Seth recently wrote a post called The non-optimized life.

If you haven’t seen his blog, you wouldn’t call it optimized by any stretch of the imagination. He rarely posts a picture, and when he does it is only to illustrate his point.

He doesn’t allow comments and he doesn’t use excessive links.

He’s a busy man, and it’s a wonder that he blogs at all, let alone daily.

He uses social networking in ways that maximizes his exposure without wasting his time.

This highly successful marketer/business man/author has taught this Daddy Blogger something very important:

I like to think that I’ve optimized my life by using Twitter to update my Facebook, or using Social Oomph to broadcast that I’ve written a new post every two hours on the day it’s posted.

But I still write all of those posts. Each message, even at 140 characters or less, represent time. Time I could have spent with my wife and kids. Time I could have been using improving myself.

My wife and I have discussed these ideas since I began this blog a year and a half ago. I’ve justified that time countless ways. It increases traffic, I’m making friends, it benefits my writing by helping me write quickly and directly.

As life moves forward, I see these justifications less as explanations and more as excuses. Actually, not just as excuses, but procrastination from doing the real work. The real work of finding myself and my family living lives that we can all be proud of.

Blogging and tweeting will slow, but the quality bar will be raised. If you enjoy what you see here, please subscribe to my RSS feed, because I won’t be telling you every two hours that I’ve blogged. Hopefully, I’ll find a voice worth listening to, and like Seth Godin, optimization (i.e. begging you to read me) will no longer be necessary.

You’ll just want to be here.

I’m about to hit ‘publish’ on this post at 11:00 pm on the Saturday night before the final game of the World Cup. I’d say when it comes to non-optimization, I’m off to a great start!

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Begin Geek Out

Waaaaay back on May 7, comics theoretician Scott McCloud posted a blog entitled ‘I Love My Wife’ that detailed how excited his wife was to see Iron Man 2, and how pleased he was that she was so excited.

I’m sure their relationship runs deeper than Robert Downey-helmed super-hero flicks, and my wife and I would have seen the flick too if we could afford the cash and time away from the kiddos. As it is, work takes up all the time from the kiddos that I can stand.

End of Geek Out

My wife and I talked a lot yesterday. Between playing with the kids, the day job, and my hopeless addiction to the internet, this doesn’t occur all that often.

I have to admit I missed her.

We talked about what was missing in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland (a post of it’s own), we talked about Einstein’s missing brain, and what was the true source of his genius. We talked about future plans and dreams and what kind of puppy we’ll get the kids. (Hopefully we’ll decide quicker than the Obamas did.)

Bottom line: we just… talked.

Last night, we even spent time surfing the web together. Mainly looking up dog breeds, but also looking at art. Our favorite site of the night was ‘The Art of the Brick’, which is a showcase for the art of Nathan Sawaya, a professional Lego artist.

Moments of sanity like these are becoming fewer these days, what with the crazy kids and all. But moments like these will be treasured, she has my word.

I am not alone.

Silly Daddy was/is created by Joe Chiappetta of North Riverside, Ill. I found some interesting facts about Silly Daddy over at the Geek To Me blog at chicagonow.com:

• Silly Daddy is the longest running comic about a family by a father. (It hit it’s 500th comic in November.)

• Mr. Chiappetta is continuously exploring new tools for the trade, consistently using a Pocket PC to create his comics, as well as being the first cartoonists to explore comics made on a mobile phone, calling them ‘telephonics’.
• Every comic at Silly Daddy is fully accessible to the blind or those with low vision. Every comic posted has described narrative that assistive technology software such as JAWS or ZoomText can read to the viewer.

I would like to take the time to thank Mr. Chiappetta for being a pioneer not only in webcomics, but in the world of dads chronicling their lives online! I hope I am worthy of crawling in your shadow, sir.

One more sidenote on Joe Chiappetta, he has also written an all-ages space opera called ‘Star Chosen’. Check it out!

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Calli: Daddy, can’t you tell me a story? (This is how she asks for everything now. ‘Daddy, can’t you…’ As if she’s tired of asking.)

Me: What kind of story?

Calli: I don’t know…

Me: OK. So. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Calli.

Calli: Was she a Princess?

Me: Yes, she was a beautiful Princess!

Calli: Did she have a brother named Tristin?

Me: Yes she did! And he was a Prince! He was as handsome as Princess Calli was beautiful.

Calli: Yeah!

And so on. It’s kind of cool, actually, she makes my job easy!

=====================================================

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m playing around with trying to create a webcomic based on my family. I posted my first design of Kat as a manga character on DeviantArt last night, but if you missed the tweet, I’m posting it below. I’m taking my time with this, and I want to have three weeks of the comic done before I launch. But I’ll be posting sketches and ideas at DeviantArt and Flickr, and of course, sharing it all through Twitter and Facebook. So feel free to follow, friend, or fan me to see if my excitement will translate to the electronic page!

