Welcome to the Made Collaborative Studio!
Our project’s primary mission is to collaborate with participating urban youth to develop collaborative comics stories and other creative content based on their own interests and ideas. And by doing so, we hope to foster creative thought and provide a truly positive collaborative experience for participating youth, artists and you!
First, a Little Background
The backdrop of this virtual studio framework is our first comic series, The Back of the Yards, which was created as a result of our initial in-person collaborations with participating youth in the West Side of Chicago. Now, as you may or may not know, this project didn’t even start out as a comic project, much less a “virtual studio.” No, in fact, this project started as a modest community project intended to connect artists with youth to generally collaborate with one another on independent creative projects. That simple premise then evolved into a broader comic-based project based on those initial collaborations with participating youth in the West Side of Chicago.
Overview of the Comic
It doesn’t get more real than Back of the Yards, on the South Side of Chicago, when you’re growing up as a teen. It’s where fantasy and the power of story can build resilience, foster healing and lead to greater understanding. Based on the stories and experiences of real urban youth, the Made Collaborative Studio presents Back of the Yards. A fictionalized version of the real Back of the Yards neighborhood serves as setting for the eponymous comic book series. Likewise, the stories and the characters themselves are based on the real lives and musings of Chicago youth. These stories were first conceived by students attending an after school arts program. They were facilitated by the project’s founder, Jimmy Briseno, during Made Collaborative’s first round of urban outreach to inner-city schools. Jimmy then had an inspired idea to elevate these kids’ ideas by bringing professional comics artists and writers into the creative process to validate the kids’ stories and experiences, weaving them together as the narrative threads of a real comic book series – and with that, the Back of the Yards comic series was born. You can learn more about the comic by visiting our Comic Overview page.
So, what next?
We were, of course, thrilled that we were able to ultimately develop a comic based on these initial collaborative youth sessions and ideas, but on the flip side, those in-person collaborations took time. A lot of time. And a high degree of coordination between after school programs, youth and our own adulting lives. With that in mind, we wondered how might be able to scale this modest grass roots project up so that we could more effectively enable collaborations with other after school programs and interested youth, and even potentially bring others (like you) into this new collaborative process. Our solution? …. Why not try to bring some of these basic collaborative concepts from the classroom into the virtual realm?
The Virtual Studio Framework
With this website, we are simply trying to extend this same collaborative opportunities that started in the classrooms of west-side of Chicago, to others virtually.
It's All In the Cards!
Behind the comic scenes, Made Collaborative is an immersive virtual studio experience. Our Studio Cards facilitate collaboration with you by providing you with context for topics and concepts used to develop our comic. You can begin your own collaborative journey by clicking on the back of any of the Studio Cards presented here or by visiting our Explore the Studio Page!
And Action!
Create an Illustration!
Who is…
Len Kody?
Carl Jung’s
Character Archetypes
Who is…
Russell Patterson?
Introducing
Back of the Yards!
Who is…
Draymond Carter?
Who is…
Dan Dougherty?
Who is…
Jimmy Briseno?
Who is…
Dex?
Original Participating Artists
This is a grass roots project in the truest sense. Started with a summer spent volunteering at a local Chicago after school program and evolved into today’s current incarnation. Just a rag tag group of artists trying to do something they thought was cool in their spare time. And if you’d like to learn about any us, just click on any of the mugs below.
Who is…
Len Kody?
Who is…
John Golden?
Who is…
Erihii Nyamor?
Who is…
Jimmy Briseno?
Who is…
Dan Dougherty?
Who is…
Manny Dominguez?