Comic Workshop at WSE Kelapa Gading Indonesia – August 9 & 30, 2017

As I go through old photographs, I found some gems from workshops I did when I was in Indonesia. I lived there for almost five years and against the advice of elders, I did not document my time properly. The only memories I have are triggered by photographs and posts from social media which then unfold (shoutout to Facebook *ehem* Meta).

Picture this, Jakarta, end of July 2017, Wall Street English in Kelapa Gading Jakarta. This was going on to my second year of being in Indonesia and I already felt restless about teaching English. Wall Street English is a business focused on encouraging independent learning for their students based on their programs, followed by activities that are supposed to immerse the students in an all English speaking environment. They have schools around the world and I happened to join the one in North East corner of Jakarta after a year and four months with another school in Palembang, Sumatra.

The good thing about this business, was that one could channel their interests in creating “Social Clubs”: extra-curricular activities of any topic as long as the students could practice English at the same time. I get bored easily, but the advantage of that is I then generate new ways of amusing myself and in extension entertaining the students. Comics are a passion of mine and to have a change of pace, I merged my love for art with my urge to share a new skill with the students. I made a PowerPoint and called the social club, “How to Make Comics 101”. I like the concept of, “101”, which I first heard when I watched the documentary series on HBO, “Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl“, where any topic can be broken down and scaffolded for persons to access the knowledge. I thought, anyone with a pencil or pen and some paper can create a comic so why not have comics.

After talking to my supervisors and planning my work, on August 9, 2017, I taught “How to make Comics 101” and to be on the safe side, I made a part two which ended up continuing on August 30, 2017. It was an hour session where the students were able to create comics with a bit of guidance and some encouragement.