Howard Wong

Find me and some of your favourite comic book creators at MXC, November 16th from 10 am to 4 pm! I'll be in the 3rd Floor. You can also find me at the following panel on the 1st Floor, Noel Ryan Auditorium: Panel: Canadian Comics: How to Make Them Fun and Exciting  Time: 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm Description: Ever wondered why there are so few Canadian characters or stories taking place in Canada in mainstream comics? Join Joe Shuster Award-nominated comic writer and National Geographic Mentor, Howard Wong (Dead to Us, Iron Man: Hong Kong Heroes) and comic artist and educator, Keith Grachow (The City We Chose, Dead to Us), as they share their secrets to crafting comic stories with compelling Canadian characters and settings. Learn about their collaborative process, get inspired by their unique perspectives, and ask them anything about creating Canadian comics during the Q&A session.  Don't miss this opportunity to learn from industry experts and get inspired to create your own Ca...

  It has been a week of internet troubles. Our ISP hasn't figured out why it keeps cutting in and out on us. Not a fun thing as you can imagine. So plans were shifted and I decided to dive into more books and made notes for things I planned on doing much later. After developing the general overview workshops my plan was to create in-depth workshops focusing on story development, comic book creating processes and more, which will involve friends and colleagues in the comic book industry.  So in a way, I'm ahead on my to-do list for Unlocking the Secrets of Creating Comic Books. Hopefully, they figure what's going on with our internet soon. As much fun it is doing webinars off my phone, I rather do them on my laptop where I can see people's faces a little easier. Fingers crossed they'll figure it out this coming week. Funny thing, they gave me a call in the middle of me writing this with the report of having no idea just yet why we're experiencing these difficulti...

Been a busy week maintaining deadlines for the miniseries I mentioned last week, and refining a webinar on how to write a comic book.  I will be presenting for a video game services company and its affiliates from various parts of the world this week. This will be interesting to see how the changes I've made to this workshop will go, especially knowing that there will be artists and writers in attendance.  This is different from the ones I do for young creators who are mainly aged10 and under or 11-14, and 15-18, where I go deeper and talk about some of the complexities involved when you script a comic book. It always amazes me how the young creators fearlessly jump into creating something without being hindered by the fear of making mistakes and constantly changing/refining their creative output. The older creators tend to overthink it all and take smaller leaps of faith in creating. I've taken note and have tweaked my workshops and webinars to work with these in mind. After ...

I took a break from working on the workshops to work on creator-owned books, as I was a little behind the schedule I had set for myself for where they should be. Though as I did I ended up making notes of my process shortcuts in story development, scripting and other related comic book production that I plan to add or amend what I have been working on so far for Unlocking the Secrets of Creating Comic Books.  I find it interesting that when you sit down to work on something, you find the best ideas doing something else. Like when you try to make up a story at a specific time, only to find your best ideas when you aren't working on the story. For the coming week, I will be looking at how I can use my own process experience and refined the workshops and flesh them out as well. Before I end this production diary entry, here's a sneak peek at a work-in-progress for a cover that I was discussing with my team for an upcoming miniseries that I will be talking about soon.