Over our first three origin stories, we’ve shared how Made Collaborative began with an idea, how that idea found its way into a Chicago classroom, and how the imaginations of our earliest youth collaborators quickly transformed it into something much bigger.
But one important question remained.
How do you turn an extraordinary collection of unrelated ideas into an actual comic book?
For our fourth and final entry in this introductory series, we’re turning things over to Made Collaborative Studio Director and co-creator Len Kody, who helped us begin answering that question.
Here’s his perspective on how the early collaborative process gave rise to the fictional world of Back of the Yards.
By Len Kody
The magic of creativity begins with inspiration, but it can only be sustained through unwavering dedication and tireless grinding.
Project founder Jimmy Briseno has since recruited others to grind with him on the Made Collaborative journey (and we’re certainly glad he did), but the journey began with him standing alone in front of a classroom full of kids waiting to see what he was going to say next.
It took a little coaxing at first to get things started, but once the kids caught the storytelling bug, they were off and running. Bringing a small team of artists into the collaborative process was the natural next step. Their role wasn’t to replace the kids’ ideas, but to help expand them – adding greater depth and legitimacy to everything Jimmy had documented during those early after-school creative sessions.
Together, Jimmy, the artists, and the youth refined and expanded upon a remarkable collection of narrative ideas. Every one of them originated with the participating youth, inspired by their own lives and heightened by the stories, comics, films, and games they loved. Over time, the team assembled what was, in effect, a series bible: model sheets, storyboards, character descriptions, plot outlines, world-building notes, and even preliminary scripts.
It contained all the ingredients of a great comic – romance, adventure, humor, and that all-too-elusive authenticity that came directly from the participating youth. But it still wasn’t a comic book. Only the ingredients of one.
Telling a Story About Telling a Story
The first round of collaborations produced an extraordinary variety of narrative content, which was exactly what the participating youth had been encouraged to do: tell whatever story they believed was worth telling. But that creative freedom also presented a challenge. How do you bring all of these seemingly unrelated ideas together into a single, cohesive narrative?
An anthology of disconnected stories would certainly have been easier, but not nearly as engaging. We, on the comics production team, were inspired by the youth’s authentic, original stories and driven to produce something worthy of the courage it takes to nurture creativity and make something new within Chicago’s often-harsh urban environment.
We wanted to reach a little higher.
But how?
Eureka!
Then it hit us.
What if the comic itself mirrored the way it had actually been created?
In other words, what if the teenage characters from all of these different stories attended the same school? What if they all participated in the same after-school arts program? What if they already knew one another? And what if that program was led by the same mysterious mentor – a new character named Carl Castaneda?
Suddenly, these independent stories no longer felt independent at all. They became different windows into the same world.
Presenting the comic in this way created two important opportunities for the production team.
First, it allowed us to incorporate elements of Made Collaborative’s own origin story into the fictional universe itself. Because, as fascinating as the students’ stories were, equally compelling was the story behind those stories – the story of the young people who created them.
Second, it challenged us to search for the deeper themes connecting those seemingly unrelated narratives. At first, those connections weren’t obvious. Some stories were grounded in everyday reality, while others ventured into mythology, fantasy, romance, or science fiction. Yet the search ultimately bore fruit, leading us on a journey that began in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood and expanded into places beyond space and time.
So how does a story of young love and betrayal connect to secret chiefs from another dimension? How do the video game fantasies of two young cousins become part of something much larger? And how is the magic of creativity and storytelling somehow responsible?
Those were – and still are – the questions that continue to shape the universe we invite you to explore, imagine, and help build with us in the issues ahead.
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book. iPad/iPhone users, submit images from FILES (NOT from Photo Library).
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
Collaborate with professional artists by contributing some artwork of your own! Some special pieces may be selected to appear in the Back of the Yards comic book.
UPLOAD YOUR IMAGES BELOW
