into a webcomic.

You can add the speech bubbles and frame the shots using any design software - or better yet a comic layout program.  For example, a lot of Apple Macs come with Comic Life which is a very easy tool for laying out panels and text captions (you can get it for Windows too).

If you're interested in learning more about webcomics, here's a couple of links to check out:

BuzzComix
DrunkDuck

          Now that I know more I laugh at my naiveté. Writing for comics is work, don’t let that sound negative because its fun work. I have yet to publish a comic and in the 4 years that I’ve been learning to write, I’ve only scratched the surface but I know enough to be of help.

          For the next week or two I will be publishing a series of articles on the pitfalls that happen when anyone wants to write a comic with out a strong writing background. With that I give you the first mistake I made:

The Epic Idea

          The first idea for a comic I had was epic, the story was going to shake the industry to the core. Everyone would love it going to love it and it would rake in the cash! I had the plot figured out and the characters built. This story was going to be one for the ages, 78 issues minimum 150 if I really got into it. This was going to be awesome and I was pumped. Then the moment came where I sat in front of my laptop and drew a complete blank.

          This is a common mistake that most fledgling writers make and the second one in comic writing after “Writing comics, that’s easy”. There are a lot of problems that having an Epic idea can cause and it won’t be apparent until you get stuck on something. From there the common thing that happens is frustration and giving up on writing period. I don’t want that to happen so

here are the hiccups I’ve encountered with the Epic Idea, later on in the article I will discuss how to prevent these:

    *It can be overwhelming:

                   When I sat down at the laptop I realized that I didn’t know how         to start the story, what would be in the first issue or how many panels there were in a comic. It’s a mixture for writers block. If you know very little about comics, you’re going to run into this 800lb Gorilla Grod and you’re going to be tempted to quit before a single word is typed. It took me a good while to get past this block.

     *Details get lost:

                    My main character was the most popular girl in the school she   went to and everyone loved her. Why did everyone love here so much?  um… because she was cute? They just do okay!

                   Pick up almost any Teen romance movie and you’ll see my main     character in it. Why because she was just a general character, boring and bland. The lack of details gave her no personality and that made it hard to write her.

                   Details are the thing that can set a story apart from the other          books on the market. With the Epic Idea you’re seeing the big picture and details get tossed to the side. You’re more concerned with the plot twist in issue 25 and the action fight in issue 34. You don’t stop and think about the little things as to why your character is where they’re at and how they react to it. This just makes characters flat and plots cliché.

      *Problem selling the story:

                   Even though I put this as last, it was the first thing I did and   most likely you will try too. I hopped on Comic Publisher websites    and sent emails out. I never got a response and wondered why. Editors (or Interns) get hundreds of these a day and rarely do they read them. Some won’t at all for fear of being sued. I learned this after a while.

                    But if you’re lucky enough to run into Dan Didio and are asked to give a pitch, your epic wont be picked up.  Comic publishers do not want to take a chance on a full 78 issue run of a comic from a writer who hasn’t established him or herself. You could have the best idea in the world, however, the publisher doesn’t know if you’ll be able to stick with it or if the story will sell. If you are one of those unlucky people who can’t draw (like me) trying to sell this to an artist will also be difficult. An artist will be more likely to do a “one and done”.

Don’t let this list discourage you from writing comics or holding on to your epic idea. I’m positive it’s good, fantastic even, you just need to give it some love. As they say: Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (the book that made me want to write comics).

 Here are some ideas to help you get that epic published some day:

           -Come up with an idea that will be done with one issue or a short graphic novel. Keep the idea small, you can always come back to the idea and expand it from the first issue.

          -Work as if you were going to publish something yourself, as this will most likely be the case. You won’t get recognized as a comic writer unless you have something to show for it. Once you research the cost and realize that you will probably never see a profit from it, coming up with a short one issue story will come easy to you.

          -If you can’t think of an idea, start writing short stories like you did in grade school or high school. These can be bad, have little to no structure to them, the key is to get you thinking and working. The more you work at writing and coming up with ideas the more you’re going to have. An added bonus to this is you can go back to your short stories and see if you can pick something out of them and you can expand upon them. This step will also help you with another upcoming article.

          -Don’t only have one idea up your sleeve. You can have the general idea of something you’d want to do later but make sure you make note of it. This will open you up to have more chances to be published. A Publisher might like your idea of the epic but they might want to see something else and they will ask you if you have something you could pitch them. Always have a second pitch (and third, no use having a fourth).

          -Write a short comic biased in the world your epic is in. Lets face it, if you’re like me you already have the world created and you know most things about it. Write a story that takes place before your epic events happens or take a character and place them in another situation. Not only does this get you a “one and done” as they say but you’ve also taking your first steps towards character development.

          As you can see I’m still writing for comics, even after I found out there was more to it then I had expected. Why would I do it? Well I found out that I love comics, I always thought it would be fun to write a comic but that would have only after I made it in Hollywood. That didn’t happen and comics moved to what I thought an easy way to get into the movie industry. I’ve come to terms with it not being so, but because of my naiveté I learned how amazing telling story through juxtaposition can be (juxtaposition: fancy word of putting pictures side by side, learn it you’ll see it more often). Reading graphic novels by Alan Moore, Brian K. Vaughan, James Robinson, and Geoff Johns has only fueled my passion to write. Not only for comics but for other things like screenplays and novels, it is an addiction and a drive.

