5 for 5 with the Word Nerd || Interview with a Graphic Novelist

5 come and watch and [music] deep time with the word [singing] ner every episode [music] 54. [music] >> Hi, my name's Amanda Zea. Welcome to my channel, Learning with the Word Nerd. In this five for five video today, I'm going to be having the chance to chat with the most incredible, perhaps most famous worldwide graphic novelist, Kazoo Kabushi, and learn all sorts of things about him. And I'm so excited that you are here to learn about them with me. We're going to talk about five of Kazoo's books, five of his projects, five facts about him. I'm going to ask him five questions, and then we're going to have a chance to look at five quotes from either him or his books. Teachers, I've got some worksheets linked down in the video description box if you want to level up your students learning and engagement. But ready? Let's go. It's time for five for five, a deep dive with the word nerd and Kazoo Kabushi. Press pause and take a look at these five amazing books from Kazoo Kabushi. Here are five facts I learned about Kazoo from his website. Fact number one, Kazoo was born in Japan, grew up in California, and now lives in Texas. Fact number two, Kazoo is both an artist and a writer. He did not specifically go to college for either of his skills, however. He went to film school instead. Fact number three, Amulet has more than 10 million copies in print and has been translated into 23 different languages worldwide. Fact number four, Kazoo is working with Netflix to turn Amulet into a liveaction movie. And fact number five, Kazoo has won many awards for his work, including an Eisner Award nomination, as well as several YELsa Awards. Yelsa stands for Young Adult Library Services Association. Hey readers, we're going to try something a little different today. Since Kazoo is a graphic novelist, I thought I'd turn our video interview into a graphic novel version. I can't wait for you to see it. Let's go. All right, readers. We are in for a real treat today because we're going to get to talk to the author, artist, graphic novelist, creator Kazuk Kabushi. Thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, >> you're welcome. Thanks for having me on. >> Absolutely. Uh I taught middle school for 12 years and my kids just flew through your graphic novels. And so when you said yes to this, I just I couldn't hardly believe it. >> Oh, no. No problem. No problem. I love talking about books. >> Yes. All right. Well, the one that we I know we have lots of them, but the one that we're going to talk about today is Flight Volume 1. I think there are eight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this was the first one that kind of like >> kicked off the whole thing. And so, I'm curious, where did the story spark or initial seedling for this anthology begin? And why flight? Why was that the theme? >> Yeah, it was a couple of things. Uh it was like the convergence of uh multiple projects. Um a group of friends of u of mine uh that were attending Art Center. They were they were um thinking about putting together a bit of like a zen, some kind of a zen. Um and I was I was part of that group. Uh I feel like there was a lot of interest that the interest in that particular project waned after a while, but I was still interested in in completing it. So, I I ended up reaching out to a bunch of friends online. Um, people I knew who were concept artists, uh, web comic artists, uh, upand cominging young people who were just posting their work online for people to see. And I brought all them together with my friends at Art Center and then we we made that book. Um, I think a big inspiration for me was Heavy Metal Magazine. uh and generally how it's how it's also kind of the way how um uh comics in Japan are also uh produced in an anthology format. So I just thought, oh well, I'll bring people together to do a kind the type of book that I don't normally see, comics that are made for people that uh that don't read comics. And that's how Flight came together. There are I didn't count it up, but 10 12 maybe 14 different creators who worked on this project and I know that it has the theme of flight throughout all of the stories I've read them. Um, what guidelines or parameters did you give the contributors for this anthology? Did you like was it very specific like you need to do this, this, and this or you kind of just like let everybody go? What did you tell them so that these could be a cohesive uh piece of work together? Yeah, for the first book there were no parameters. They just knew it was called Flight. They saw my story. They saw Jake Parker, who's the um creator of Inktober. They saw his story. Um uh there were several other artists in there that had stories early on and people just sort of started looking at flight as a theme, I think, and they just end up ended up doing that. Um >> it wasn't Yeah. there was no uh no direction outside of yeah you have freedom to do whatever you want. >> So then as the editor when you came back in were there a lot of tweaks or suggestions that you had to make to to pull everything together into this cohesive unit or did it just work out? Yeah, it's hard to take full credit as the editor because I think everybody on the book sort of edited the book in a way because we were all putting it together on an online forum and so there were multiple creators looking at every story and going in there and um giving advice where they could and it was great to see five or six people that you admired giving you notes. I think it was helpful for everybody. They they felt [clears throat] on one hand they were having to step up to be able to to have work that they felt um deserve to be included alongside their heroes >> and in the second part they were getting advice from those people on how to how to how to make it better. And so it was it was it was fun. I it all came together organically. I just happened to be there in that moment, you know, to put it together. >> Yeah. It's like the world's best group project ever. Yeah, it was it was like that. Yeah, it was really fun. Uh and I'm still friends with most of them and they're they've they've gone on to do amazing things. >> Yeah, definitely. I recognized a lot of the names in there and I love that, you know, it's like that rising tides lifts all boats like you guys all got to go somewhere cool uh and you started started your