As the crisp pages of the comic book turn, the first page bursts with bright and colorful drawings catching the reader’s eye. As the pages continue to turn, a new world with unique characters and intricate settings begins to come to life.
The production of comic books is a lengthy and complex process that not only takes hard work and time, but a strong creative drive as well. Matthew Gordon, an English One and AP Language Teacher, has been creating a variety of different comic books since he was enrolled in college in 2013.
“I began writing comics with the intent of moving from self published stuff to being picked up professionally and having larger companies do the publishing for me,” Gordon said. “The first series I worked on, Musings, is a story about characters who can jump in and out of different fictional worlds.”
Gordon works with a comic book artist, Isaiah Broussard, who he met through a mutual friend to help bring his series Musings to life.
“For myself, comic writing is very much a collaborative thing,” Gordon said. “I want to write things that the artist I’m working with will like and will want to draw, because you will always get better outcomes when there’s a personal motivation.”
Though Gordon has not directly incorporated his comic books into his teaching, he uses his creativity in other ways in order to make class more interesting.
“I made a game for my freshmen this year for test reviewing where I am a boss with a health bar on the screen and they are answering questions to attack me and lower my HP,” Gordon said. “Teaching lessons that include stuff like round robin story creation or things like that are very much playing on that collaborative element that comics have.”
In the future, Gordon plans to create an entire series of a comic called Fight School High School which is an ode to the manga and anime he enjoyed when he was younger.
“Comics are great for everything from pulpy superhero stories to much more serious political activism stories,” Gordon said. “You know the beauty of sequential art is you can take anything and make it powerful with panels on a page.”
Senior John Mahon has an interest in creating art in his own comic books when he is older.
“I want to make superhero comics or cartoon-like things,” Mahon said. “Kind of like Calvin and Hobbes type stuff.”
Mahon has enjoyed reading comic books since he was young and collects them because of their unique concepts and illustrative art.
“I collected them when I was a lot younger,” Mahon said. “I definitely have a little more than 200 comics; I had a big box full of them.”
Gordon worked on his story Musings with Jessi Jordan, whom he met during his first comic convention in 2013.
“A moment like this was very long awaited for someone like me who is a very huge fan of hers,” Sacy said. “We didn’t spend a whole lot of time with her, but being in the same room as her, in the same picture as her, was still a very fun and exciting experience.”
Though Gordon’s goal is to gain success from these comics, he stresses the importance of finding joy in what you do to make sure you can produce your best work.
“There’s no such thing as overnight success,” Gordon said. “Don’t worry about being perfect, just do whatever and make sure you’re doing it for your own entertainment first, and the idea of success or popularity second or third or fourth.”
