Join us for a Manga Workshop on Saturday February 23rd AND March 2nd, 1-3pm. (This is a two-part workshop.)
$40 covers all materials.
Ages 11 through adult welcome.
Zack Wood, an artist who studied manga and animation in Japan (the country of manga!), will teach this popular style of comic.
In this workshop you’ll learn how to develop a comic page, from sketching, to inking, to adding halftones.
The first two hour session on Saturday February 23rd will cover examples of manga, sketching a comic page, and beginning to ink the drawing. The second two-hour session on Saturday March 2nd will continue inking, whiting-out changes, and adding half-tone sheets for shading. You can see pics from a previous Manga Workshop HERE and Zack’s artist talk about his own comics HERE.
SIGN UP HERE! Prepaid registration is required. 8 seats are available as of February 14th.
ABOUT MANGA & YOUR TEACHER:
Manga means ‘comic’ in Japanese and is a style of comic in Japan which is widely read by all ages. (Manga is also strongly connected to anime, the popular animated film genre.) The stories cover various themes such as romance, horror, historical drama, sports, and more. The style is singularly recognizable and modern, but was developed in 19th century Japan! Learn more HERE.
Zack was featured in a New York Times article about American students heading to Japan to study Manga in preparation for careers in film, games, and comics. He currently has a graphic novel under consideration for publication in Japan. You may be more familiar with the work of his mother, R. Wood of R. Wood pottery, or his father, painter Lamar Wood who also runs the Brick House gallery.
Here’s another article by Nancy Lendved about Zack in Athens Patch. It offers a great explanation about the medium. From the article: Wood thinks anyone interested in drawing comics would gain from studying manga. “The Japanese developed manga as a mode of expression using unique symbols to convey the story. Design elements are used to convey emotional states. It’s all about the characters. They made comics into a new media to be read quickly, rather than be seen as art. The speed they read comics there is insane.” Wood explains that unlike here, where “comics are for kids or ‘weird adult men,’ in Japan, there’s manga for housewives, businessmen, boys, girls. It covers sports, cooking, tax codes and medical breakthroughs. Like movies here, it’s acceptable for everyone.”
Zack Wood will be teaching the Manga Workshop coming up soon, so he brought some examples to inspire you. He brought one that’s popular with girls in Japan, a horror one, an outrageously-drawn action one, ‘Akira’ (which became a popular anime movie), one about food, and one about wheelchair basketball. Stop in and take a look! They’re written back to front in the Japanese style, even if they’re in English. You can get the gist of the Manga style as well as the variations possible. It’s like reading a movie! This image is from ‘Vagabond’, one he let us borrow.