Speaking of Kat, we’re in serious crunch time for raising money for her Student Ambassadorship to Australia! They need all the money by May 14! We’re having a garage sale this weekend in a last ditch effort. If you would like to contribute, please see the ‘Chip-In’ badge to the right of the blog. Every little bit is appreciated, and we’ll make sure you get a Howe original thank you note from Kat either from the Land Down Under, or as soon as she gets home!

This post brought to you by Dad-Blogs' FatherHood Friday. Be sure to swing by for all the other great Dads and Moms who love to share their lives online!

Today’s kids are spoiled. They can have cartoons 24-7, on demand, no questions asked. Here at Howefitz Blog, I’d like to start  a tradition of making Saturday morning an event again. Cartoons belong on Saturday morning!

Please excuse the crudeness of the above comic. When inspiration strikes, I have to get it down on paper. Since discovering the blogging lifestyle, I now feel like I should share everything online…

If you follow me on twitter, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’ve been geeking out on my favorite webcomic, Hijinks Ensue. In fact, I went back to the beginning earlier in the week, and got to the end late last night.

If you’re not familiar with HE, it’s a ‘Geek Webcomic’. Creator Joel Watson has effectively cartooned himself and his friends, and four times a week, he draws strips of himself and his friends poking fun at popular culture and each other.

So it got me to thinking: My family cracks me up every day. My wife consistently provides just the right words that convey what we were both thinking. In short, my family would make a great webcomic.

Not willing to wait for the Wacom tablet I just ordered cheap on the internet, this first strip was penciled on actual paper with one of those wood sticks with graphite inside, then scanned in and ‘inked’ in Artweaver using just the pad on my laptop. When I actually launch the strip, I plan on using color, and between now and then I’ll figure out how to draw a straight line.

The strip shouldn’t interfere with the sporadic schedule of the normal Howefitz Blog, so don’t fret, fair readers. If anything, I’m hoping the comic will enhance the entire Howefitz Blog experience!

If you can’t wait for me to get my act together, I plan on posting early design sketches on my Facebook Fan Page for Howefitz Blog. If you’re not a fan yet, what are you waiting for?

So what do you think? Is the Daddy Webcomic Blog the wave of the future? (If I have my way…) or am I just being silly?

image from squidoo.com

OK, so maybe this post is a little late. As you continue to read, you’ll understand why…

Happy 2010!!! You geeks out there that read this blog know that this is ‘The Year We Make Contact‘!!! Start striking your timpani drums now! So, my first resolution this year is to make friends with some Russians and go to Jupiter to look for monoliths…

All geeking out aside, I have been taking a lot of time to reflect on where I am as a husband, father, employee, and of course, Daddy Blogger. Since you are reading my blog, I am going to focus first on what I will be doing here going forward in this brand-spanking new year, and why you should keep reading!

Howefitz Blog New Year Resolutions and Hopes For The Future

• Deliver more quality content, maybe less quantity
  • Last year, I set a goal of blogging every other day. I failed. Of course, the reason for that is that I have a real full time job and a family. Some days sleep seems appropriate, and then it’s time to work or take care of the family. So I’m going easy on myself this year:
  • Generally, it seems I get about an hour in the morning to blog. This has resulted in a few rushed, phoned-in entries. So going forward, I am going to try to seek out better information, and really think through what I’m writing. I know a lot of my regular readers have become like friends, and for that I am eternally grateful. But I would still like to see this base grow, and to do that I need to take the time to research and do my best to provide quality content. Therefore, I may not blog but once, maybe twice, a week. Of course, these will still include funny anecdotes from my wife and children, but there will also be genuinely helpful (I hope) articles that others can find interesting beyond my friends and family.
• What About ‘Kids Play On The Net’?
  • My ‘weekly’ column, ‘Kids Play On The Net‘ over at Dad-Blogs will continue, probably in the same sporadic rhythm as last year, but you have my solemn oath that when I post there, it will continue to be about websites and online resources that I genuinely use on a regular basis and I hope you will find them helpful as well.

Beyond my hopes for creating a more resourceful, thoughtful, useful blog, I have personal goals as well:

• The Ever Popular ‘I’m Going to Lose Weight’
  • Our big family gift for Christmas this year was a Wii, with a Wii Fit. The first body test I took with it called me obese. A little voice said (Out loud!) ‘That’s obese!’ And my Mii character looked down at it’s ballooning form as if I had cursed it to a life of unhealthy plumpness. So, I will definitely start really watching what I eat. I considered going back to Tim Ferriss‘s ‘Slow Carb Diet‘, but I’m easily bored, so I will settle for avoiding ‘white foods’ and extra snacks. But the one day of eating anything I want? I could still get behind that!
  • And of course, I’ll be exercising with my Nintendo. (Welcome to the future. Oh the times, they are a-changin’!)
• Heaven Help Me, I Will Get Promoted
  • This past year I did a lot of complaining here, at work, and at home, about my job. The past several years I’ve felt like I’ve slipped and lost hold of something that I used to be very good at. I’ve heard a lot of complaining from others as well, and my response is always the same: ‘I hear a lot of problems, but not too many solutions’. A quick glance in the mirror made me realize what a hypocrite I was being. Here I was complaining and not solving anything myself! So, in this bright new year, if I find myself wanting to complain, I’m going to redirect that energy into finding and implementing solutions. And then if someone happens to notice what an improved manager I’ve become and thinks I should be doing more…

