Comics in schools

The Journal News has a story up on the Comic Book Project, a pilot program in Rockland, New York that has students creating comics:

Children relate to comics in ways they don't to literature.

That's one reason why the Comic Book Project strengthens reading, writing and communication skills, the program's creator told about half a dozen educators and other child-care professionals yesterday during an informal introduction to the program at Rockland Community College's Spring Valley annex.

"It's an opportunity for children to tell their stories," said Michael Bitz, founder and director of the Comic Book Project, a program of Teachers College at Columbia University. "The goal is to help children forge alternative pathways to creative expression and social awareness."

A student in Baltimore is already expressing himself through comics and winning awards while doing it:

Eighteen-year-old Orpheus Collar used the graphic novel to investigate the question of how people would behave if they knew they had just 15 minutes to live.

It was this entry, along with some paintings, that won a silver medal this year from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts -- making Collar one of the three top teenage painters in the United States, in the opinion of competition judges. The award comes with a $5,000 check, which Collar will pick up in April at an awards ceremony in New York City. The check will come in handy when it's time to pay his next tuition bill at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he is a freshman.