Daisy Chains
Komodo
The May issue of
Chickadee is out. Mine just came in the mail the other day. As always, I turned to the Daisy Dreamer page first to see Gabriel's artwork, and to read the story. Sometimes it takes so long from the time I write the story til the time the magazine arrives that I can't remember what it was about!
That wasn't the case this time. I looked at the cover, saw the issue was about reptiles, and remembered that the Daisy Dreamer story happens in India, and that Daisy turns into a komodo dragon. If you like cool lizards, you will definitely have to check this one out. The komodo dragon is the largest lizard in the world. There was one neat but gross fact about komodos that I didn't try to use in the story, because it didn't really work. But it's a fact I like anyway, so here it is: old bits of meat stick to the teeth in a komodo dragon's mouth. The meat rots and gets loaded with bacteria, which make their way into the dragon's saliva. It's so poisonous that a komodo bite can kill a person. Stay away!
New Daisy Dreamer stories
Some weeks I hardly think about Daisy Dreamer at all. Maybe I've finished writing one comic, and I don't have to write the next one for a little while. But other times, it seems like there's a lot of Daisy in my life.
Like this week. First, I have to rewrite my September story. I don't have to completely rewrite it of course, just make changes to it. Mary, who edits
Chickadee, pointed out that a few things didn't really make sense, and part of my story was not very original. She's right of course, and she suggested ways to fix it. Now I just have to finish it up.
At the same time, Mary and I have been talking about the October story, trying to find the right animal for Daisy to turn into, and yesterday I came up with an idea for Daisy's November adventure. The final story might turn out to be similar to my idea, or it might be very different in the end. The folks at
Chickadee will have to discuss it and see what they think.
All I can say is that I think all three stories are going to be a lot of fun to read.
Thank you Springvale
I had a great time visiting
Springvale Elementary in Halifax today. Wow! Those Grade 3 and 4 kids had lots and lots of questions -- really good ones too.
A couple of people asked me about animals that Daisy Dreamer has turned into. Someone wanted to know if she had ever been a whale (since I've been writing the comic she's been an orca and a beluga, but not one of the larger whales) and someone else asked about sharks. I've never even thought about having her turn into a shark before. Great idea! The hard part would be writing a shark story that was not too scary. But sharks are amazing animals, and they hardly ever harm humans. Maybe a shark story could talk about that.
I was also asked if Daisy can talk to animals, and that's something I had never, ever thought about before. I don't think she can -- but when she becomes an animal she can communicate just like all the other animals of her species.
A big thank you to all the kids at Springvale, and a special thanks to Shirley Zwicker for organizing the visit.
Getting Animated
Over the last few days we have watched a couple of the Frog and Toad videos, and they make the whole family laugh. Frog and Toad star in a series of books for kids written by Arnold Lobel. I never read the books when I was little. But even as an adult I found them funny, honest, and simple. The videos are the same. Often film versions ruin a good story by trying to be too big and flashy. The Frog and Toad videos don't do that.
Animator John Matthews took about a year to make
Frog and Toad are Friends, and at the end of the video John shows how he made the puppets for Frog and Toad, and how he and his wife did the animation. Some things are different now. Most people use digital video instead of film. But the process of making little clay people and animals move is the same, and is really magical.
If you're interested in animation, there is an excellent and free program called Anasazi Stop Motion Animator, and you can download it
here. The site also has lots of information on creating animation with clay.
Bruno
The whole family went to the Viewfinders Animation Challenge last night. It's part of the Viewfinders Film Festival in Halifax, which shows films by and for kids.
The animation challenge shows short films made by kids, and one of them was by our 14-year-old friend
Aven Fisher (pdf). Aven's entry was called
Bruno and it was amazing -- a hilarious two-and-a-half minute stop-motion animated movie about a dog desperate to get his owner to take him out for a walk.
The guy sits at a desk, scowling, with a huge stack of papers at his side. He's barely started going through them, but the dog wants to go for a walk
now. Desperate to get his way, he drags some papers to the toilet and flushes them, tears apart a cushion on othe couch and then poops behind it. All in under three minutes.
Aven worked for months. He built the characters and the set (including the toilet!) himself, and the animation was very professional looking. Obviously the audience and judges thought so too.
Bruno won three awards. I hope it gets seen at other film festivals too. I'm sure Aven's
writer/director/producer dad will be on the case.
The Animation Challenge included movies made by kids as young as six (they animated paper drawings), and movies that animated Lego, Playmobil and clay. Plus there was Flash animation too. I appreciated the opprotunity to be able to see their work up on a big screen, in a real theatre.
Are comic shop clerks psychic?
There are many things I love about comics shops. Often, they are small. This means that they are piled high with comics, action figures, DVDs, and whatever else they sell. There is so much to look at.
But even better is talking to and listening to the people who work in and visit comics shops. Especially the ones who really, really know their stuff well.
Last summer our family was in Charlottetown, and my son Callum and I visited one of the local comics stores. This is something we almost always do when we are travelling. I wasn't looking for anything special, just seeing if anything caught my eye. One of the guys who worked in the shop came up to me and asked if he could help me find anything, and I said no thanks, I was just looking.
Remember, I've never met him before, and I've never been in the store before. He points to the back and says, "I have all the NOW comics back there. That's where the Ralph Snart comics are, if you want them. I can let you have them for a dollar each."
I had forgotten about Ralph Snart (even though I once had a Ralph Snart t-shirt, a fantastic present from my wife, Sara) but YES! I did want them. I have a bunch of old Ralph Snart comics and suddenly realized it would be great to pick up where I had left off.
Was it coincidence that the guy in the store looked at me and figured out what comics I'd be interested in? Maybe. But maybe not. I think he just understood his customers very, very well.
If you're interested, Ralph Snart is created by Marc Hansen, who has been doing the comic (which you can now get free, online) for 20 years.