• Be A Better Father
  • Living in the Rocky Mountains is tough in the winter time. I feel like my kids don’t get a lot of varied experience due to being inside all the time. However, I am making a vow to get out to more story times at the library, visit the children’s museum more, and, of course, teach them the proper way to have a snowball fight (if I can ever get the stuff up here to pack well enough…).
• Be A Better Husband
  • Having kids, it’s easy to neglect the marriage. Your spouse is relegated to an extra pair of arms and hands to get things done, and an extra set of eyes to watch the kids and make sure one isn’t beaming the other in the head with a Linky-Doo.
  • This year, I’m going to make sure I pay attention to adding more romance into my marriage. After all, that’s how this whole family business got started in the first place…

How about yourselves? Any plans for 2010? 2009 was a good year, 2010 will be great!!!

Candy Candy candycandycandy...

Yesterday I blogged about our Halloween preparations. Last night we got to put that to the test. Could Calli walk up to strangers and say ‘Chick or Cheek’? Or would she clam up and clutch her black kitty bucket tightly to her Wonder Woman insignia? We went to Minturn’s Trick or Treat village to find out.

Before I go any further, we failed as proud blogging parents last night and didn’t get pictures. I know, I know. My wife had thrown the camera into some weird setting and the flash wouldn’t go off. I was too busy holding Tristin (who makes a pretty cute tiger if I do say so myself) and keeping him warm to play with the camera. I have since fixed the problem and we will have plenty of pics from today, I promise.

Now that I’ve got that nasty business out of the way…

Minturn was great. A lot of houses and businesses went all out. It’s one of those communities where the businesses and homes are all just kind of jumbled. But it makes for a great trick or treating experience. Hit a few houses, get cold, step in to a business and warm up. (Especially the guys giving away the ‘treats for adults’: peppermint schnapps! Thanks, guys!)

We covered all the basics in this one, albeit short (it was so cold we only lasted half an hour) trick or treat outing:

Calli cried at one kid in some kind of Wolfman costume. We’re talking howling crying here. The skeleton people a few houses down were no problem.

We got enough tootsie rolls to prematurely pull all of her teeth out.

We were followed for a few houses by a drunk guy that told Calli, (best Barney impression from the Simpsons) ‘Heeey, Wonner Woman! Don’t get your lasso out on me! I don’t wanna tella truth!’ *sigh*

Calli did say ‘Chick or Cheek’ at nearly every stop, albeit timidly. But if someone said, ‘Can you say trick or treat?’ … Nothin’.

On the way home, Calli complained that her feet were cold and they hurt because they were so cold.

But at home?

‘Calli, was trick or treating fun?’

‘Yeah, Daddy!’

‘You wanna do it again tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, Daddy! Yeah Daddy! Supergirl! Whoosh!’

‘Ya know, when Mommy and me were kids, we only got one Halloween…’

‘OK, Daddy!’

Right now she’s still asleep and I’m creating a Halloween CD for our trick or treat tour of the valley. We’ll carve a pumpkin and set candy out for any neighborhood trick or treaters, and run around everywhere. I never got a costume. Maybe I can cut some holes in a sheet and carry rocks around in a paper sack…

Or maybe I’ll just laugh with my kids for a while!

I personally have had a few movie moments like that. Some of those were in animated films. But I don’t think any of them affected me quite like Disney/Pixar’s ‘Up‘.

I’ve been a Pixar fan since practically the beginning of the studio, when I saw their short ‘Luxo, Jr.‘ in a presentation called ‘Beyond the Mind’s Eye‘ on PBS. My first post on this blog was ‘Wall-E Restored My Faith In Pixar‘. Needless to say I was excited about ‘Up’, I just didn’t realize how excited I should be.

‘Up’ is a film presented in 3D. I was not fortunate enough to see the 3D version, but I was amazed at the fact that the 3D bit almost seemed like an after thought. What the creators were concerned with here was, I’m not kidding, story. In my review of ‘Wall-E’ I marveled at how much story Pixar could convey with no dialogue. ‘Up’ has many moments where it is the faces of the characters, a clever camera angle, the music, that moves the story. And the story is very adult.

Stop right there!

Let me clarify something that has bothered me my entire life: the definition of ‘adult’ in animation. Here in the U.S., animation is seen as kid’s stuff. People that enjoy animation act like it’s because they’re still carefree. Like they’re more in tune with their inner child. But animated films can and should be for adults as well. This is something that I believe Pixar has flirted with and finally mastered with ‘Up’.

