Speaker 1: Hight hear.
Speaker 2: Hey, good morning you two. How are you doing great?
Speaker 1: Pretty good?
Speaker 2: You guys. You have opened a door for so many
people that are locked up inside their imaginations because they
don't want to come out and they don't want to
talk about their doodles or their cartoon characters they're creating.
But you this book right here is going to be
that first conversation with somebody in the room or in
the school, and they're going to collaborate.
Speaker 1: Oh please, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're all doodlers. We all do this. And
the thing is is that if I would have had
this book when I was a kid, maybe I wouldn't
have become an author, but rather a cartoonist.
Speaker 1: We love to hear that, you know. And one thing
you mentioned that's really important is like just being yourself
on paper, just expressing yourself. That takes a certain amount
of courage. And we want to help give courage to
all those kids with all those stories in them.
Speaker 2: And I'm that freak that believes in writing instruments or
epencils with erasers and things. And what this book does
it introduces or it gives students or young adults that opportunity.
It doesn't have to be on the computer. Go draw
on a piece of paper and if it's ugly, who cares?
Speaker 1: That's right. That's definitely one of our messages.
Speaker 2: How do you get people to understand that that artwork
will be judged, but you don't have to let it
judge you in the way of injuring you. Because isn't
that what this kind of this book is In a way,
it introduces people that you can be a part of
a group.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, like you know the value of mistakes.
I mean that's we explicitly we come out and say it.
You know, go ahead, make some mistakes, be messy, It's okay.
And that's what our kids learn, especially like one particular
kid who's who's very talented, but she worries that, oh
what if I do it wrong? But yeah, there's no
one right there's no one right way to tell a
story or draw a picture.
Speaker 2: And the thing is is that we all know someone
like McKay and Howard and Linda and Art. We all
know them. It's just that we don't talk much about
them except for what are they doing over there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've both been that kid, and I think I've
seen that kid so many times, and they're so interested
and curious that they don't necessarily have one someone to
ask them those questions of. So we created a fictional
world where each of these kids has different questions and
they have sort of a magical librarian that they're able
to tap into, and that really reflects what we consider
the magic of the library and the magic of the
people that work there.
Speaker 1: Those are the people.
Speaker 3: That you can ask questions of and they can help
you find the answers. So it gets a little realistic.
Speaker 1: Magical, myth and meta.
Speaker 3: As the story goes on and as the kids start
to learn more and more about this medium that we
so love, we helped them fall in love with the two.
So a lot of ourselves are in this book, but
it's really about this journey that kids, the readers can
go on to you.
Speaker 2: There's something that happens inside this book that I call popping.
And the reason why I call it popping in I'm
a broadcast instructor, and when a student finally understands that
they've got something, they popped in other words, they changed
so in huge letters, I'm a comics pro. That's a
popping moment. Right there. She knows it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know when kids ask us how do
I break into comics? My first answer is, you know what.
Take out a piece of paper, fold it twice, draw
the comic on it, print it. You to go copy
it on a Xerox machine and sell it to a
friend for twenty five cents. Congratulations, you're a comics pro.
It's that close. It's not something that's got to take
ten years. You just go out do it. Maybe put
it on social media, but you don't have to wait.
Don't wait, just make it, share it and see what happens.
Speaker 2: My good son learned how to read thanks thanks to
graphic novels such as this. And so when I see
something like this and I see that, you know that
you will allow the picture to have its own words.
And then you put in just just a little bit
of a word and it tells the story. It's it's
not like a book that sometimes will just scare the
heck out of students, But this right here is an invitation.
Speaker 3: There's a type of kid, and I was that type
of kid where the words in the pictures together can
just tell a story in a different way. You really
retain some of that information differently. And I've seen it
over and over again where a kid who didn't think
that they were a writer read the comic book and
then the next thing, you know, they can't stop writing, right,
they're just writing comics. Yeah, but it's still a form
of storytelling, it's still a form of expression. It's so
many things, and so just encouraging more kids to become
creatives has just been so rewarding to see.
Speaker 2: The name of the book, The Cartoonist Club. We'll be
back with Raina and Scott coming up next. Hey, thanks
for coming back to my conversation with Raina and Scott.
