A strange twist of fate occurred a bit a bit ago and I landed the opportunity to go to a school and teach a class all about comics! I accepted, and before i knew it, it was 19 3rd grade children vs. me.
I was not prepared.
We started off by learning out to draw an easy cartoon face. I meandered up to the whiteboard (yep! we use dry erase board in this classroom!) and showed them some easy ways to draw faces. The reaction from the students was amazing, they looked like I had just told them a secret only they would ever know about!.
Everyone did really well on their cartoon head! At this point I told them that alot of the fun of Cartooning is that you can make anything a ‘person’ so to speak. They didn’t believe me at all until I dared them that I could make whatever veggie they named into a cartoon head. At that request, I was barraged with produce of all kinds. Lima Beans. Eggplants. Squash. Pizza. (apparently pizza is a veggie in 3rd grade)
So, we took squash as an example, and I showed them that some of the very basic rules to making our normal cartoon head would still apply, but that things ’stretch’! This seemed to open a world of possibilities to them. I had them all pick out any fruit or veggie they wanted and had them make their own cartoon heads. As they were scribbling away, I wandered around the class to see what everyone was up to. Many of them picked squash and mimicked what I had drawn on the whiteboard, and others took their own route and made strawberry faces, greenbean faces, and I even saw a kiwi face with fuzzy hair all over it!
After everyone had their vegi face, We took out another piece of paper and folded it into thirds horizontally for our comic panels. Now we needed a comic story, right? Well, I thought the easiest thing we could do would be a ‘knock knock’ joke but for the life of me I couldn’t think of one. So, i asked the kids for their knock knock joke ideas. They had some fantastic ones, and we picked the all time classic:
Knock knock.
whos there?
boo!
Boo who?
You dont need to cry about it!
I had them make their vegi head person on the left side of the first panel, and a robot head on the right side of the panel. At this point, they took off on their own and created a 3 panel comic of their vegi head and robot head telling knock knock jokes. They caught on very quick and everyone did a fantastic job of creating their own little comic.
In then end, it was an awesome experience and I hope to do it again some time. We finished the lesson off on the special request of how to draw a cat. We had some fun with I think you will enjoy the results:
This weekend involved hanging with some friends, eating Macho Nachos, & playing Settlers of Catan. I dig board games that involve strategy and thinking, so this was right up my ally. Ill always have a special place in my heart for those late nights with my friends playing risk until someone passed out from exhaustion and the others cheated when no one was looking. Even though I lost horribly at Catan, it was still awesome! I think what made the night even more interesting was the ‘HLO Special’
I dont even have to explain what the HLO special is, because I drew you a picture! Observe:
I had two sips of this concoction and could feel its powers over me. Devious! I think it was a ploy to get me to lose the game. Note the Chopstick, for the classy touch of a stirring utensil. I found that this is KEY in making the HLO special. After all, if you couldn’t get the coke mixed in for color, it just isn’t complete, is it? I suggest everyone go and try one of these as soon as possible. You’ll thank me later. In the morning.