The film deals with a widower who, through life’s many complications, was not able to fulfill his beloved wife’s greatest dream. After her death he decides it’s time to honor her memory and her dream.

As heavy as that sounds, this film is hilarious. It has just the right mix of humor and seriousness, action and moments of serenity, to make you feel that you are living this life along with the characters.

This movie changed my life. It opened my eyes to parts of my life I’m not necessarily proud of. It made me realize that some of the day-to-day tasks pale in importance to those around us, especially those close to us.

Carl wasn't afraid to achieve a dream, Now, neither am I.

I feel like it’s New Year’s all over again. I’m redesigning some of those resolutions. Chief among them to make every effort I can to be a central part of my family’s lives. I will cherish them every moment I have them. I will do everything in my power to make sure that they do not take a back seat to blogging, or career, or any other interest that will crop up.

I’ve had a re-awakening. And a silly ‘kids’ movie’ is responsible.

I highly recommend ‘Up’. Even if it doesn’t give you a great spiritual renewal, I’ll dare you to find something not to like!

I was going to teach comic books to teenagers.

Kirby help me.

OK, so my foray in to educating youngsters wasn’t quite so dramatic, but I did feel nervous. In High School, I had found a taste for the stage. The theater was something that I loved and although I would not eat a thing the day of a performance, once I was on stage, I had never felt so high.

But I was reciting lines. I was moving because a director told me to move. I was making a mockery of a foreign accent because that’s what I thought the character needed. The words were not my own. The actions were not my own. The face, more often than not, was not my own.

It’s very different when the words are your own. You feel more vulnerable. Even if you care about your subject matter deeply, you can get so paralyzed with fear of rejection that it becomes impossible to convey your passion.

I have a very deep affection for the comic book medium. I wear it on my sleeve, well okay, my chest, most of the time. In fact, that’s how I had found myself standing in front of this gaggle of teens. I had been noticed at the library checking out graphic novels every other day with a different character on my tee-shirt each time.

A librarian had asked me if I draw comics. My inner Ralph Macchio had said, “Well, you know, not professionally.” My outer self said “eh.” I hang my head to think that, when put on the spot, I am not as eloquent as the Karate Kid. All that aside, the library let me teach a class with the somewhat erroneous title, ‘How to Draw Manga’.

The comic I drew while attempting to regain my audience's trust...

I began by telling the kids that this was their class. They could doodle while I talked, and if anything I said sparked an idea or question they could interrupt me at any time.

I had promised Kat that I wouldn’t just read my notes. I agreed that that was just too boring. I promised her a cool class.

So there I was, clutching my notes like they were the last root on the cliff.

“I think I’m boring you. Am I boring you?” I said, finally pulling my eyes off of the paper.

“Maybe some drinks will wake them up?” the librarian spoke out.

Bless you. I hadn’t even noticed her setting the liquid refreshment out.

I tried my hand at a couple of jokes and gave it up. I let Kat demonstrate Chibi technique on the big dry erase board, and I demonstrated speed lines.

Feeling I’d completely lost my audience, I moved along to the activities I’d shamelessly stolen from Scott McCloud‘s ‘Making Comics‘.

The crowd suddenly got lively! I took them out of their comfort zone by having them all write a title on the top of a piece of paper, then they swapped with a neighbor and drew one page comics based on the titles they received.

They laughed and joked and teased each other, loosening up to others’ ideas. I pointed out a couple examples from their peers of nicely paced pages and well drawn art.

I then had them create sound effets based on items in the room. I found it interesting that two girls on opposite ends of the room chose to represent ‘shine’ as a sound effect.

Lastly, we created a character together that is a female alligator that wears mini-skirts and halter tops, eats people that give her gas, says ‘Rawr!!’, collects pencils, lives under the bed, has a walrus as a best friend, keeps one of the classmates as a pet, and makes a living by mowing lawns with her teeth.

My take on the class-created character

The class clocked in at about an hour, after which I felt I had truly lost only two of my students.

One of the best things about it was I felt that I was able to quickly adapt to my surroundings and actually have fun with the situation, and that fun bled in to the kids.

The absolute best thing was that Kat and I shared a moment together that wasn’t around the TV or because I’d just given her money.

I would definitely do this again.

———————————————————————————————–

For posterity’s sake and the benefit of my own feeble mind, the class was held on Tues., Jun 9, 2009. The somewhat ill-fated notes are posted below. I had typed these in a Comic Sans font, in all caps, to give them more of a comics feel. Given the limitations of fonts in blogging, you’ll just have to imagine…

IN PUTTING TOGETHER THIS CLASS, AND TAKING INTO ACCOUNT MY OWN ARTISTIC LIMITATIONS, I HAVE DECIDED TO PRESENT THIS AS MORE OF A ‘PICTORIAL STORYTELLING’ CLASS THAT AN ALL OUT ART CLASS. IN THE NEXT NINETY MINUTES OR SO, WE WILL TALK ABOUT WRITING AND STORYTELLING AS WELL AS ART.

