Jerzy Drozd
Teaching Artist and Cartoonist
Jerzy Drozd
Teaching Artist and Cartoonist
Audio journals on making and teaching comics.
Today I elaborate on a topic from the forum, specifically about some advice about starting up a fight with one’s competitors as a means to get your passionate supporters to rally behind you. It is my opinion that one must first decide what is their desired outcome from their position, and then evaluate whether debating or fighting is the method that will yield the intended results.
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Today I share some thoughts about another go-to premise that offers lots of story building ideas: The Trap. Taking a character out of their comfortable element and thrusting them into a situation they didn’t ask for and can’t escape from. Such a situation becomes an exploration of how their character must evolve in order to become worthy of their new vocation.
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Today I leap off of topics broached in Mark of the Beast 12 and High Adventure Daily 13 to share a few thoughts on writing longer stories without letting any extraneous (or fat) make it into the narrative. One mustn’t mistake our focus on creating lean stories as an indictment on long-form comics.
I refer to Thunder Punch Daily 06 – Argue For Your Theme in this episode as well.
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Today I elaborate on some discussion going on in the forums concerning being a work-at-home illustrator. Pros and cons, trying to balance out the picture.
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Today I answer a question asked in the forums by Rene van Belzen:
How do I know what a character thinks or feels if it hasn’t been developed yet, nor feel any compassion for it?
The big secret of writing is that it’s what we did on the playground as children. The problem with teaching is it becomes too easy to bewilder the audience with terminology, charts, and definitions.
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Today I share some thoughts about Good Panic and Bad Panic. Good Panic gets you excited about what happens next; Bad Panic gives you an excuse to not get the job done.
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Today I model a word association exercise I use in classrooms to demonstrate how one can build a simple point of interest into a serviceable (or at the very least, fun) story idea.
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Today I share a few thoughts about choosing one’s friends carefully, lest you find yourself surrounded by people dismissive of your craft. Spending too much time around disinterested or inert folks can have damaging consequences not only to your self-esteem, but to your creativity. I take a break from talking about Joseph Campbell and use Ayn Rand’s books to illustrate my thesis this time.
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Today I discuss what could be considered a character archetype: The Small Soulful One. Many of us think of characters like Yoda as a good representation of that type, but I explain why I think characters like Paddington Bear and Pippi Longstocking are even better at exploring what makes that kind of character special.
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Today I leap off of something Kim Holm mentioned about lettering on a recent A&S Extreme!! I talk about how the principles of line value in illustration are exactly analogous to the way I like to think about lettering. I talk a little inside baseball at the top of this one, discussing how I use Hindenburg Mobile to record the show.
I referred to Art & Story episodes 95 and 79 in this episode, if you want to hear more extensive talk on lettering.
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