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Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he’s not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll’s to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides — and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he’s a scientist: “Once I do something, I want to do something else.”

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I was mesmerized when I came across this talk. This is the way creators think.I am here, but then I am there. I pick something up along the way and  synthesize it with something new. Vacuum cleaning the universe along the way. Creators don’t get tired too easily. However we sleep well and  dream. Is it any different for an artist than it is for Clifford, the physicist? Aren’t we all searching for the truth? Aren’t artists endeavoring to bring something new into being? Is Stoll acting to show us how his mind works or is he just another Type A personality?

Please make you comments here. Participate. You will get more out of the experience. Step into your life as fully as Clifford Stoll. Live a life of  discovery, adventure, giving, sharing, creating.

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Why you should listen to him:

If not for Scott McCloud, graphic novels and webcomics might be enjoying a more modest Renaissance. The flourishing of cartooning in the ’90s and ’00s, particularly comic-smithing on the web, can be traced back to his major writings on the comics form. The first, Understanding Comics, is translated into 13 languages, and along with Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, its playful and profound investigations are justly revered as something like the Poetics of sequential art.

McCloud coined the term “infinite canvas” — for the new comics medium made possible by web browsers. He’s an avid user of the medium: My Obsession With Chess was widely popular online, as was The Right Number. Back on the printed page, he wrote and illustrated Zot!, a colorful response to then-trendy grimness and gore in comic books. (He describes the book as “a cross between Peter Pan, Buck Rogers and Marshall McLuhan.”)

“With Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics the dialogue on and about what comics are and, more importantly, what comics can be has begun. If you read, write, teach or draw comics; if you want to; or if you simply want to watch a master explainer at work, you must read this book.”

Neil Gaiman

More About Scott McCloud:

Scott’s website

Scott’s Books:

Reinventing Comics
(2000)

Understanding Comics
(1993)

Making Comics
(2006)

Related Links:

Heartstorming Archives: The Graphic Novel

All About Ted

Thanks to Ron Diorio for calling my attention to this video.

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