THE FIRST RULE TO CREATING COMICS IS: THERE ARE NO RULES! KEEP THIS IN MIND AS WE PROCEED, IT WILL COME IN HANDY! ^_^

WHERE TO BEGIN?

MOST OF US BEGIN EXPLORING THE CREATION OF COMICS BY COPYING OTHER PEOPLE’S COMICS. THERE ARE A LOT OF BOOKS THAT WILL TELL YOU STEP BY STEP HOW TO DRAW LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. LIKE THE VAMPIRES IN ‘TWILIGHT’, HOWEVER, YOU’LL NEVER BE FULLY SATISFIED. YOU HAVE TO FIND YOUR OWN STYLE. DRAW FROM LIFE ITSELF, DON’T JUST COPY IT.

I WANTED TO BE AN ANIMATOR WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, AND ONE RECURRING THEME I HEARD AS I STUDIED THAT ART IS THAT ‘AN ANIMATOR IS AN ACTOR WITH A PENCIL.’ I FEEL THE SAME IS TRUE OF THE COMIC BOOK FORM. YOU NOT ONLY NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOUR CHARACTERS FEEL, BUT WHAT YOU WOULD FEEL IN THAT SITUATION AND BRING THOSE EMOTIONS OUT THROUGH YOUR PENCIL, PEN, BRUSH, ETC.

WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM? WHAT KIND OF STORIES SHOULD I TELL?

I TOOK A WRITING CLASS FROM ORSON SCOTT CARD (THE AUTHOR OF THE CLASSIC ‘ENDER’S GAME‘) A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. IN THAT CLASS, NATURALLY, THE QUESTION OF WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM CAME UP. ORSON ANSWERED THAT MANY SUCCESSFUL WRITERS COME UP WITH A CLEVER ANSWER FOR THIS QUESTION TO USE AT BOOK SIGNINGS, CONVENTIONS, ETC. HIS FAVORITE OF THESE CLEVER QUIPS CAME FROM HARLAN ELLISON, WHO WOULD ANSWER, ‘FROM YOU, THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T HAVE ANY!’

THE TRUTH IS THIS: IF A STORY IS WORTH TELLING TO YOU, THEN TELL IT. THE REST IS JUST DETAILS!

HAS SOMETHING SO INCREDIBLE HAPPENED TO YOU THAT YOU JUST HAD TO RUN AND TELL A FRIEND? WHAT IF YOU RAN TO YOUR DRAWING TABLE OR COMPUTER? DO YOU KEEP A DIARY? ANY OF THOSE STORIES THAT YOU FELT COMPELLED TO WRITE DOWN FOR YOURSELF COULD MAKE FOR AN INTERESTING STORY TO SOMEONE ELSE: WHY NOT MAKE IT A COMIC?

WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, I WASN’T EXACTLY POPULAR WITH THE LADIES. I WOULD SOMETIMES LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND SEE A FAT PIMPLY MONSTER STARING BACK. SO I CREATED A CHARACTER THAT WAS NOT ONLY INFLUENCED BY ELEMENTS OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS (JACK SKELLINGTON AND THE SAVAGE DRAGON), BUT I ADDED THE FACT THAT THIS STRANGE LOOKING ALIEN EMITTED A PHEREMONE THAT MADE HIM IRRISISTABLE TO HUMAN FEMALES. IT GOT TO THE POINT THAT THE WOMEN HE WAS TRYING TO SAVE FROM MUGGERS IN DARK ALLEYS WERE GETTING IN THE WAY! MEANWHILE, THE ONE WOMAN HE WAS TRULY INTERESTED IN WAS STRANGELY IMMUNE TO HIS POWERS. ALL THESE STORY ELEMENTS SPRANG FROM BEING AN INSECURE TEENAGER! (I LIKE TO THINK THAT STAN LEE SUFFERED FROM THE SAME KIND OF INSECURITIES, WHY ELSE WOULD HE CREATE THE THING, HULK, AND PETER PARKER?)

TWO JEWISH KIDS FROM NEW YORK (ALSO NOT POPULAR WITH THE LADIES), ONE OF WHOM HAD LOST HIS FATHER TO A SENSELESS MURDER, CREATED A CHARACTER THAT WOULD LIVE ON IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF CHILDREN AND ADULTS ALIKE FOR GENERATIONS. WITH WORLD WAR HEATING UP OVERSEAS, THESE YOUNG KIDS CREATED A STRANGE VISITOR FROM ANOTHER PLANET. HE WAS STRONG AND HANDSOME, LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE BOUND. THE CREATOR’S NAMES WERE JERRY SIEGEL AND JOE SCHUSTER, AND THEIR CREATION WAS SUPERMAN! THEY WERE ABLE TO TURN THEIR FEELINGS OF HELPLESSNESS INTO SOMETHING THAT CAN BE ENJOYED TODAY.

