The incredible thing about comics, to me, is the medium’s diversity. Some people hear the word “comics” and are reminded of newsprint pages filled with superheroes. Others see shelves of manga stacked tight, while some readers are more familiar with hardbound graphic novels and nonfiction volumes. All of these formats and types of books rightly describe comics.Guest Blogger: Mariko Tamaki
The incredible thing about comics, to me, is the medium’s diversity. Some people hear the word “comics” and are reminded of newsprint pages filled with superheroes. Others see shelves of manga stacked tight, while some readers are more familiar with hardbound graphic novels and nonfiction volumes. All of these formats and types of books rightly describe comics.
The question I'm most often asked by kids is, "Where do your ideas come from?" I always give a concrete answer, like "Someone suggested that to me" or "It happened in my childhood." And while those answers are true for some of what I write, many of my ideas come from somewhere else. But it's hard to put my finger on just where that somewhere else is.
I always groan when people ask about my writing process, because what they are really asking is the more complicated question, “How does your mind work?” Even the word “process” confounds me. It implies a tidy, shrink-wrapped procedure. I wish it was that way–a specific set of steps to get me from that awful first draft to a polished manuscript, which is often thirty rewrites down the line. For me, writing isn’t precise. It is a messy evolution.
Author Robie Harris and illustrator Michael Emberley have worked closely together to create nearly a dozen age-appropriate books for children and teens on human development and sexuality, including It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families (Candlewick, 1999)and It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health (Candlewick, 1994). For Harris and Emberley, the entire research process is of the utmost importance when it comes to creating accurate informational books. From finding the right resources to portraying information in word and illustration, these two have insights to share about the inquiry process.
One of the questions I’m often asked by students—sometimes with tremulous voices—is about the dreaded “writer's block." It's as if they're asking about the flu or the boogey man. “Do I ever get it?” “Does it ever get me?”