‘Kansai mini tour’ of comic book stuff in Osaka and Kobe.
I had a ‘Kansai mini tour’ of comic book stuff in Osaka and Kobe.
It was pretty good. I taught 8 classes on comic books to various ages at the excellent Osaka International School. The kids were good in all classes (expect the older bunch who were a bit cool – it’s really interesting how behaviour changes from the direct enthusiasm of a 12 year old to the cool, detached distance of a 15 year old).
I had a ‘Kansai mini tour’ of comic book stuff in Osaka and Kobe.
It was pretty good. I taught 8 classes on comic books to various ages at the excellent Osaka International School. The kids were good in all classes (expect the older bunch who were a bit cool – it’s really interesting how behaviour changes from the direct enthusiasm of a 12 year old to the cool, detached distance of a 15 year old).
But the younger kids were great. I was very impressed with their questions – which their teacher had got them to prepare before but then they went off into ad hoc ones that were just as interesting. For example the Grade 4 and 5 kids, at only 9 or 10 years old, asked really detailed and insightful questions about how to make comics, how to combine text and art, even on what the financial situation is like!
We did an activity in which i had taken out the text from one page of our comics, and they had to fill in the words with what ever they thought appropriate. Then the reverse – the words were there but I’d taken off the art – so they drew what the wanted that time. They did really well. One young girl wrote hers in Hebrew as she has only been in Japan a few months and her English and Japanese are not good enough yet.
The kids were very nice to me when they saw me in the halls or at lunch time, and treated me like I was a visiting celebrity (even crowding round me for about 50 autographs, as the photo shows). Not that this is my aim, but it was nice to be the recepient of their cute enthusiasm.
We did an activity in which i had taken out the text from one page of our comics, and they had to fill in the words with what ever they thought appropriate. Then the reverse – the words were there but I’d taken off the art – so they drew what the wanted that time. They did really well. One young girl wrote hers in Hebrew as she has only been in Japan a few months and her English and Japanese are not good enough yet.
The kids were very nice to me when they saw me in the halls or at lunch time, and treated me like I was a visiting celebrity (even crowding round me for about 50 autographs, as the photo shows). Not that this is my aim, but it was nice to be the recepient of their cute enthusiasm.
After that I went to Kobe and took part in a panel on comics as part of the Japan Writers Conference, which went well. The image below is by Graeme McNee, my fellow Scot on the panel. I'm the one on the left with the longer dark hair, and US artist/writer Adam Pasion in the middle.
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