WHEN YOU THINK OF MOVIES BASED ON COMICS, I’M SURE THE FIRST MOVIES YOU THINK OF ARE BATMAN, SUPERMAN, IRON MAN, X-MEN, ETC.

COMICS ARE NOT, AND SHOULD NOT BE LIMITED TO SUPERHEROES. WHATEVER YOU DREAM CAN BE A COMIC.

WHAT ABOUT ‘ROAD TO PERDITION’, ‘GHOST WORLD’, OR ‘V FOR VENDETTA’? THESE WERE COMICS TOO!

POPULAR ANIME SUCH AS ‘FRUITS BASKET’, ‘NARUTO’, AND ‘RANMA ½’ ALL STARTED AS MANGA!

SO WHY COMICS ANYWAY?

IF YOU CAME TO THIS CLASS, YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY INTERESTED IN COMICS, OR WHAT WIL EISNER CALLED ‘SEQUENTIAL ART’. BUT HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT DRAWS YOU TO COMICS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

UNFORTUNATELY, HERE IN THE UNITED STATES COMICS HAVE BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH SUPER HEROES FOR THE MOST PART. IT’S ALWAYS INTERESTING TO ME THAT COMIC STRIPS ARE KNOWN FOR A WIDER RANGE OF GENRE (POLITICAL, FUNNY, ADVENTURE, SOCIAL COMMENTARY) AMONG GENERAL SOCIAL CIRCLES THAN THEIR LONGER-LENGTHED COMIC BOOK COUSINS.

THE TRUTH IS THAT COMICS CAN BE ABOUT ANYTHING, TOLD IN ANY STYLE, WITH ANY TYPE OF CHARACTERS YOU WANT.

WIL EISNER, THE CREATOR OF ‘THE SPIRIT’ TALKED OF WRITING ONLY WHAT HE KNEW. YOU NEVER SAW FLYING PEOPLE OR ALIENS IN HIS STORIES, JUST BASICALLY REAL PEOPLE.

ART SPIEGELMAN WANTED TO ADAPT THE STORIES HIS JEWISH FATHER TOLD HIM ABOUT WWII INTO COMICS, BUT DECIDED TO CAST THE JEWS AS MICE AND THE NAZIS AS CATS.

COMICS ARE DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER MEDIUM IN THAT COMICS CREATE MORE OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CREATOR AND THE READER OR VIEWER. WHEN YOU WATCH A MOVIE, YOU’RE DRAGGED ALONG BY THE DIRECTOR TO WHATEVER THE DIRECTOR WANTS YOU TO SEE AND NOTHING ELSE. TIME IS COMPLETELY LINEAR, YOU ARE IN THE MOMENT THE DIRECTOR WANTS YOU TO BE IN.

WITH COMICS, HOWEVER, YOU AS THE READER ARE AWARE OF THE NEXT PAGE. EVEN IF YOUR EYES ARE FOCUSED ON A PARTICULAR PANEL, YOUR PERIFERAL VISION IS PICKING UP THE SURROUNDING PANELS. YOU AS THE READER HAVE THE POWER TO READ AS FAST OR SLOW AS YOU WANT, WITH THE CREATOR HAVING SOME, BUT NOT ALL OF THE CONTROL.

THE FIRST COMIC I REMEMBER REALLY THINKING ABOUT THIS WITH WAS FRANK MILLER’S ‘THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS’. THE JOKER IS IN PRISON AND STAYING THERE BECAUSE HIS MOTIVATION TO ESCAPE IS GONE: BATMAN’S IN RETIREMENT AND SHOWS NO SIGN OF RETURNING. EGGHEAD COMES TO VISIT JOKER AND TELLS HIM THAT SOMEONE WANTS EGGHEAD TO BUILD A BOMB. THE JOKER TAKES A PUFF FROM A CIGARETTE, BLOWS OUT THE SMOKE, THEN ASKS, ‘WHAT KIND OF BOMB?’ THESE FOUR PANELS MADE UP THE FIRST ‘DRAMATIC PAUSE’ I REMEMBER BEING CONSCIOUS OF IN COMICS!

THE TYPICAL SINGLE-ISSUE COMIC IN THE US IS 22 PAGES. THIS DOESN’T LEAVE A LOT OF ROOM FOR DRAMATIC PAUSES OR LENGTHY EXPLANATIONS! THIS LEAD TO CREATORS CUTTING TO THE CHASE AND LETTING READERS FILL IN BLANKS OR INFER INFORMATION. THE LONGER FORM OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL HAS OPENED UP GREATER OPPORTUNITIES FOR TAKING TIME WITH STORIES AS THE CREATOR SEES FIT.

TO SCRIPT OR NOT TO SCRIPT: IS IT EVEN A QUESTION?

