Good Week #2: Good Story

Excerpts from my newsletter, Good Week. Not signed up? Join here.

1. Vermont's Center for Cartoon Studies (an amazing place to study visual storytelling) is offering a free email-based 'cartooning workout.' It starts when you sign up here and goes for consecutive seven days. I'm enjoying it myself and plan to try it with my students.

2. Lessons From a Screen Play is one of my favorite YouTube channels. Start with the Ghostbusters episode. The lesson here: A story is only a good as the people who tell it. (9 min)

3. Cartoonist Will Eisner is one of history's greatest visual storytellers. He taught America to take comic books seriously. This episode of the podcast, Imaginary Worlds, digs into Eisner's legacy. Take a listen, then get a copy of Eisner's book on the principles of comic art. (35 min)

4. Printed Matter, Inc. is the world's largest public archive of independently published works. Their catalog includes thousands of comics that stretch the art form like it was a glob of silly putty.

5. In 1995(maybe), not long after it became possible to share comics on the web, comic theorist Scott McCloud identified a new opportunity for computer savvy cartoonists that he called the infinite canvas. The mainstream never caught on but the history of the medium is worth exploring.

Good Week #1: Operating Instructions

Content from the first ‘issue’ of my newsletter. Not signed up? Join here.

1. Why make art? Watch Picasso paint some things and you'll get a taste of the pure joyfulness that only art can evoke. (2 min)

2. Maps of imaginary places RULE. The LotR Project is the ultimate tribute to J.R.R Tolkien's world and characters but the map is the coolest part. (∞ min)

3. Speaking of imaginary places... Manylands is a shared pixel art universe of 100,000 spaces and millions of objects. Wander around and/or make your own things. I don't play many video games but I get super inspired by collaborative, interactive art. (∞ min)

4. Reach for the Stars is a beautiful mashup of scenes from films about space exploration. Good stories are honest depictions of the human condition and space is the perfect setting to explore ourselves. Warning: this video will make you want to watch Apollo 13. (3 min)

5. Words from a brilliant mind: “Literature is the operating instructions. The best manual we have. The most useful guide to the country we’re visiting, life.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, from her essay “The Operating Instructions”

Happy Women Director Awareness Month y'all

Did you know September is Women Director Awareness Month? Here are five films and a music video to help you celebrate.

Wayne's World (1992). Directed by Penelope Spheeris. After making some documentaries about the LA punk scene, Penelope jumped to the mainstream by taking a popular SNL skit and turning it into a fourth wall breaking comedy masterpiece.

Clueless (1995). Directed by Amy Heckerling. A story about high school popularity that transcends its 90s-ness. Her script got a well-deserved Writer's Guild nomination and the film shoulda got an Oscar nod too.

The Hurt Locker (2009). Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. This is not a war movie. This is a story about the addiction to war, the way it affects the families and friends of soldiers, and the unfortunate truth that there may not be a cure. Fun Fact: Ms. Bigelow is also a painter.

The Babadook (2014). Directed by Jennifer Kent. A nerve rattling Austrailian horror film that stars a top hat wearing monster that became an icon of the LGBT community. An amazing debut that transcends its genre and deserves a place among psychological thrillers like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.

Mustang (2015). Directed by Deniz Gamze. Five orphaned sisters searching for a sense of self in a small, conservative Turkish village. A charming, frustrating, and truly intimate story. It's no surprise the director based it on her own youth.

Boys (2017). Directed by Charli XCX. The music video for this 8-bit gem is directed by the pop star herself. Watch a bunch of famous, sexy dudes smashing TVs, holding puppies, and eating pancakes. You know, music video stuff.