What is the Bologna Book Fair? The Bologna Book Fair is the largest children’s book fair in the world. If you love children’s books, it’s heaven. It’s one giant lovefest for the art of illustrated storytelling. Everyone there is passionate about books and art and making the world a better place for kids. This year there were an astounding 31,735 attendees, with 1523 exhibitors from more than 90 countries, and 386 events on the program. It’s certainly one of the best places for illustrators to learn and network. A gigantic “Illustrators Wall” dominates the entrance hall to the fair. The Illust ..read more

What is visual narrative? Visual narrative in comics is how we communicate and engage an audience through visual storytelling. It can convey information at a glance, guide the eye, evoke emotions, and enact the senses to become an immersive experience. “a book is a little empathy machine. It puts you inside somebody else’s head. You see out of the world through somebody else’s eyes.” Neil Gaiman Underlying the visuals is the inward relationship between the creator and the reader. The creator asks the reader to make their own logical connections between events and to participate in the unfoldin ..read more

Have you ever wondered how traditional book publishers decide which books to acquire? In a recent talk for Kids Comics Studio, I offered a quick overview of how book publishers decide which graphic novels to acquire. While it may initially seem complex, once you understand the inner workings of the industry, you realize that publishing is not rocket science.  So what exactly happens when an agent submits a book proposal to an editor at a publishing house?  First, the editor puts it in their ginormous spreadsheet of submissions. Depending on who the agent and creator are, they may pri ..read more

There are a lot of questions about “Scriptwriting” within the Kids Comics Unite community. How is graphic novel scriptwriting similar and different from writing a prose manuscript? How is it similar and different from writing a movie script? To start off, I asked agent Janna Morishima, who specializes in working with graphic novelists, a few questions about scriptwriting for comics. As a graphic novel creator, is it necessary to write a full script before pitching a GN project to agents and/or publishers? Janna: My answer to this question is, “it depends on what type of a creator you are.” If ..read more

In one of our last KCU Team meetings of 2023, I was telling Jade and Lisa how much fun we had doing the “2023 Year in Review” exercise in Kids Comics Studio. “Oh!” said Jade. “That makes me think of the vision boards I did with my critique group at the beginning of this year! Just a sec!” She reached across her desk and then held up this sketch to show us: Vision board by Jade Vaughan “The cool thing,” Jade continued, “is that I got that car that I sketched in my Vision Board! My new car looks almost exactly like what I drew!” Whether you believe in the idea of being able to ..read more

Young is a neurodivergent cartoonist, storyboard artist, and animator driven to draw stories from the heart. Having grown up in a multicultural Korean-Colombian family, Young grew a love for studying people, cultures, and stories from around the world. Young is currently developing a middle grade graphic novel titled, The Intimidators, about an autistic sixth-grader in special education named Anne-Diane who starts her own school club. What inspired you to make comic strips and why do you make them? As a cartoonist, I’ve always wanted to make a name for myself in the local scene. I took my chan ..read more

After looking at the structural frameworks of comic strips, I became curious to hear from cartoonists who make them. This is part 1 of our 3-part series of interviews with comic strip creators! In each interview, I ask the same 5 questions. Let’s dive in. Today we start with Stan Yan! Stan is an award-winning, first generation American-born-Chinese, Denver-based writer, illustrator, caricature artist and instructor. He currently teaches illustration at the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design and via the Cuddlefish Academy, and is the co-Regional Advisor for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of ..read more

What better way to start out the month than to show our love of comics? It can be about any subject you like. It can be wordless, made with stick figures, drawn on a napkin, using photos, collaged. The goal is to make something new. Practice using those storytelling muscles. Our mantra for the year is quantity over quality. Keep making enough stuff and eventually it will lead to quality. Embrace making bad work. Let’s make comics! Author only? Excellent. This is a great and small enough exercise to experiment with!  Need a kick? Create a four panel comic each week of February. Particip ..read more

In one of our last KCU Team meetings of 2023, I was telling Jade and Lisa how much fun we had doing the “2023 Year in Review” exercise in Kids Comics Studio. “Oh!” said Jade. “That makes me think of the vision boards I did with my critique group at the beginning of this year! Just a sec!” She reached across her desk and then held up this sketch to show us: Vision board by Jade Vaughan “The cool thing,” Jade continued, “is that I got that car that I sketched in my Vision Board! My new car looks almost exactly like what I drew!” Whether you believe in the idea of being able to ..read more

Every month in Kids Comics Unite this year, we’re focusing on a specific theme. We will be posting a monthly challenge within our KCU Mighty Network community AND on our blog starting in February! In Kids Comics Studio, we’ll be going really in depth on those themes via our accountability group, workshops, challenges, critique sessions, and critique groups. Here’s the lineup for 2024: January: Goals/Focus – workshop by Janna Morishima February: Story Structure – workshop by Ken Lamug March: Scriptwriting – workshop by Brigitta Blair April: Visual Narrative & Comics Devices – TBD May: Sim ..read more