I HAVE SEEN MANY BOOKS AND INTERVIEWS ON SCRIPTING COMICS. PLEASE REVISIT THE FIRST LINE IN THIS REPORT: THERE ARE NO RULES.

WRITERS SUCH AS ALAN MOORE (WATCHMEN) ARE REPORTED TO GIVE THEIR ARTISTS VERY DETAILED SCRIPTS THAT THEY WANT FOLLOWED.

OTHERS, SUCH AS STAN LEE (HE HELPED CREATE THE ENTIRE MARVEL UNIVERSE) TAKE A MORE COLLABORATIVE APPROACH. STAN WOULD MEET WITH HIS ARTIST AND HAVE A CONVERSATION ABOUT WHAT WOULD BE GOING ON IN THE STORY. (“LET’S HAVE A NERDY KID BITTEN BY A RADIOACTIVE SPIDER!”) THE ARTIST WOULD THEN DRAW THE STORY THE WAY HE WANTED, AND STAN LEE WOULD ADD DIALOGUE LATER.

BRIAN TALBOT (TALE OF ONE BAD RAT) GENERALLY WRITES AND DRAWS EVERYTHING HIMSELF, BUT IS METICULOUS ABOUT PLOTTING/SCRIPTING. TALBOT USES INDEX CARDS AND WRITES PLOT ELEMENTS/DIALOGUE ON THEM. HE THEN LAYS THEM OUT AND MOVES THEM AROUND UNTIL THE STORY IS JUST RIGHT BEFORE PUTTING PEN TO PAPER.

ERIC LARSEN (SAVAGE DRAGON) JUST SITS DOWN AND DRAWS. ERIC ONCE KILLED OFF A CHARACTER BECAUSE SHE WAS ‘IN THE WAY’ THE WAY HE HAD DRAWN THE SCENE, THEN LAMENTED AFTERWARD THAT HE HAD PLANS FOR HER!

WHATEVER YOUR STYLE, JUST FIND ONE THAT’S COMFORTABLE FOR YOU.

WAIT, WASN’T THIS THING CALLED ‘HOW TO DRAW MANGA’?

TOO TRUE. LET’S START WITH A DEFINITION OF ‘MANGA’. MANGA IS SIMPLY THE JAPANESE WORD FOR COMICS. JUST AS AMERICAN COMICS CAN BE DIVIDED INTO GENRES SUCH AS SUPERHERO, WESTERN, SCIENCE FICTION, ROMANCE, ETC. SO CAN MANGA. PROBABLY THE TWO GENRES MOST IMPORTED TO THE US IS ‘SHOJO’ MANGA (MANGA FOR GIRLS) AND ‘SHONEN’ MANGA (MANGA FOR BOYS). DON’T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT THESE LINES ARE SET IN STONE. ‘RANMA ½’ AND ‘NARUTO’ ARE CONSIDERED SHONEN, THOUGH THEY ARE READ BY MANY GIRLS!

NOW THAT MANGA IS BECOMING EVEN MORE POPULAR THAN TRADITIONAL AMERICAN COMICS, AMERICAN ARTISTS ARE TAKING THE HINT AND ADOPTING A MANGA STYLE. IT’S GETTING HARDER TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO. SOME COMICS ‘EXPERTS’ LIKE TO DIFFERENTIATE TRUE JAPANESE MANGA FROM THEIR AMERICAN COUNTERPARTS BY REFERRING TO THE AMERICAN VERSIONS AS ‘OEL’, OR ‘ORIGINAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE’ MANGA. SOME SUPERHERO ARTISTS SUCH AS MARK BAGLEY(ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN) AND HUMBERTO RAMOS (IMPULSE) HAVE ADOPTED A MANGA STYLE, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE ILLUSTRATING MORE TRADITIONAL SUPERHERO STORIES. SVETLANA CHMAKOVA’S ‘DRAMACON’ IS AN EXAMPLE OF AN OEL MANGA THAT CAN GO RIGHT ON THE SHELF NEXT TO TRUE JAPANESE MANGA AND NO ONE NOTICES! (ok, Svetlana is a Russian living in Canada, but I can adopt her for America, right? ^-^)

AS THE LINES BLUR BETWEEN WESTERN AND EASTERN CULTURES IN COMICS, THEN WE CAN START BLENDING THEM ALL TOGETHER, RIGHT?

SOME DISTINCT ELEMENTS OF MANGA THAT HAVE WORKED THEIR WAY INTO AMERICAN COMICS AND ANIMATION

CHIBI-THE VERY EXAGGERATED EXPRESSIONS FOUND IN MANGA HAVE SEEPED INTO AMERICAN CULTURE. (JUST WATCH AN EPISODE OF ‘TEEN TITANS’ TO SEE WHAT I MEAN)

ACTION OR SPEED LINES- THIS BLURRING OF THE BACKGROUND TO COMMUNICATE SPEED HAS ALSO MADE IT HERE TO THE WEST, TO THE POINT THAT MOST READERS TODAY DON’T THINK OF THIS AS CULTURALLY DIFFERENT AT ALL.

