Jason Rodriguez's Blog, page 6

My publisher at Rosarium just posted this picture. It’s...

My publisher at Rosarium just posted this picture. It’s his daughter holding up the ARC for TRY LOOKING AHEAD, my Young Adult, Twilight Zone-inspired collection of short stories coming out this May. The cover was done by Dell Harris and the interior art was done by Stacey Robinson. 

The title comes from my favorite TWILIGHT ZONE episode, “Walking Distance.” In this episode, the main character’s car break downs and, while it’s being repaired, he walks to his hometown only to find himself transported into his own past. He realizes how happy he was as a kid and how unhappy he is as an adult and decides that he doesn’t want to go back to the future. His father has a heart-to-heart with him and tells him, “Maybe when you go back, Martin, you’ll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are. Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right place. You’ve been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead.”

The book started as a writing experiment on this blog. I was writing a series of short stories called, “Stories I’ll Tell My Future Kids.” The stories are modern-day fables focusing on climate change, war, gun violence, gender identity, and many other topics. I self-published a handful of them and then pulled them off of Amazon so that Bill Campbell and Rosarium Publishing can put them out along with some new stories. The stories for this volume include:

The Boy Who Could See Through Mountains: A young kid is able to see through the mountain that separates his village from their vile and evil enemies.
Reggie & Becky: A boy can’t accept the fact that his dog is getting older, and wants to be an old dog.
Detective Know-It-All and the Glittered Up Glue Stick: The world’s youngest detective knows the answer to every question and will work your case if the price is right (usually three candy bars, full size).
Rocket Ruiz Builds a Warp Drive: Rocket Ruiz has competition at this year’s soapbox derby race, the son of Precision Automobile’s founder. His racer is rumored to be better than her’s, so her only hope to retaining the title is to build a warp drive.
The Monster Hunter: A kid learns how to stop the monsters coming out of his closet, by shooting them with his finger gun. But when he journeys into his closet to kill the remaining monsters, he learns what it means to truly be a monster.
The End of Stars: Only one girl in the village realizes that the sky is falling, but can she convince her neighbors in time before everything is destroyed?
Anita’s Dreams: Anita is able to travel through time when she dreams and learns that sometimes the future is more hopeful than the past.
Try Looking Ahead: A story about gender, identity, gravity, and family.

There are also several interstitials throughout the book, where a short and surly man talks about inspiration, the future, and William Gaines.

May! Pre-Order it!

ROSARIUM Publishing - Artists against Police Brutality, a Comic Book Anthology

ROSARIUM Publishing - Artists against Police Brutality, a Comic Book Anthology:

Here are the details for the book I’m co-editing with Bill Campbell and John Jennings to be released by Rosarium Publishing late 2015.

APB: ARTISTS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY
A COMIC BOOK ANTHOLOGY

We’ve all seen the pictures. A six-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted by U.S. marshals on her first day at an all-white, New Orleans school in 1960. A police dog attacking a demonstrator in Birmingham. Fire hoses turned on protesters. Martin Luther King Jr. addressing a crowd on the National Mall. These pictures were printed in papers, flashed across television screens, and helped to change the laws of this Nation…but not all of the attitudes.

We’ve all seen the pictures. Michael Brown lying face down in a pool of his own blood for hours. Protesters with their hands up, facing down militarized policemen. We’ve also seen the videos. Eric Garner choked to death. John Crawford III shot down in Walmart for carrying a toy gun. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice gunned down in broad daylight for the same reason.

This time, the pictures and videos aren’t doing much to change things; if anything, they are a repeated reminder of how worthless black and brown lives are to the justice system. So we need conversations to go along with the pictures, and we’re sending out an APB to artists and writers to help jump start those conversations.
APB: Artists against Police Brutality is a comic book anthology with one primary goal: show pictures and tell stories that get people talking. We are looking for artists across the disciplines to lend their talents and critical eye for this artistic examination of the US justice system and its treatment of communities of color. We are looking for personal stories, biographies, sociopolitical and historical analysis that shed a light on shared experiences across these communities, not just to act as an echo chamber, but to be used to change minds outside of these communities.

APB will be a black and white book that collects these stories. While primarily a comic book project, we will also consider following:

1-7 Page Comic Stories
ONE- AND TWO-ROW COMIC STRIPS
PIN-UPS AND SPOT ILLUSTRATIONS
PROSE STORIES (whatever the genre; up to 1,500 words) and analytical essays (personal, sociopolitical, historical; up to 2,000 words)

The main goal is to encourage people to talk about the persistent problems facing this country in terms of race and the justice system in an accessible and powerful medium.

PROCEEDS TO GO TO THE INNOCENCE PROJECT

http://rosariumpublishing.com/apb.html

Final Three Days: Signed Colonial Comics to Benefit Doorways for Women and Families

For $25.95 plus $6 shipping you’ll get a signed copy of the book with a little story written in it for the person of your choice (order here). I pay my publisher approximately $14 per book, so for every book ordered, $12 will go to the cause. I’ll do up to 50 books (5 have already been ordered) and if all 50 are ordered, that’ll be $600 going towards a very worthwhile cause (order here). I have a lot left, an embarrassing amount, so I’m hoping for a little boost.

