Jerzy Drozd
Teaching Artist and Cartoonist
Jerzy Drozd
Teaching Artist and Cartoonist
And here’s the final word on my 2023 residency at Tri-Rivers Career Center! This was made possible by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council (OAC). Over nine weeks I worked with the students to make their own minicomics, which they debuted during Free Comic Book Day at Thunderfury Comics in Marion, Ohio.
I can’t say enough about the OAC’s TeachArts Ohio grants. Thanks to them, I get to see kids walk taller semester after semester.
…it doesn’t have to be by a well-known artist. A child can do an archetype, maybe probably does more type of [archetypal] images than artists do. They spontaneously arise.
Thomas Singer, Jungian Analyst
I was arrested by this bit on a recent This Jungian Life Podcast. It seems to harmonize with something I’ve been trying to capture in my classroom; that a comic’s resonance is not dependent on the quality of its images. In other words, you don’t have to be a great illustrator to be a great storyteller. Anyone can make a comic that moves an audience, even if the author doesn’t identify as an artist. But this discussion on archetypal images adds another dimension to that idea. Maybe there’s something about art that emerges from a place of spontaneity that carries more charge with it. A practiced artist can do this, of course, but it’s a combination of the spontaneity and skill at work. It’s not just the skill.
I’m going to think about this and how I can more thoughtfully impress this on my students.
Some notes from a short classroom lesson I led on word balloon design. Symmetry and negative space are two of my basic concerns when structuring the text in a balloon.
Find my upcoming classes here.
This podcast is a treasure for creative people (that’s all of us, by the way). Even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer, Alex and Chris have something to offer you. Their wisdom and reflections don’t just apply to writing artfully, they’re helpful to live artfully.
A wintery panel from my upcoming book, The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue. I thought having a chapter of the book take place in the arctic would make things easier on artist Jerzy and his color assistant, but I forgot about the woods the characters needed to hide in!
Get more behind the scenes info on the book via my Patreon, or subscribe to the newsletter!
I was charmed by this talk by Alan Watts. First, there’s the intuition that we’d eventually have phones that can bring us anything we want, but then he steers right into a consequence of abundance. Reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode where a thief dies and goes to what he believes is heaven. Every desire he’s ever had is instantly available to him. But is that heaven, or the other place?
Some original art from 1998’s Ninja High School Annual. If I remember right, the title of this one was, Gloom, Doom, Broom! a story wherein our heroes face a mob of haunted jack-o’-lanterns with broomstick bodies on motorcycles.
The balloon spotting is a little wonky, and I was obviously aping Toriyama, but otherwise it’s not bad!
Recently on the live stream I was joined by Gregg Schigiel, creator of the Zooperhero Universe hybrid book series. We talked about the modular storytelling approach Gregg uses for his books, the astonishingly low amount of FOMO we feel this convention season, and how comics just might not be great at everything.
I’m streaming live again this Saturday at 3pm ET! Follow me on Twitch to be notified when the stream is live.
A few years back Dan Mishkin and I finished the first chapter to a graphic novel about a school for Amazons. Various projects forced me to stop working on this, but we keep talking about starting it up again. And then I think of panels like this and need a nap.
But then I think about working with Dan again and I’m energized to get to the desk!
One of my favorite episodes. The ideas in this series are a big influence on my work, but this episode in particular. Young Jerzy thought violence was scary, but the adults in his life seemed to think it was a normal, acceptable thing. Thank goodness for Lou Schiemer and the writers of this series, who presented kid Jerzy with alternatives.
Exploring exciting action while avoiding glamorizing violence was an important idea in the making of my book, The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue. I’m hopeful that kids who need it will find support in my book the way I did in this show.
