After attending a Comics Conference this past spring I decided to start a Comic Book Club for elementary kids grades 2-6 (I may change the ages to just grades 4-6). The purpose of this club is to introduce or explore more comic books geared toward elementary age children. The club meets once a month, each month we explore a different aspect of creating a comic book. I took the different elements and turned them into comprehensible ideas for the kids. We look at different comic books in the library and spend some time working on creating our own comics. I allow time each session for participants to share about comics they are reading or creating. So far there are a few attendees and my hope is that as word spreads that there is a new program at the library that more kids will participate.
Some of the books that I used to create my monthly activities are as followed:
Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud
Lila & Ecco's Do-It-Yourself Comics Club by Willow Dawson
Hi Amy. I am a youth services librarian trying to get my comic book club off the ground and have checked out the books you have listed above which are really helpful. Do you have any other suggestions. What did your first meeting look like and a typical meeting after that? Any help is appreciated. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Betsy,
ReplyDeleteThis comment must have gone under the radar on my end, I just noticed it today. So sorry! I hope you got your comic book started. I ended up having a younger group interested in the program and have actually stopped doing it for the rest of the year due to scheduling conflicts. I started out with several templates for setting up the comics. The kids selected which ones they wanted and started drawing and creating comics. Some would share their stories with the group and take extra papers home to work on them. Most of the kids attending at the beginning were in kindergarten and first grade. The program was advertised for 2-6 grade, but I'm not strict about ages for my family Thursday programs. Because of the ages attending I did not go into great detail about all the aspects that go into making a comic book. I will try to revisit and advertise this program to an older crowd next year and see how it goes. Let me know how your program is going and what worked well for you.