Lynda Barry's Monster Jam
Lynda Barry is the author of one of the most haunting and beautifully disturbing novels I’ve ever read, Cruddy. If you can handle the deeply unsettling macabre, it makes for great Spooky Season reading. She wrote the first draft by hand, with a paintbrush.
She is also the author of several books about writing and drawing, such as Syllabus and Making Comics.
Monster Jam writing/drawing exercise
Take a square piece of paper and fold it into quarters.
In each quarter, draw a simple shape, anything from an isosceles triangle to an amorphous blob to a block letter.
Now take out an index card and write four complete sentences. The first sentence should be something that you have to do. Like, “I have to fix the sink.” The second sentence should be a line from a poem or a song. The third sentence should be a question that you have been wondering about. And the fourth sentence should be something said as a decree from a monarch or ruler.
Now go back to your four shapes, and make them into monsters.
Draw a speech bubble on each monster, and give each of them one of the four sentences you wrote on your index card.
Now you’ve made a monster comic!
Halloween Costume Drive
My friend Summer is doing her fourth annual Halloween Costume Drive for housing-insecure kids in Los Angeles (and one school in Las Vegas). The drive will benefit PUSD's Families in Transition for students experiencing homelessness, the Union Rescue Mission downtown, and teenage parents at McAlister High School so they can have a Halloween costume party for their young children. She will also be donating costumes to Altadena Arts Magnet, where many children were affected by the L.A. wildfires earlier this year. If you live in the L.A. area, you can bring new and gently used costumes and accessories to her home in Pasadena. Or venmo her at @teamblock. Or you can buy from any of the wishlists here:
Robert E. Lake Elementary School
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