The Spectra Universe - Storytelling Workshop

Panel Up presents - SPECTRA an open source comics project based in Berlin. In weekly podcasts a group of core creators meet with ever changing guest contributors to develop complex and diverse characters, worlds, and story arcs in a sci-fi universe, which offers storytelling with a strong social message.

As part of the Comic Invasion Berlin Satellite events, SPECTRA is making its first ‘open call’ with a workshop on collaborative storytelling and on using our imaginations to engage with real world issues. We invite anybody interested in collaborating, from pro comic creators to casual passersby, to join us and expand our story universe with their creativity.

On a practical level, you will find yourself in the ‘writers' room’ alongside SPECTRA regulars - comics creator Ash Pure, academic Saud Al-Zaid and researcher/writer Miguelángel Verde - as a CIB guest contributor, and have the chance to experience first-hand how a comic rapidly progresses from idea to script to storyboard.

The primary goal, as ever with SPECTRA, is to create a space for discourse and exchanges, a place where we can talk about individual and/or global problems, concerns, hopes, and fears through the lens of (science-)fiction. And maybe, just maybe, make a comic to save the world.

*** Registration and other details ***

If you are interested in attending the workshop, please send us a brief email - with your name and one or two sentences on what interests you the most about it - to spectrauniversegroup (at) gmail.com.

In order to make the best of the two hours that the workshop will last, you should come prepared with an idea of a world and a character of your own imagining. Although the Spectra Universe mostly fits within the science fiction genre, please do not let that limit you. Remember that science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once famously stated: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Please don't worry about it too much and overprepare. After all, a lot of the fun when working creatively with other people is to riff off each other and find yourself creating something that you wouldn't have thought up on your own. For that reason, some suggestions are:

1. Try to describe your world and character in three simple sentences.

2. Try to explain what they say about the real world and the issues that most important to you.

3. Lastly and because you will be collaborating with three other people, try to decide what is the single most important thing that you want your character to experience in the story that you will be telling together.

That's it for now! If you have any questions, please write us a comment below. If we don't answer immediately, don't worry - we might just have gone out to the SPECTRA universe for a bowl of space curry, but we'll be back as soon as we're done and answer you then!