For more about writing in the field of comics check out:

-         Writing for Comics with Peter David

-         Reading Comics by Scott McCloud

Next Article: Writing With Out Experience

The participants were students from grade 1-12 (SD, SMP, & SMU), with total participants were more than 200 students. It was interesting to see the result of the competition, since most of them have no experience in using Comic Life before.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6486055849026464007&hl=en]

At the weekend, I was noodling around with Comic Life, which came with my lovely work-issue MacBook Pro. I had some "making of" pictures from the search video shoot and thought I'd have a go at making them into a comic. It doesn't have much narrative flow because that's not what the pictures were taken for but I think with the right story and the right pictures, this method has legs.

What do you think?

5. Uncanny X-Men

          Ed Brubaker took this title over about a year and a half ago but it teetered the fence of mediocrity for quite some time. It wasn’t until after Messiah Complex where this title really sprang to life. It took Brubaker about a year to work on getting a cast of characters he wanted as he got rid of the ones he didn’t want but did so in a way that was acceptable and fit the story.

            Now that Brubaker has the cast he wants, the story has been picking up. Like all Brubaker titles, Uncanny started out as very decompressed, however; Brubaker is incorporating some elements of Morrison’s run on New X-men which is forcing him to tighten his run. In recent issues I’ve finished a Uncanny issue thinking that something actually happened. I think that might have something to do with Matt Fraction coming onto the title with Brubaker, but I’m not sure.

            The art for Uncanny of late has been really fantastic, Michael Choi is the current artist and with each issue I keep finding myself just concentrating on the art. Granted he does seem to come out of the Top Cow school of art but still it really fits a X-men title. Choi does a great job telling a story with his art. The colors have been great too, the tone and hue pattern gives a really fantastic painted affect. It makes the characters look realistic but on the down side it does take away from Choi’s art.

4. Astonishing X-men 

            This is still on the list because Giant Sized isn’t out yet. The series is written by Joss Whedon and drawn John Cassaday, two giants in their respective field. I picked this title up in trades and caught up to current issues pretty fast.

            I love this title because this is what an X-men book should be, it’s fun but it doesn’t take away from the serious matters that created the X-men in the first place. This book works well because it doesn’t get caught up in the whole continuity of X-men but still feels like it does through the way Whedon nails the characters. Again like the current Uncanny, Astonishing pulls from the Morison run of New X-men which makes this a very strong title. Plus I love it because one of the main villains is Cassandra Nova, which is the only X-villain in recent history to actually be a threat to the X-men.

            Also what makes this run special is Cassaday’s art. He has this way of making people look real but yet they still are drawings, cartoons. His action sequences are spectacular and this book is drawn as if it is a movie. Every page has from 3-5 (Occasionally one) panels and they all run length wise across the page giving this panoramic view of everything. It works and makes it read fast.

3. Thor

         I’m not really a J. Michael Straczynski fan, mostly because his name is hard to say and harder to spell. I didn’t like Babylon 5 and his run on Spiderman left me sleeping. With that said I do like J. Michael Straczynski when he combines mythology with modern day storytelling like he did to The Real Ghostbusters animated series back in the 80’s and doing now in Thor.

            I’m a huge Thor fan to begin with, have been since its re-launch back in 97 or 98. It was the first comic I regularly picked up and did so for quite a while. I think I lasted a couple of years on it before the story just had me too confused. It was steeped in continuity which I knew nothing about.

            The JMS re-launch of Thor has been reading a lot smoother and quite better. I understand and follow the story and the complexity better then I had on the Thor title of ten years ago. I try and think about why I like this title but I don’t have an answer to it. The storytelling is great and the art is fantastic.

2. Detective Comics

            It’s all about the Paul Dini. The man understands Batman and more importantly the Gotham Rouge Gallery. Not many writers can get both aspects of a Batman title down, but Dini does it with easy and he makes the Gotham Rouge’s just plane fun to read. There is just a magic in the way he loves these characters and it really comes across the page. Most of Dini’s run on Detective Comics have been mostly one shots but there is a connected storyline going on in the background. Dini does that kind of storytelling the best.

            The downside of this title though and why it’s not at number one is the art. Dini has different artists come and go on the run which really makes it disconnected and doesn’t make the title seem as solid as it should. I can see why he would want to do it, to emphasize the one shots but a constancy in art would be nice. Some times the art is great but other times it just doesn’t fit a Batman story.

1. X-factor

          I’m a huge Peter David fan and this is the book that made me that way. I’ve been reading re-launch or this title since issue 4 only skipping a couple issues during Civil War because I couldn’t find them. This title is everything I want in a comic, a mixture of Noir, Soap Opera, and Comedy. Up until after Messiah Complex this title has been delivering the right note just when it’s needed.

            Since Messiah Complex the title has been missing some punch, actually its missing its heart which was Layla Miller. The dynamic between Miller and the rest of the cast of X-factor made the book light hearted and fun to read. She also supplied a sub-plot to the entire book which is now missing because she is stuck in the future. If she doesn’t’ come back soon this title may take a turn for the worst which will result in me dropping it.

Honorable Mentions: JSA, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Black Canary

            All of these are solid titles and I’m sure once Astonishing wraps up JSA will be my new number 5 but I really don’t wait in anticipation for it as much as I do the others.

Comics that weren’t eligible for the list but I did want to pick up every month: Umbrella Academy and Suburban Glamour.

            These titles would have topped out in the number one and two positions if I had written this a couple months ago. These were both surprise hits for me from new writers. I lucked out and was in Denver when Sub Glam issue 1 and 2 came out and thought about driving down to Denver to pick up 3 but decided against it.