Teaching comics at Bookalore

Making comics is such a difficult task. I have always appreciated the dedication and the love of comics in artists that i meet every day online and offline. So it took me a while to say yes to the kind people at Bookalore when they suggested that I do a comics workshop in their July event for kids. I went back to the drawing board (my whiteboard in my study) and figured what to do with kids. How does one teach about making comics? As a writer that too? So I asked Bangalore-based, soft spoken artist Ojoswi Sur to join me in the workshop to give an artist’s perspective to kids.

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It was all experimentation on our part. We loosely structured the workshop and decided to give the kids the basics of comic making (panels, balloons for dialogues, types) and gave them a chilling scene from The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong and see what they came up with. The results were surprising and so much fun! The kids huddled, discussed, wondered, had a nervous breakdown, scribbled, begged each other for erasers and mostly I hope had a grand time. Of course I had grossly underestimated the time they would need to make comics and given them a long scene (poor things), so none could complete the effort. But they did have a gala time and I requested them to complete the comics at home and email them to me. Hope some do.

Some pictures that my dear, dear Ashwani who always comes with me to workshops, took. Enjoy 🙂

If the pictures don’t open in your browser, see them on either of these links: Google+ or Facebook depending on your choice of network.

Comic fundas at Bookalore festival

Here it is #Bangalore. Have been roped in to give comic fundas to kids (9-13 yrs) in the upcoming Bookalore event by the amazingly sweet children books author Asha Nehemiah (whose sheer number of books can shame Jack and his tall beanstalks!). The workshop is all ready with a spine-tingling scene from The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong.  I will also talk about my experiences in creating comics, taking examples from Krishna Defender of Dharma and The Skull Rosary. Will be doing it with illustrator and artist, Ojoswi Sur (who was kind enough to say yes in such a tight schedule!)

Spread the word or come by if you have kids in the age groups of 9-13. Open to all.

1-Bookalore - July 2014 V2