It takes a village to make a comic book. Writers, artists, colorists, letterers, editors, and a whole host of other contributors come together to build a story that represents a concerted creative effort. As such, comics creation is conducive to community. It’s almost inevitable. You could say that once the proverbial village makes the comic, it stays open for anyone looking to create art.
Len Kody, Dan Dougherty, and the afterschool workshop program Made Collaborative (founded by Jimmy Briseño) have taken it upon themselves to make that creative community larger by inviting young students to bring their own ideas and characters into it. The result is a new comics series called Back of the Yards, an urban fantasy story currently being funded on Kickstarter. It’s colored and lettered by Kanila Tripp.
The project consisted of getting Chicago school kids to collaborate with writer Kody and artist Dougherty on bringing their ideas to life. These kids hail from the Back of the Yards neighborhood in the Southwest side of the city (the meatpacking industry’s main hub in the early 20th century, made popular by Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle). These kids got the chance to turn their life experiences into a coming-of-age adventure that sees imagination become reality.
The preview pages on display at the project’s Kickstarter page seem to point to a kind of classic fantasy/sci-fi sensibility that evokes a sense of wonder in larger-than-life characters. There’s a modernized Golden Age vibe to the story that harkens back to an era where the good guys were reliable moral compasses and the bad guys left no room for interpretation as to their worldviews.
It’s quite refreshing, really. Complexity isn’t thrown out the window here. Kody and Dougherty simply relay their students’ interest in finding inspiration in timeless ideas that still have much to say. It’ll be interesting to see how these concepts reflect the students’ own appreciation of comic book storytelling. It’s always exciting when young minds give birth to a new fictional universe.
Back of the Yards #1 marks the beginning of a story arc titled “Just Dreamin’”. It’s already fully funded, but further support will make the process of printing future issues much easier. Stay tuned for more Back of the Yards news.
