Jerzy Drozd

Teaching Artist and Cartoonist. He/him. When life is feeling heavy, I enjoy creating and sharing stories of cute heroes showing extraordinary courage.

Tell The Damn Story, ep 281: Unleashing Your Creative Potential – Lessons from the Past

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Welcome to a slightly different episode of Tell The Damn Story, the podcast where we delve into the depths of storytelling and creativity.

This week, your host, Alex Simmons, is going semi-solo, and the episode is a mashup, combining the great piece of insight from episode 191 of TTDS.

In this episode, we’ll be exploring the complexities of personal pride, the challenges of self-promotion as a writer, the impact of rejection, and the pursuit of creative dreams.

So join us as we share personal anecdotes, discuss influences that shaped us as writers, and explore the power of storytelling in our lives.

So grab a pen and paper, and get ready to Tell The Damn Story!

Have questions or comments for us? Post in the comments section below or … Write: TTDSOnAir@gmail.com

And follow us on …
@Tell The Damn Story
www.Facebook.com/Tell The Damn Story

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:26 New York Comic Con impacts creatives’ lives.
00:05:36 Hallway duty, art rooms turned museum. Beautiful.
00:08:21 Teacher and journalist discover transgender student’s happiness.
00:12:20 Rejected submission educates and offers more assistance.
00:16:08 Writers explore online entrepreneurship; some succeed.
00:17:24 The challenges of pursuing creative dreams.
00:23:20 Unexpected encounters with genius lead to excitement.
00:25:34 Impoverished, isolated, only black kid in class.
00:30:36 Permission to play, doubts, and hard work.
00:33:09 Back, don’t smoke, love Sherlock Holmes. Writes mysteries, teaches workshops, and writes a play. The episode reflects on personal growth as writers. Exciting upcoming guests. Join us next week.

Something I’ve been watching on YouTube. Follow the playlist here.

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Atlantis, Arise! Four Million Years Later, episode 24

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In this exciting episode, if IMDB is to be believed, the DECEPTICONS MAKE FRIENDS UNDER THE SEA! It really doesn’t go quite that way… but there’s plenty of Autobot cars-on-waterskiis, Subatlantican telepathy, and bad guys turning on other badguys action! So grab your speedo and scuba mask like Spike and dive in!!!

In this episode we mention the TOY GALAXY HISTORY OF ENTERTECH video.

We also mention the old serial THE CRIMSON GHOST.

Watch the episode before listening to our commentary:

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Music & Comics Duets

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Last Monday I attended the Feeling Heard concert performance at the Ohio State University. A partnership between the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, and the OSU School of Music, this concert explored the overlaps between musical and comics storytelling through some “duets” where the musicians performed pieces in response to cartoon art, and art responded to music being played.

Here’s the latter, with art by Justin Schell:

And here is the improvisational duet, where musicians responded to Raina Telgemeier’s drawings as they emerged on the screen.

We can celebrate comics for what they can do better than other media. But we can also do that while simultaneously exploring the similarities it shares with other art forms. After the last decade or so, it seems to me like relating our interests to those of others is a healthy move, and I’m grateful to the team who demonstrated that through this performance.

I was also thrilled that two of the students I’m working with in my current residency got to play a part in the performance!

(oh and full disclosure, I was involved in the team, but only in drawing the cartoon host, Gene. Here I am on stage with everyone else)

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Doctor Baer’s Yard Inks & Spooky Movies

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Saturday was a glorious day where I had no obligations outside my studio (well, I did have to mow the lawn and weed the front walk). So most of the day was spent on creative pursuits!

My favorite Saturday nights are spent drawing while watching old horror or monster movies. Most of the time Svengoolie provides the movie, but when he’s playing something I’ve seen recently (or don’t ever want to see again), I’ll turn to Tubi. This week I found a fun Peter Cushing film from 1977 titled The Uncanny.

If you love scary movies and cats as much as I do, you might like this one. Peter Cushing plays a frightened writer with a manuscript proving that cats are truly out to get us. The manuscript is a framing device for an anthology film with three stories wherein cats create a body count (but the people always had it coming). I was happily surprised to see one of my favorite actors (and inspiration for an upcoming Doctor Baer character) Donald Pleasance was in one of the stories. It also has one of the coolest title sequences I’ve seen in a long time.

I will warn you that there is some minor disturbing gore in the first story, though.

So now I move on to flatting this piece so I can have it painted before Halloween. Fingers crossed that it won’t be as hard as it looks!

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The Autobot Run – Four Million Years Later, episode 23

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There’s…. well, there’s a lot of sighing in this episode. This is another one of the AKOM-animated episodes, and it… it looks pretty bad. Very bad even. So the challenge is, can we find the good in it?? Well, we found some!! It’s got Chip Chase, so you know Jerzy ferreted some good out. And it’s got some nice Skywarp action, so Hoover was pleased with that at least. What else was there to like? LISTEN AND FIND OUT!

Watch the episode before listening to our commentary:

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Building Doctor Baer’s Home

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The Blender model of the Doctor’s house is almost done!

It’s very reassuring to know that I now have his house as an asset to drop into any scene in future stories. I wish I had done this with the first book.

I’m feeling so emboldened by this I’m considering making the entire setting for the next story in Blender. It’d really only be like 20-30 houses, some cliffs, and an abbey on a hill. I’m watching the clock, though–if making the setting cuts too much into thumbnailing time, I’ll have to ditch it. This first five weeks of teaching full-time has been instructive for me in the sense of knowing how much time I’ll actually have for art production.

Read more about Doctor Baer here!

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Super Comics Challenge at CXC 2023!

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The game show where cartoonists match wits and pencils returns in-person to CXC in 2023! Join Raina Telgemeier, Coni Yovaniniz, and Rafael Rosado for some fun drawing games where the prompts are provided by YOU! Sunday, October 1,3-4pm at the Columbus Metropolitan Library Downtown branch. Check out Cartoon Crossroads Columbus for more information.

Check out a bit of Super Comics Challenge held virtually in 2020 featuring Gregg Schigiel, Gerimi Burleigh, Aaron Polk, and Elizabeth:

Super Comics Challenge at CXC 2023! Read More »

Doctor Baer Thumbnails are Underway

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And here’s chapter 1 of the next Doctor Baer book in sticky note thumbnails (my first guess at how the pages will look). I’m slowly adapting to teaching full-time and squeezing in time for personal projects. I found myself stopping and breathing to shut down the anxious little goblin sitting on my shoulder, shouting that I should maximize every minute. I’m hopeful that in the coming weeks I’ll find some kind of comfortable rhythm.

I’m sharing the entire process of making this book, including audio essays on my experience making it, over on my Patreon for Teams Pickles and up, by the way. You can sign up here!

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From the Sketchbook: New Doctor Baer Story

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I’ve recently finished a draft for my next Doctor Baer story. My plans are to serialize it as a webcomic, so I’m free to share as much of the process as I want.

Which is to say, if you don’t mind spoilers I’m sharing every step of the process of making this comic on my Patreon (Team Pickles and up!).

Or you can wait for the pages to appear here on the blog.

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