journey together. >> My next question is what is your favorite part about being a graphic novelist? My favorite part about being a graphic novelist is being able to write and draw the story I have in my mind. Uh I realize as the years go on how fortunate I am to be able to just decide I have an idea and I could just make it. I don't have to tell anybody what that idea is. I don't have to convince anybody else that it's a good idea. I could just go ahead and make the thing. Uh that part of it is probably the best part of being a graphic novelist. The second best part is seeing the readers and just talking to them and hearing about their um uh their relationships with the books and and uh how much they enjoy them. >> Yeah. So this question stems off of that one because you said how lucky I am to get to write and draw. And so I'm curious in your creation process, what comes first, the words or the images, the character or the setting? >> The images. Drawings. I I just work off of drawings. I start drawing and exploring and uh and then from there I'll start writing uh sequences or synopsis and it goes back and forth. It's like water slloshing around back and forth. [clears throat] when when one feels stagnant or stale, I can move to the next and then back and forth and back and forth um until it turns into something. And again, that's another thing I feel lucky uh to do when I'm working on other projects where all I am is the writer or all I am is the artist. I actually feel that it's more constricting. I I feel I feel less uh inspired to work on it if I I I can only do one of the things. So, I realized that I just prefer writing and drawing a thing. >> Yeah, that's super interesting. I feel similarly about writing. Um, I think I can I can type faster than I can think. So, when I first have an idea, I need to hand write it out >> and then I'll type it in and, you know, kind of edit as I go and then I get to a certain point where then I've print it out again and and read it and write all over it. So, I get that that flow state of just being able to switch back and forth. Um, >> do you work with illustrators? Um, I have done uh one picture book, but uh it was it was very early on. I I'm I call myself the word Nord. I'm more of a word girl. So, who knows? Maybe maybe sometime I'll do I'll do another picture. Which leads wonderfully into my very last question, which is I know that there are a ton of listeners who are students in middle school and who would love to be a graphic novelist, and I'm wondering what tips you have for them to kind of get them off on their journey and get started. What kind of things could they be doing now? Um, you know, I know kids think like, oh, when I get to college, or oh, when I'm a grown-up, but I don't think that's the case. I think that they can get going now. And what um what would you love to share with them? >> Yeah, you just have to get started ASAP. Um I actually didn't want to go to school or and I didn't go to art school. I just wanted to just make stuff. Um some some of my heroes just went right into it and they got their college degrees many years later because they were so busy with their projects that um they they just essentially skipped college. You know, that would be the James Camerons and the Steven Spielbergs of the world. um they got their degrees fairly recently. So, so seeing that I I just thought, well, then that's that'll be me. I'm just going to go make stuff. So, I always en encourage people to just make things. Um get the mileage in and know that most of what you do is not going to be seen and that's okay. That's just part of the process. You just have to get into the flow of something. You have to make something at some point so you can get better. Um, and just accept it when it's not what you expect it to be. Cuz even when you're at the best, um, like you're at your best or you are one of the best, I think whatever you produce is probably going to fall short of what you u anticipated anyway. And it's not going to feel like that to whoever's reading it. So just just produce it because you're producing it for somebody else to enjoy eventually. Um, and they're going to they're not going to see all of the mistakes and they're not going to see what you could have done. They're going to just take it for what it is and enjoy it. Um, so I always just tell people to get the mileage in. Just just make stuff and complete it and complete everything you start. >> On this page, you're going to see five quotations from Kazoo. Sometimes they come directly from the books that he's written in the words of his characters. Other times are things that he's shared in a video or online on his website. Sometimes they come from an interview that someone else has done on their blog or in their written piece. Teachers, press pause, take time to read these quotes a little more carefully. And if you're using one of the worksheets I've created, there's a spot that asks you to turn one of these quotes into your own words. Maybe it's a practice in paraphrasing or trying to understand the lesson that Kazoo is trying to teach you in your own words. Our final item in our five for five roundup today is five projects Kazoo has worked on in the past or that he's currently working on now. The first is the co the web comic series Copper. You can find these comics online by going to Kazoo's website which I will link down in the video description box. Project number two, Kazoo occasionally leads workshops teaching others how to tell incredible stories with both images and words. Project number three, Kazoo is the executive producer and story creator for the liveaction version of Amulet that's in production with Netflix. Project number four, Kazoo is the editor of the flight and explorer anthologies. He's also a contributor, which means that he has art and stories in these anthologies as well. And the final project number five, Kazoo re-imagined and illustrated the book covers of the 15th anniversary editions of the Harry Potter book series. I put a few of them on this video slide so you can see the way that he has reimagined these epic and incredible stories. Thanks so much for joining me for this five for five video. Be on the lookout for more episodes to drop soon. Before you head out, please like this video and subscribe. And I'll see you again next time at Learning with the >> Worders. [music] Oh yeah. It's every [music] feel.