Stickie Note Comic Book Scrabble Workshops and Installation

Prefacing

Simple comic strip narratives with a three panel structure: setup, action reaction

Man walking

Banana skin on path

Man slips on a banana skin

This is not too dissimilar to a three act story, just the middle panel would be wider than the first and third but that is getting more complicated than this needs to be.

Resources and Inspiration

Scott McCloud - Understanding Comics (all of it with a specific focus on the infinite canvas stuff as that is really closely linked to the idea of a non-linear storytelling method. Probably has some similar ideas to his comic My Obsession with Chess http://scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/chess/chess.html)_

Exquisite Corpse without the hiding the previous persons work from the current artist. This is a long bow to draw but worth adding here for the sake of completeness.

Requirements

This workshop is specifically designed to be cheap and cheery. THe biggest expense is the cost of facilitators but them's always the breaks.

Stickie notes

Markers

A large wall

A wall timer (optional)

Workshop Outline_draft

This is meant to be a fast paced workshop. Participants are encouraged to make a decision and commit to it. They can take all the time they want to refine their work after the workshop (there is a deadline for replacing panels which is established from the out set and restated at the end of the workshop. The time in the workshops if for thinking and creating. Refining comes later. There is a balancing act to be had here, with participants having just enough time to think about what they're trying to do and not enough to overthink. Program is designed to be run as a rolling concern, which it's why the briefing occurs in a different, holding space. Holding space is also implemented to give a sense of anticipation and expectation that whatever past the door is awesome.

Timeline

00:00 Participants gather, settle and are run through the workshop briefing. Odds are the briefing will comprise of X steps:

Facilitator establishes expectations of the session.

Ordered List ItemIntroductory video that covers what the workshop is about, the principles and practises in applications, some examples, rules of the project etc. It uses the Scott McCloud definition of comics as pictures juxtaposed with words to tell a sequential narrative (need to check the quote).

Workshop facilitator establishes rules of engagement or the workshop.

Everyone is expected to have a go.

If there is a problem say something.

Don't deliberately sabotage someone else.s work

If you hate the process it will be over shortly.

00:05 Participants are escorted into the creative area. They have five minutes to review the existing work and figure out where they'd like to add content to the whole. They're encouraged to discuss where they're going to add content with the other participants, as this will cut down on arguing later. Discourage them starting to create before the ten minute mark. Give them time to think it through and have a clear idea before commencing.

Contributions can be images, text or both. Reinforce that in the first instance the product needs to be up on the wall by the end of the twenty total minutes

00:10 Participants have eight minutes to get their stickie notes on the wall. Each participant (as many as is feasible) has a different coloured stickie note option. On the back of each stickie note they need to include their name so they can be recognised as the creator of that note. Pirate nicknames, Twitter and Instagram handles are equally fine. Their email address would would also be good so we can send them a copy of their creations. It just has to be something that makes the artist definable. I think there needs to be a timer highly visible in the room to give the participants sufficient understanding of the deadline. A one minute warning will be provided.

00:18 Participants down tools and put their creations up on the wall. It is restated that participants have more time to refine their creations after the session if they would like. Just take some notes, refine the design (refine and not redesign) and replace the existing stickie note if they want. If they don't this is equally as good. Once a stickie note is locked into place, stickie tape is applied to secure it in place. Last thing anyone wants is for the stickie note to fall off the wall and a contribution to be lost.

00:20 Participants are ushered out of the room and the next group comes through.

Post Workshop

Facilitators carefully document the grid created over the day.

Each frame is digitally captured and recorded by grid reference. Information from the back of the stickie note are included in the filename. This is suffixed by the date of the workshop.

Ie. 13:8_@BridgetJones_20191003 (thirteen squares across x eight squares down)

This should ensure the relative position of an image is captured effectively. A hi-res photo of the laid out comic should be captured on the day as a reference for when everything goes wrong.

Ideally a HTML (or similar) document would be created that allows for images to be dropped into a folder and located into a grid/infinite canvas. I realise this is probably not as easy as it sound and will need changes made to the naming convention. Surely we live in a time when this is possible!?! In any event, all images are laid out in a grid with a popup when a frame is clicked on providing the creators name as recorded on the back of the stickie notes (again, hoping that we can arrive at a naming convention that will streamline this). It would be great if, when the frame is clicked on it flips like a tile and flicks back when the cursor moves away. If it were super easy, having a distinct tile leading to someone's social media account would be gangster. Yes, I used the word gangster as an adjective and I don't care!

It provided for a clean way of interfacing without ruining the comic book experience. Multiple comics could be capture and stored in a gallery of collated work.

The page should only have a home navigation options and a name for the work.

If feasible (hopefully we captured contact emails for all participants) once this goes live participants should be sent a link to the outcome. If the size of the overall document is reasonable, a copy of the bundled up site could be provided for offline storage. In any event, the capture of their specific images should be sent to them as acknowledgement of the work they have created.