No, this isn’t some plot for some sort of reality show that resembles Billy Madison or anything like that. Comic creators Jim Starlin (The Infinity War, Death of the New Gods) Ron Marz (Witchblade, Green Lantern), Matthew Dow Smith (Dr. Who, Sandman Mystery Theatre) and Terry Austin (Uncanny X-Men, Dr. Strange) visited Woodstock Day School in Woodstock, NY and gave a presentation on how comics are made. From the script, to pencils, to inks, coloring and lettering.

I mean, how cool would it be if comic legends showed up at your school? Especially when you were a kid? There would be no words. What’s even cooler is that Starlin and Austin produced a Spider-Man drawing just for the event.

Starlin’s pencils with Austin inks, including Austin hand-lettering a couple of balloons that Marz thought up. Copies of the drawing were given to all the 5th and 6th grade students, along with autographs from the creators. Austin also brought along about a dozen large head sketches he had drawn, ranging from Marvel and DC heroes to the Simpsons, Popeye (who he is a huge fan of) and Bullwinkle, then invited the audience to identify them. To top it off, free Archie comics were handed out to the young readers.

“I try and do things like this whenever I can, whether it’s talking to teachers, librarians, or kids in school,” artist Matthew Dow Smith explains. “Sometimes, I feel like we spend a lot of time focusing on the fans who already read comic books and not enough trying to get people interested in the medium. There are a lot of kids interested in comics, a lot of them are already drawing their own comics in their schoolbooks, so it’s good to reach out to them and give them some pointers and encouragement.  Not to mention it’s an excellent excuse to hang around with guys like Ron, Terry, and Jim, who I really look up to.”

“Everyone loved it and had an excellent time! My favorite part was when Terry Austin was showing us his drawings of comic characters and we had to guess who they were. Then he gave us free comics!” said Ian Krause, age 11. “I was surprised to learn that some of the guys could do a whole comic all by themselves — write, draw, ink and color!”

“It was a great experience because the kids were so attentive. A lot of them said they were reading manga, so the language of storytelling was already familiar to them,” said writer Ron Marz. “Some had even started writing and drawing their own stories. It gives you hope that there actually is another generation of readers coming up, as long as we can provide them with material they’re interested in reading.”

This idea is just tremendous. Who knows what sort of inspiration these guys put in some already budding minds. So, readers, think about this: who would you have loved to have visit your school from the comic medium when you were eleven or twelve?

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