Splat! Graphic Novel Symposium aftermath
So I ran this workshop called “Place In The Graphic Novel” today. I’ve spoken on a lot of panels at conventions before, but with those I really know what I was getting myself in to, who the audience would be, etc. With this thing, I had to create a one-time curriculum for a mystery audience. Were they writers? Artists? Comic book readers? Interested civilians? No idea. So I was a little worried and wrote out this whole plan and made a powerpoint presentation and brought supplies, thinking I might put these 20 people to work on some layouts or script outlines.
The crowd ended up being 50 people, which made a workshop impossible. So I powered through the slides, talked at length about all my books, mostly Local and the process behind that book, some general themes and considerations and tips about writing fiction deliberately set in non-fiction locales. It occurred to me, as I planned for this, that virtually everything I’ve written exists in a very specific place that is blended into the story to a degree that it couldn’t be easily swapped out. New York City especially: three Channel Zero books, three volumes of Couriers, Couscous Express, all of DMZ, some of Local, some of Demo, my Vampirella thing, most of my run on Generation X, Fight For Tomorrow, The New York Four. I think I might only be beat out by Will Eisner in this?
This workshop went well. The crowd ranged from kids going to Parsons to much older, established writers interested in working in the medium of comics. I spoke for the entire time, took a lot of questions, and had a blast overall. I might write this curriculum up as a column to run online somewhere.
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