The Cartoonist Club. You put focus on time and and
and that's that's very important because a lot of people
think that if it doesn't happen in five minutes, well
then I must be a failure. But I mean, you
you really do. There's a there's a box here that
really puts focus on connecting with each and every moment.
People don't understand that, but they will.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And the way that comics handles moments is
like no other art form. You know, like when you
put two pictures next to each other and you're you're
actually telling the reader This is not just two pictures separately.
This is this is one moment and then the next moment.
And what's really magical is that in the course of
the story, the kids actually learn about comics. As they're
in a comic, they become aware that they're in a comic,
and they're able to comment on that stuff. And yet
you never break the spell that these are real people.
And that's that's I think something that kids especially are
in tuned to the idea that they can know that
they're drawings but also see them as people all at
the same time.
Speaker 2: Did either of you have the same moment let that
Linda did in the way that she likes the story
and she likes the art, but she feels kind of frumpy.
She's not really confident in that moment.
Speaker 3: I was that kid once upon a time. I loved
to draw and I love to write, but I didn't
want to share my stories with other people because I
didn't think they were good enough. And I was just
waiting for that magical moment to occur. And suddenly I.
Speaker 1: Had the confidence.
Speaker 3: But all I had to do was show people what
I was doing, and they'd go, Wow, you're really good
at art, and i'd be like, oh okay. So as
I opened up and let people in, it was that
kind of transformation where I felt more confident in myself
and more secure about letting people see my work. So
that's a journey I'm real familiar with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just being yourself takes courage. Being yourself on paper
takes courage too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can still relate with that because I wrote a
book in the eleventh grade and people thought I was
just a freak and I was doing it just to
stay in school. And the thing is though, it was
finally published thirty two years later because I got the
confidence to take it from out of the box and
make it work.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a victory. Yeah, congratulations.
Speaker 2: So with a book like this, how do you take
it to the students and now let's teach them. Do
you go to the art student, do you go to
the English teacher, the creative writing teacher? How do we
activate this book?
Speaker 3: Now? We actually have a companion to the book that
is online. It's like a digital kit that you can
download that has activities and it has suggestions for if
you want to create your own cartoonists club at your
school or library or just at home. You can we
want this to be sort of a starter. The book
is a starter, and then the kit is the second
piece of that puzzle. But I think the final piece
of the puzzle is when our readers make stories themselves. Yes, yeah,
and so it's it's part of a journey.
Speaker 1: And I got to say, or you know, like the
energy is out there. Yeah, like this is not like
this is you can't push a string. You know, these
kids already they are so close for telling their stories.
There there are so many kids friends who are so
close to forming a club and doing it together. All
we're doing is just where It's like all we need
is a pilot light, you know, and this and this
whole scene is just going to go from all over
the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My wife has used it as a tutoring tool
when she's with her young students. What she does is
she lets them read a few pages and then she says,
now you be one of their friends, and you add
your part to being a cartoonist and so and so
you should see them once again. Another moment of popping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love that bing Wow.
Speaker 2: So where can people go to find out more about
everything that you guys are involved in?
Speaker 3: There's a few places Golastic dot com, slash Read with Reina,
that where you can find the downloadable kit, which is free.
It's where you can see our tour schedule, where you
can buy some of my books, and also pretty much
anywhere online. My Webitchoorina dot com just my first name
with the word go in front of it, and I'm
on all social media, so yeah, you can kind of
follow us everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can find me on scottmcloud dot com
and also I'm Scott McLeod on Blue Sky as well.
Speaker 2: I got to tell you. You mentioned the word Scholastic, and
right away I'm going, oh my god. Those were the
books that we dreamed about when I was in elementary
school because the quality is always there. This is a
book that you're going to hold onto forever, we sure hope.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yes, indeed, although we hope it'll be nice
and damage from all the time. Your Breddit, we like
it when the spine is splitting.
Speaker 3: That's our favorite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a pristine book just doesn't do it for me.
I've got to have something that you've you've put your
fingerprints somehow, maybe you hadn't mustard on your finger or something.
It's like, yeah, there's some history. Well, please come back
to this show anytime in the future. The door is
always going to be open for you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Will you guys be brilliant today?
Speaker 1: Okay you Cao, thank you, you too.