Doorways is a charity that helps to provide safe and stable housing and resources for women and families living under violence. Colonial Comics is a non-fiction comic book about Colonial New England that focuses on relatively unknown stories about Native Americans, women, slaves, business owners, teachers, whalers, and accused witches and has received great reviews from GeekDad, Eccentric Librarian, and was recently featured on NHPR’s WORD OF MOUTH, Multiversity, and whereBoston. My signature pages tend to look like this…

…and if you tell me a little bit about who the book is for (where they live, what they like, etc) I will personalize the story for them (order here). 

You can order the book here, it’ll make for a great gift, and almost half of the money will go to a great charity. And I will personally thank you on this website once the check is cut.

I’ll be at John Eaton Elementary School today, teaching...

I’ll be at John Eaton Elementary School today, teaching kids about comics and science and science comics along with Eric Suggs Jr. and Keir Lyles of Art Way Alliance. I get to talk a bit up-front about “Why Comics?” and I put together a five-to-ten minute thing about Thanos’s battle against the superheroes of Earth in Infinity Gauntlet #4,used as an example of how comics are only limited by your imagination.

I think it’s a good up-front narrative, since Thanos, himself, is only limited by his imagination and the battle takes place on what’s essentially a comet. From there will transition into a quick talk about ACTUAL comets and Keir and I will come up with some science fiction comics concepts based on the recent Rosetta comet landing and then mentor the kids in how to make their own science or science fiction Rosetta-themed comic strip.

It’s gonna be a fun day!

By the way, folks, I gained 100XP today.colonialcomics:Today...

By the way, folks, I gained 100XP today.

colonialcomics:

Today I was interviewed by the wonderful folks of New Hampshire Public Radio’s WORD OF MOUTH. I’ve given talks many times at conventions and on panels and teach three-four classes a semester - none of which prepared me for being on the radio.

I had multiple people interview me to practice, but the one thing no-one told me is that you can hear your own voice over the headphones! So I’d hear every time I said “sort of” or “kind of” or “um” or “uh” and every time my Brooklyn accent came on strong and every time I completely butchered a word (I even said “wroten” at one point) and it would send me into anxiety spirals.

Thankfully, it was a pre-taped show so every time I got caught up I could just pause, take a breath, and start over. 

We’ll see how it came out on Wednesday! I just really hope I didn’t curse. I’m PRETTY sure I didn’t…

So, this sort of falls out from my AAAS comics outreach/gallery show but really falls under the...

So, this sort of falls out from my AAAS comics outreach/gallery show but really falls under the umbrella of some of the outreach work the Museum of Science Fiction is doing, but on December 9th I’ll be doing a two-hour science/science fiction comics workshop with fifth grade students from John Eaton Elementary School in conjunction with the Art Way Alliance.

That should give you all some insight into some of the partners and plans we’ll have for next year’s program.

Yes, I’m excited about Avengers: Age of Ultron. But why...

Yes, I’m excited about Avengers: Age of Ultron. But why does AI in sci-fi always have to gain consciousness and then decide that humans need to die? For the next two days my comic short Pinocchio, or The Stars Are Not Wanted Now (illustrated by mrscottwhite) will be free on Amazon. It’s the story about an AI that gains consciousness and learns about a different aspect of humanity - self-sacrifice. The back-up story in that book, “Anita’s Dreams,” is one of the nine stories in my upcoming collection from Rosarium Publishing, Try Looking Ahead. Pinocchio, or The Stars Are Not Wanted Now was originally published in Dark Horse Comics Once Upon a Time Machine and was repeatedly mentioned as a stand-out from that collection. And now it’s free, because I got no strings on me.

And since I’m making this book free, I decided to also make The Little Particle That Could free. A children’s book about particle physics, illustrated by Noel Tuazon and with a cover design by bigredrobot. The book includes a primer on particle physics in case your kid wants to learn more.

Making Comics Part 1: A Moment in Time

Making Comics Part 1: A Moment in Time:

Over at comicstoolbox I’ll be typing up my lesson plans for making comics, starting with this discussion on crafting a single comic book panel. These plans are designed to help people who want to create their own comics or educators who want to teach comics in their hometown. Enjoy!

comicstoolbox:

I teach a four-week making comics class at Arlington Adult Education. Before that, I taught an eight-week comics course at the Bethesda Writer’s Center with Chris Piers and, before that, Chris and I taught the course with Matt Dembicki. None of these classes ever paid much, but it was always a fun…

Announcing Comics Toolbox!

Announcing Comics Toolbox!:

I talked about it briefly in the Multiversity interview, so let’s make it official. Over a month ago, Matt Dembicki proposed to me, we got married, and our baby is a little company called Comics Toolbox. Our wives approve of the union.

Comics Toolbox will offer comprehensive comics-related services, from project management to presentations, specializing in history, culture, nature, and science. You can visit us at http://www.comicstoolbox.com.

Jason Rodriguez on “Colonial Comics” and Educating Kids Through Sequential Art [Interview]

Jason Rodriguez on “Colonial Comics” and Educating Kids Through Sequential Art [Interview]:

colonialcomics:

A long interview with me over at Multiversity on Colonial Comics, educating kids through comics, and a little hint at what’s to come next!

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And as a reminder, the loudest town crier between now and Friday, November 7th at 3PM PST gets a free signed copy of the book and a bell. More details here.