Adam English: The Amazing Me!

Enjoyed last night's dinner out with Jeff's gaming buddies and their families. I've posted some photos here, for those interested. I especially like this one of my friend Harald, who obviously likes green tea ice cream a LOT.

Adam, by Adam.

Today's Blathering is about my multi-talented friend, Adam English, who has recently revamped his Web page (warning: if you're at work, turn down the sound before you check this site ;-)).

Adam is part of Ookla The Mok but also has a solo CD called Sketched Out, full of songs about drawing caricatures for a living like "I Need a Whole New Head" and "The Day I Killed All the Customers." Adam opened Darien Lake Themepark's first caricature stand when he was 17 years old and has been drawing caricatures for nearly 20 years. He has also trained over a hundred local caricature artists.

Adam has a musical background, and is classically trained in piano and voice. In his first year after college, Adam worked as an opera singer. His roles included playing the High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan's
The Mikado. Adam is also a card-carrying member of the Etch-a-Sketch Club.



In addition to his music and caricature work, Adam also teaches workshops for schools about drawing, including On the Count of Three...Draw!!!, The Caricature Guy and Amazing Me. If that wasn't enough, Adam also runs the gaming concession at Holiday Hollow, a family-owned amusement park in Pembroke, New York.

The main focus of this Blathering, however, is to rave about Adam's Amazing Me school project. In this workshop, students write and draw a professional-quality comic book with the help of Adam to plot, script, pencil, ink and color a full-color 8-page comic book.



What a fantastic idea! Especially since Adam is so great with kids. From this entry in Beckett's LJ, when Adam and Rand visited her, Paul and their children:

"(re:) Adam's abilities with kids. Well, on reflection why should I have been surprised, since his main career involves dealing with kids and making them comfortable and willing to sit still and talk about what they like. He's outstanding as a caricature artist. But it's not just a front for convenience, he's genuine with them and they're instinctively drawn to him. Whether it's because he's still closely connected to that kid side or what doesn't really matter; whatever his secret is, it works."

You can check out the latest "Amazing Me" comic here. This comic was written & drawn by an "Amazing Me" workshop group, at the Webster Ave. Rec Center in Rochester, NY. Ten children, ranging in age from 6 to 13, participated in the creation of this comic.

Do check out Adam's newly-revamped Web page, especially his Amazing Me! comic archives.

Adam will be at GAfilk, now only six days away, and I believe it's his birthday on the Friday of GAfilk weekend.

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