Welcome to this week’s “This & That” blog, which happens to be the inaugural “This & That” blog for this little virtual studio project we are calling The Made Collaborative Studio! As you can learn here or here, or anywhere on this site really, this modest project started as a collaborative comic book project in classrooms within the west side of Chicago. And we have now created this virtual studio platform to continue ongoing collaboration with participating youth from other after school programs within the Chicagoland area and beyond.
As we describe in more detail elsewhere on this site, perhaps the best way to summarize our basic virtual collaboratives model is with one simple phrase:
More specifically, we created virtual “Studio Cards” to facilitate collaboration with you and participating after school programs. With these virtual Studio Cards, we will present contextual information about a fictional character, storyline or concept related to our ongoing comic project, the Back of the Yards, a Creative Commons project.
And within each such Studio Card, we will present you an opportunity to submit your own collaborative input to us. All you have to do to access these Studio Cards is hover your cursor (or thumb) over any card presented anywhere on this site, which will then flip the card to its reverse side, and from there you just click to “read more.” And once you access that card’s landing page, you will find different “Let’s Collaborate” opportunities for you within each card!
And with each of these weekly blog entries, we will feature two such Studio Cards for your collaboration, starting with the two cards just below…
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!
The Back of the Yards comic character of Tamia Parker was also inspired from the first round of youth collaborations in the West Side of Chicago. During those initial collaborations, Jimmy Briseno met with a number of youth who shared initial ideas for comic characters and storylines. One of those youth was a young African American girl from that West-Side neighborhood.
Tamia’s story is surely relatable, but it’s also based on the true-life experiences reported to us by participating urban youth. And, like many of the kids in our program, Tamia turns to creativity as both an outlet and an escape from her daily struggles. She is an avid artist and journaler. Her perspective gives the story emotional depth and balance.
Tamia is a powerful young woman still in search of her voice. Will she ever realize the heights of her potential or will she continue to be stifled by those who seek to take advantage of her?
You can learn more about Tamia’s character by simply clicking on the card to your right, and with that, help us develop young Tamia’s character (and Andre!) going forward, starting with Issue #3.
With every one of these “This & That” blog updates, we will close by sharing one or two videos or other art media that we found somewhere on the Internet for a little creative inspiration. These videos or art may be educational in nature, but more often, they will just be fun and creative pieces we have encountered along the way. And the end of the day, that’s all we are trying to facilitate – a fun a creative space for all that may help light a creative spark or two for you.
For this week’s random shares, we have selected two very different videos with one thing in common – the year 2013. And that’s because this project started in its earliest form that same year. At the time, this project was nothing more than a very basic idea to bring youth together with participating artists to see what they may be able to create together, eventually evolving into a collaborative Creative Commons comic project, and then ultimately to this virtual platform you are visiting today.
So, with that context, we share our first video, which happens to be one of my favorite sports commercials of all time. It’s a Nike commercial from 2013 featuring Blake Griffin in his basketball prime and one Dr. Darrell Drain – whom I very much wish was a Back of the Yards comic character! …
Finally, we close with a little modest video that we (the original participating artists) actually put together back when this project was taking shape in a classroom in the West Side of Chicago. The project has evolved considerably since that time, but we still like the spirit of the video and thought what better way to close out our inaugural “This & That” blog by sharing it with you …
Thanks for visiting and happy collaborating! We will be highlighting some of your submissions to the Studio Cards featured above for further collaboration on January 2nd, 2025 to start the new year!
– Jimmy Briseno, Project Founder
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
