Welcome to the Back Page! If you are visiting here now, then you’ve probably already visited our Studio’s Main Page where we provide you with an overview of our little virtual studio project and present you with the opportunity to explore some of our virtual Studio Cards. Within this Back Page, we take a look behind that virtual studio curtain and will regularly feature active projects that we are working on at any given time, and with that, if you are so inclined, present you with related opportunities to collaborate with us and others on those featured projects!
The backdrop for many (if not all) of our current active projects described below is, probably quite naturally at this point, 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.
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 afterschool arts program in the west side of Chicago. They were facilitated by two local afterschool program volunteers during Made Collaborative’s first round of urban outreach to inner-city schools. These volunteers 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.
Within Issue 1 of this new comic series, we are introduced to the comic’s hero archetype, young Andre Davis (created and based on one of the original participating urban youth), along with his classmates including our heroine in the making, Tamia Parker (also developed and based on one of those original participating youth). And it is within Issue 1 that young Andre encounters a supernatural being that may change the course of his young life and those around him … or did he? Was it all just a dream? Alas, within Issue 2 we learn that it wasn’t just a dream, and in fact, things in the fictional Back of the Yards neighborhood may never again be quite the same …
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?
TEST PLACEHOLDER
Andre is based on an intelligent and charismatic young man from Phase One of Made Collaborative’s youth outreach, and hence, he takes the lead role in our initial story arc of the Back of the Yards comic. Like the Chicago youth who inspired him, he is a curious and creative character, inclined to question, rather than take things at face value.
Andre finds himself the recipient of mysterious superpowers as a result of an amazing encounter with one of the inscrutable secret chiefs of all space and time. He learns that he has a certain mastery over the strange world that we all go to when we dream.
“You can make your dreams real,” he is told.
But, does that mastery carry over into the waking world, too?
Moreover, what would Andre do with that kind of power?
You can learn more about Andre’s character by simply clicking the card to your right, and with that, help us develop young Andre’s story going forward!
Andre is based on an intelligent and charismatic young man from Phase One of Made Collaborative’s youth outreach, and hence, he takes the lead role in our initial story arc of the Back of the Yards comic. Like the Chicago youth who inspired him, he is a curious and creative character, inclined to question, rather than take things at face value.
Andre finds himself the recipient of mysterious superpowers as a result of an amazing encounter with one of the inscrutable secret chiefs of all space and time. He learns that he has a certain mastery over the strange world that we all go to when we dream.
“You can make your dreams real,” he is told.
But, does that mastery carry over into the waking world, too?
Moreover, what would Andre do with that kind of power?
You can learn more about Andre’s character by simply clicking the card to your right, and with that, help us develop young Andre’s story going forward!
Andre is based on an intelligent and charismatic young man from Phase One of Made Collaborative’s youth outreach, and hence, he takes the lead role in our initial story arc of the Back of the Yards comic. Like the Chicago youth who inspired him, he is a curious and creative character, inclined to question, rather than take things at face value.
Andre finds himself the recipient of mysterious superpowers as a result of an amazing encounter with one of the inscrutable secret chiefs of all space and time. He learns that he has a certain mastery over the strange world that we all go to when we dream.
“You can make your dreams real,” he is told.
But, does that mastery carry over into the waking world, too?
Moreover, what would Andre do with that kind of power?
You can learn more about Andre’s character by simply clicking the card to your right, and with that, help us develop young Andre’s story going forward!
Andre is based on an intelligent and charismatic young man from Phase One of Made Collaborative’s youth outreach, and hence, he takes the lead role in our initial story arc of the Back of the Yards comic. Like the Chicago youth who inspired him, he is a curious and creative character, inclined to question, rather than take things at face value.
Andre finds himself the recipient of mysterious superpowers as a result of an amazing encounter with one of the inscrutable secret chiefs of all space and time. He learns that he has a certain mastery over the strange world that we all go to when we dream.
“You can make your dreams real,” he is told.
But, does that mastery carry over into the waking world, too?
Moreover, what would Andre do with that kind of power?
You can learn more about Andre’s character by simply clicking the card to your right, and with that, help us develop young Andre’s story going forward!
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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.
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
