As if I needed another reason to love Sydney.

Not only is it one of my favorite cities in the world and where I met my husband, the Opera House is hosting GRAPHIC next month.

Comic books, illustration, animation, music, multimedia and other new ways of telling stories have not only changed the face of our popular culture, they now define it. Graphic novels and comic art are now a leading source of inspiration for films, television, clothing, designers, musicians and artists the world over. GRAPHIC celebrates this brave new world in a weekend of specially commissioned productions – with musical responses to graphic art and stories, workshops, panels, a film program, a games exhibition and an animation competition.

I’ll be in Australia then with my husband Michael and our eleven year old son, Cole. As part of GRAPHIC, we’re excited to see Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, set to a live score.  According to the Opera House website, percussionist Ben Walsh randomly discovered The Arrival in a book store. He fell in love with the story and thought about how he could create music to accompany it.  Three years later, his musical vision will come to life at the Opera House.

I’ve used The Arrival in undergraduate courses on children’s literature and young adult literature.  As a wordless picture book, it serves as a fabulous way to show pre-service teachers how to “read” images.  We begin by discussing how the size of images correlates to reading speed.  A series of small images, for instance, means that they should be read quickly.  With images that take up the full page, however, they should be read with more attention to how lines, colors, and shapes work together to shape the reader’s meaning making processes.

Shaun Tan will be doing a signing after the show, so of course I’m planning on packing my copy of The Arrival in my suitcase.  I’m trying to figure out how to attend some of the other GRAPHIC events, including talks by Kevin Smith and Neil Gaiman, but I’ve already signed up for the 14K City2Surf run that weekend too.  (It goes through Kings Cross, Rushcutters Bay, Double Bay, Rose Bay, Vaucluse, Dover Heights and Bondi Beach, with the 2K long Heartbreak Hill in the middle.  Doesn’t that sound like a lovely way to see the city?  Over 76,000 runners think so!  Michael, a cyclist, begs to differ).

I also teach The Graveyard Book, but Gaiman will be reading from a previously unreleased story called The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains. His read alouds are incredible, and at each stop of his nine city tour in 2008, he read a chapter aloud.  I’ve used these read alouds in class, since they’re a great way to introduce readers to Nobody Owens.  Alas, Tan and Gaiman are scheduled at the same time, and The Arrival wins out for now.  But I’ll end with the trailer for The Graveyard Book anyway.

Image Credit: Shaun Tan, The Arrival

This is a wonderful talk by David Carson, author/designer of The End of Print, The Book of Probes, and Trek.  With ample humor, he offers his take on his work in graphic design, the role of visual images and print, and images found in media and public places.

It reminded me of our road trip to Upper Peninsula during the summer of 2007.  I was in the process of training for the Marine Corps Marathon, and since I love trail running, I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for the inaugural 25K Tahqua Trail Run.  One August day, we gamely packed up our car, and spent eight hours driving from our home in Madison to Paradise, Michigan.

Despite the fact that it was the peak of summer, it was only 34 degrees when the race started.  The run itself was absolutely gorgeous, if technically challenging (it gets a bit hard to hopscotch over tree roots and climb steep hills after you’ve been running for hours!)  And through a sheer fluke, I ended up winning my age category (lest you think I’m actually good at this, let me note that there were only two other women in my age bracket).

The run finished here, at the Upper Tahquamenon Falls (the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi):

But anyway, back to found images.  My husband and I are both avid photographers, and we love capturing images of what we encounter on our travels.  So, inspired by David Carson’s talk, here’s what we discovered in the U.P.

We decided that the hip hop horses would be friends with the rhymenocerous and the hiphopopotamus.

Love it.  CoolFlick, that is.  It combines the search power of Flickr with the stunning 3D experience of Cooliris.  To experience Cooliris yourself, I would recommend checking out the Wall Street Journal’s 2008 Year in Pictures.  Now imagine that, linked to the millions of photos uploaded from around the world onto Flickr.

It’s fascinating how social media is facilitating the exchange of visual images… I can’t help but wonder if users are prompted to engage in perspective taking and critical thinking as they share images with an audience (known and unknown, local and distal).

But back to CoolFlick.  One of the drawbacks, as ReadWriteWeb points out, there’s no advanced search – and thus, no way to discern if photos are licensed under Creative Commons.  Ever conscious of copyright issues, I typically find photos for my blog or PowerPoints at stock.xchng or use my own photography.

The photo used in this post, for instance, was taken in Oaxaca, Mexico, last June.  My son Cole and I spent two weeks there at a wonderful language school… and we were inadvertently there on the two year anniversary of protests that turned violent.  I tried to see it through his 8 year old eyes: striking teachers camped for weeks in the Zocalo, banners with the images of Lenin and Marx, and ever-present graffiti.  The images may only stay up for a day or two, before fresh white paint covered them up.

In Oaxaca, the graffiti provided a way for me to (try to) explain complex issues to my son.  Banksy-style images functioned as political expression and public art.  Is it any wonder that in times of political upheaval (even now, here in the States, with our new president) people turn to visual means to express themselves?  Tools like CoolFlick are a way to share their work – and to reach across time, space, and difference.