Howard Wong

I continued working on building up the content for each workshop looking back at my experiences working in mobile games, toys and an animation studio. There are so many shared elements between all of that, which is fascinating when you pause and look at them as a whole. World building, character and story development to plot development and more use the same foundation to create a story. Albeit with slight differences due to the medium the story is being told with. Digging through materials from past projects and figuring out which parts would work for the workshops was a fun walk down memory lane. I ended up reconnecting with past colleagues and reminiscing about the "fun" times we spent working long hours on projects to the joy when we got it done.  I will be continuing to work on the topics and refining them next week for the most part. I want to make sure I get the essentials locked in, but also throw in things that really helped me

Been a little busy and didn't get to spend a lot of time working on Unlocking the Secrets of Creating Comic Books this week. I did manage to build a general outline covering key topics and have been refining them with my experiences from my past workshops and talks I've held, as well as with material from my collection of books that have learned from. I intended to talk with some of my comic book creator colleagues about my workshop outline, but will be pushing that to next week. As a break I designed a logo that I think I may refine later on, though many have expressed positive responses so I may leave it as is. A fun surprise this week was being asked to be a judge for the Consulate General of Canada in Hong Kong and Macao's Create Your Canadian Superhero for Canada Day this year, along with  graphic novelist Renee Nault! You can find details about that here .

In celebration of Canada Day 2020, the Consulate General of Canada in Hong Kong and Macao is calling on all Hong Kong and Macao primary and secondary students to design an original superhero that represents “YOUR CANADA”!  I am honoured to be one of the judges along with graphic novelist Renee Nault.  I can't wait to see what your creative superpowers come up with for a new Canadian superhero ! Winning designs will be used as the covers for their official Canada Day 2020 greeting cards! There are also great prizes to be won! Submission Deadline: June 9, 2020 @ 17:30 (HKT)! Click the link for more details!

It has been an interesting week. Since the announcement of being a recipient of the York Region Arts Council's Mirco Grant Program, I've been digging into all the workshops and talks I've done at conventions to festivals to consolidate all the materials and topics I have covered. I found myself having mixed feelings over particular topics on story development I've covered. This is the first time that I'm looking over everything as a whole. Fascinating looking back at all the particular topics I have covered, and thinking back to what worked and what needs improvements. Kind of like finding pieces to a puzzle you're not sure what it will really look like until you get closer to completing it. This also made me think of my own story development process and how I could improve it. In any creative endeavour, there are always challenges you have to meet and overcome. For some, it's seeking inspiration to create, while for others it's the act

I am honoured to announce that I am one of the recipients of York Region Arts Council's   Micro Grant Program ! Congratulations to my fellow recipients, Alex Karolyi, Bindu Shah, Glenn Marais & Mimi O'Bonsawin, Parthiban & Myuri Jeyabalachandran, Matthew Morales, and Tanya Besedina. I can't wait to see and experience all their wonderful projects! My project,  Unlocking the Secrets of Creating Comic Books , is a series of skill stacking comic book creating workshops for 12 to 18-year-olds, where they will be learning all the steps  from concept to completion. There is a lot of work ahead of me and new challenges due to COVID-19, but with the help of the York Region Arts Council's grant it's great to be able to move forward with this project.  I look forward to working with local professional and indie comic book creators, and businesses to make this project a success!  The goal is to inspire and expose young creative minds to the fun and dist