Event

Emily Flake Workshops

A workshop designed to answer* the question so often asked of cartoonists: "Where do you get your ideas?"

WHAT'RE WE GONNA DO?
Games! We are going to play a bunch of games. Games to get you thinking, to generate ideas, to spark storylines, to plant seeds. If we do this right, you'll walk out with a stack of beginnings and ideas for comics single-panel, one-pagers, and more that you're excited about. If we do it wrong, I'll be left tied to a pole covered in gasoline out in the desert somewhere.

WHAT WILL I NEED?
A ream of paper, pencils of your choice, any pens you like, scissors, and a glue stick. Or glue, I'm not picky. Christ, if you're that hell-bent on using rubber cement, knock yourself out. Just sit by an open window.

YEAH, WELL WHAT IF I CAN'T DRAW?
Nobody thinks they can draw. I assure you you can draw better than you think you can. But we will have a brief crash course in how to use simple shapes to make a recognizable picture. You're not gonna go from zero to Kathe Kollwitz in three hours, though. Sorry. But man, she's hilarious, isn't she?

WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?
My name is Emily Flake. I'm a writer, illustrator, and a cartoonist for the New Yorker. You hear me? THE GODDAMN NEW YORKER, MOM. I also wrote and drew a book called Mama Tried. It's cartoons and essays about parenthood. It just came out, and it features roughly 70% more cuss words than my mother felt was strictly necessary.

ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD KNOW?
My Pappaw drew the Houston Shoe Hospital logo. Isn't that neat?

*by which I mean, provide a series of answers more compelling than "I stared at a piece of paper until I cried and then I had like a half-hour before deadline so I pulled something out of my ass." Which is a TOTALLY VALID WAY TO WORK