I stumbled onto Lynda Barry and Making Comics on Instagram, via Austin Kleon, the Steal Like an Artist guy. (Which was another serendipitous book purchase. We’ll talk about that sometime.) Because 2022 has turned out to be my year of feeding the right brain, I felt this book would be a great follow-up to Wreck This Journal, an art activity experience I worked through recently. (We should talk about that, too.) Making Comics encourages everyone to be a visual storyteller.

When Do We Stop Making Comic?

Lynda Barry is an award-winning cartoonist, writer, and art teacher at University of Wisconsin. Making Comics is the curriculum for a comics class, but much more than that. It digs up and examines the roots of childhood creativity, that time and mental space where the line is the story, no matter if it represents an image, a letter, a numeral, or simply the joy of mark making. The book points out that all children are artists. Until they’re not. For some reason, be it internal self-doubt or external criticism, most of us decide we can’t draw and stop trying.

Through a series of fun, accessible exercises and assignments, Making Comics breaks down the barriers that adults tend to put up between ourselves and storytelling through visual art. It draws, and encourages the reader to draw, the connections among our narrative, the emotions tied up in our narrative, and our pen on a blank page. 

Much of this head-and-heart work is applicable to any creative endeavor. Our authentic art must sprout from self-confidence and trust in the message rather than our technical skills. 

What is Allowed to be a Comic?

This isn’t a book to teach one to draw like a professional animator. The method produces raw, exciting, scribbly images the reader may not want to share. The book’s assignments are accompanied by encouraging words and evidence of lively student images that Barry fished out of the classroom trashcan. 

Making Comics uses several strategies to get the reader to let go and free the line, for example:

• Timer. Most exercises and assignments are timed. With only a few minutes to jot down an idea, we must ignore our internal critic. Just push on, no matter what we think of the image. One kind of timer suggested is playing a song, yet another right-brain approach to creative endeavors.
• Group work. Many exercises involve passing the page on to another person, who will add to the image and the story: a classroom method for making comics. For the reader working through the book alone, that is a bit sad. I modified the assignments as best I could to do them alone, but I can see it wasn’t the same experience. 
• Simple Materials. Creatives can get a bit precious about their materials and supplies (i.e., “my work isn’t good enough for this notebook”). The Making Comics supply list is short and cheap. Readers are encouraged to play; it’s all ephemera, really, isn’t it?

I thoroughly enjoyed the process of Making Comics and have begun to think about storytelling in new and exciting ways. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

If you found Making Comics interesting, you might enjoy reading about the creative compost heap.

Click here to order The Big Cinch, award-winning supernatural noir novel from Kathy L. Brown.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor

Like the blog? Subscribe (form at the bottom of my website) to never miss an issue. Want more? Subscribe to the occasional newsletter for exclusive content. And, of course, I’m selling books. Check out all my stories at Amazon.com. 

If you prefer Barnes and Noble, you can order my young adult novella, Wolfhearted,  here. It is also available as an audiobook, here.

If you’ve enjoyed one of my books, tell the world! Consider leaving a short review at Audible, Amazon, or Goodreads. The direct link to review Wolfhearted on Amazon is here, The Resurrectionist, here , and Water of Life, here, or visit my Shop off the landing page menu to review at Barnes and Noble. Thanks in advance. Twenty-five reviews will put a book in a more prominent position on Amazon.

Last year the St. Louis Writers Guild published Love Letters to St. Louis. This adorable letter-shaped volume of short stories, poems, essays, and illustrations includes my first science fiction story, “Welcome to Earthport Prime: A Self-Guided Tour.” Profits benefit the guild’s young writers’ program.