Introduction
As we enter the the second half of 2020, it seems that things are generally, well, up in the air for all of us to put it very mildly, which is why we thought the above header image seemed particularly apropos. COVID-19 has impacted all of our lives in such an unprecedented way that it’s hard to even fathom when life will get entirely back to normal for us.
And it’s in that context that we enter the next phase of collaborations, which will be done almost exclusively on a remote basis. But first, as a recap of our collaborative framework, we will be using the Back of the Yards comic series (and any future comic series) as the basis for most of our collaborations. With each new upcoming comic issue of Back of the Yards, we will identify a few topics and/or themes that will be focal points for the next issue’s story line (think of this as the internal pre-production process for each upcoming issue).
From these selected themes and topics, we will then identify specific collaboration opportunities (in the form of ongoing “collaboration series”) for participating youth, artists and other collaborators to develop new comic material that will either be incorporated directly into the production of the new Back of the Yards comic issue, or future issues.
Of course, that’s just intended to be the general collaborative framework. But we also firmly believe that the unplanned collaborations often turn out to be the best ones. And it is our hope that this framework will also help inspire some of those unplanned collaborations.
So with that context in mind, we turn our attention to our next comic issue production, Issue 3 of the Back of the Yards comic series.
Back of the Yards Issue 3!
The focus of our current collaborations will ultimately be towards creating content for Issue 3 of the Back of the Yards comic series. Within Issue 1 of Back of the Yards, we were introduced to many of our comic’s initial core characters, as inspired by the initial collaborations in the West Side of Chicago. Those characters included Andre, Tamia, Russell and his cousin Draymond, and last but certainly not least, the Elders. And in Issue 2, we were introduced to the mysterious and charismatic teacher of those youth characters, Mr. Castaneda.
In Issues 1 and 2, our central character Andre struggles to reconcile whether a supernatural encounter he had one evening in his Back of the Yards neighbourhood was real or a dream. With Issue 3, we will find out the answer. Or some part of that answer anyway …
But beyond that, it’s really all up for collaboration when it comes to Issue 3. In fact, the only thing we really know about Issue 3 at this point, is that we’re pretty certain we will use some version of the mock cover below. But even that is subject to further collaborations we have identified for Issue 3 below.
The Issue 3 Collaborations
As described above, with each coming Issue of the Back of the Yards series, we will identify a few selected themes and/or topics that we will focus on as part of our related collaborations. You can think of these pre-selected themes as part of the pre-preproduction process during which we try to identify topics that we think will help inspire or connect existing story lines, themes and characters. And it is from these primary themes that we will work with participating youth, artists and other collaborators to develop comic content that will be a part of Issue 3 and/or future issues of the Back of the Yards comic series.
So it is with Issue 3, we have selected the following Collaborative Series and related Collaborations.
(i) Law Enforcement & Community Relations
So in the context of the times, this was a pretty hard topic to ignore. And we more than realize just how sensitive a topic this can be in light of the recent events. But we’re going to give it our best and most honest shot. We want to facilitate collaborations relating to law enforcement and community relations, certainly not because we think we have any answers (to be very clear, we do not), but because we think a collaboration of this type just might facilitate a constructive dialogue. And for this very reason, we will not only seek to recruit participating youth as part of this collaborative series, but also active law enforcement officers.
So with that context in mind, current collaborations related to this series include:
- Short Comic Feature on the Early American Police (Northern Watchman & Slave Patrols)
- Develop Back of the Yards Comic Scene – Dialogue Between the Elders
- Creating a New Comic Character for the Back of Yards Comic – The Politician
- Creating a New Back of the Yards Comic Character – The Principled Police Officer
- Develop a Comic Series that Shows the Newly Created Officer Character Exercising Peel’s Principles
- Develop Castaneda’s Principles
- Independent Comic Feature on Peel’s Principles & Modern Realities
- Creating a New Back of the Yards Comic Characters – The More Seasoned Police Officer
- Create a Back Story Involving Crime for the Fictional Back of the Yards Neighborhood
Related Blogs include the following:
- Introducing a New Collaboration Series: Law Enforcement & Community Relations
- A Man Named Peel and His Vision
- Peel’s Principles
- When Principles Meet Modern Realities
(ii) Neighborhoods & Their Residents
At its core, the Back of the Yards comic series is about a neighborhood and its residents. The neighborhood we selected is a fictional version of the real Back of the Yards neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. And the reason we wanted to make this neighborhood a fictional version of the real neighborhood is simply because we wanted to allow future participating youth to help us develop that fictional neighborhood and its inhabitant over time through these collaborations. And with this collaborative series, we plan to explore various topics and themes related to urban neighborhoods in particular in an effort to facilitate those comic collaborations.
So with that context in mind, current collaborations related to this series include:
(iii) Dreams & Quests
And last, but certainly not least, we wanted to go big with a topic, and what better topic to go big with than “Dreams & Quests.” As we learned early on during the project, dreams were one of the most prevalent themes from our early collaborations with youth at the beginning of this project. So we incorporated that theme at the very core of the ongoing Back of the Yards comic story narrative. And by including the same topic here for the next round of collaborations, we want to continue to build upon themes introduced by the new participating youth, and perhaps use this topic as a platform to dive into their imaginations.
So with that context in mind, current collaborations related to this series include:
And if you’d like to learn more about how to get involved or participate as a collaborator, just email us at info@madecollaborative.com or visit here for more general information.