CARTOONY FACES THAT ARE FULL OF EXPRESSION-MANGA TENDS TO SIMPLIFY FACIAL EXPRESSIONS IN ORDER TO CONVEY A LOT OF EMOTION IN A BASE FORM. AMERICAN COMICS TEND TO GO FOR MORE REALISM. THE IRONIC PIECE OF THIS CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IS THAT A LOT OF WHAT IS CONSIDERED TRADITIONAL IN MANGA WAS INSPIRED BY THE WORK OF JAPAN’S ‘GOD OF MANGA’, OSAMU TEZUKA. SOME OF HIS INSPIRATION? THE WIDE, EXPRESSIVE EYES OF DISNEY’S BAMBI!

OK, SO LET’S GET TO WORK

SCOTT MCCLOUD’S ‘MAKING COMICS’ IS FULL OF ACTIVITIES TO GET THE CREATIVE JUICES FLOWING. LET’S TRY ONE!

GRAB A PIECE OF PAPER AND DRAW A QUICK TITLE LOGO AT THE TOP. SOMETHING GENERAL, LIKE ‘IS THAT YOUR DAD?’ OR ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THE LIBRARIAN?’

NOW, SWAP WITH A NEIGHBOR.

USING THE TITLE YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN, CREATE A SINGLE PAGE COMIC. WE DON’T HAVE A TON OF TIME, SO DRAW FAST! STICK FIGURES ARE EXCEPTIBLE, THE NAME OF THE GAME IS TO TELL A STORY!

LETTERING CAN BE IMPORTANT

SOME COMICS, LIKE ANDY RUNTON’S ‘OWLY’ DON’T NEED LANGUAGE AT ALL, BUT WHEN YOUR CHARACTERS NEED TO TALK, WHAT FONTS/LETTERING SHOULD YOU USE? THE ALL CAPS STYLE THAT I TYPED THIS IN IS A TRADITION, BUT MANY CREATORS ARE LOOKING AT OTHER STYLES.

Using Caps/Lower Case is actually a break from the norm in comics.

Just beware of harder to read fonts, you’ll lose your readers!

SOUND EFFECTS ARE IMPORTANT, AND FUN! THE STYLE OF YOUR SOUND EFFECTS CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONVEYING INFORMATION AND MAKING YOUR READER FEEL LIKE THEY’RE IN THAT WORLD!

I.E.

BOOM!

TINKLE! TINKLE!

TIME TO TRY THIS ONE OUT. LOOK AROUND THE ROOM AND DESIGN TEN SOUND EFFECTS THAT REPRESENT THINGS IN THE ROOM. SEE IF YOUR NEIGHBORS CAN TELL WHAT WOULD MAKE THAT SOUND!

WHERE YOU GO FROM HERE...

NOW LET’S JUST CREATE.

MALE OR FEMALE

PROFESSION

HOBBIES

HOW THEY DRESS

PETS

FRIENDS

“Hey how’s it goin’?” he asked.

“Good, you?” I answered. All the fears of high school locker rooms flooded irrationally back. Does this guy want to kick my ass? Why is he talking to me?

“Great!” he answered. “So do you have kids in here?”

How the hell would he guess that? I looked down at the Elmo beach towel I had used that night. Oh. “Yes, I do.”

“How old?”

I thought of the flack I’ve taken on this blog by a couple readers for using the term ‘step-daughter’, so I simply said, “I have a two year old and a fifteen year old.”

“Wow!” he said, “You don’t look old enough to have a fifteen year old!”

“Well,” I said, ego slightly pumped now, old high school jock prejudices slowly fading, “my wife is five years older than me. The fifteen year old is my step-daughter. So that’s how I get out of that!”

He laughed, “Aw, man. I have a step-dad. He’s the best! We still hang out all the time. I hardly ever see my real dad. I think step-dads are great!”

“Well, right now it seems like she doesn’t feel that way a lot of the time!”

“Trust me, she will appreciate you. Just keep showing an interest in her life!”

“Alright, I think I can do that!” I said. “Speaking of my family, they’re probably just about done in their locker room, I’d better get them home.”

“Cool, man. Nice meeting you!”

“Yeah, you too.”

Check out the other cool guys and gals who participate in Fatherhood Friday at dad-blogs.com!

And I do take an interest in her life, and even though she’s fifteen and trying out this independence thing, we can still hold conversations about movies, comics (well, in her case manga), music, etc. So I think we’re on a good path.

I volunteered to teach a comic book class at the library recently, and she had to be a part of it. She wasn’t embarassed by my Green Lantern T-shirt that I wore. (Even though I tucked it in, which drives her crazy!) And afterward when I asked her what she thought, she said it was pretty cool. High praise, indeed!

Moral of the story, at least for me? No matter how old your kids get, you’ll still be learning. And even if you’re not biologically linked to your child, it’s still possible to be his/her dad!