Jerzy Drozd leads cartooning workshops for children and teens in libraries and schools, as well as for teachers who want to bring comics to the classroom. He wrote and drew Science Comics: Rockets with his wife, Anne Drozd, and is one of the artists of The Warren Commission Report.

Jerzy has drawn special projects for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Marvel Comics, VIZ Media, and others. His latest middle grade graphic novel is The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue.

Jerzy began work as a teaching artist in 2007 when he served as the lead teaching artist for ArtServe Michigan’s Literacy Arts Comic Book Project, in which he visited 10 Detroit public schools (grades 3-6) to teach students how to make comic books. He has since led workshops across North America, including a two-day workshop for educators at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He served as the programming coordinator for the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival from 2009 to 2019.

Drozd moved to Ohio in 2019 and has since led many arts residencies for public schools, career tech schools, libraries, and advocacy organizations.

In 2023 Jerzy led a two-week residency, “Finding Courage,” for Project Jericho. Funded by The Turner Foundation and The Ohio Arts Council, students created comics to serve staff and visitors of Mental Health Services (MHS). Pages from the comics were made part of an art installation at MHS, and their work was collected into a print anthology.

The 2023/2024 school year featured Jerzy’s first full year-long residency at Tri-Rivers Career Center. This project, funded by the Ohio Arts Council’s TeachArtsOhio grant, had students take a deep and meaningful dive through visual narrative, connecting comics storytelling principles to other interactive media curricula. The students’ work was celebrated at Thunderfury Comics, a local comic store, during Free Comic Book Day.

Jerzy enjoys connecting kids with comics in a meaningful way. His gentle, adaptive teaching style strives to make every student in the room feel seen. The visual language of comics unlocks new forms of expression that appeal to different learning modalities. Kids who may be labeled as “reluctant readers” can discover a love of reading and writing through cartooning. He especially enjoys connecting his lesson plans with classroom curricula—he feels a strong sense of mission to be an ally not only to the students but to the educators advocating for them.

Availability

Upon request

 

RECENT PROJECTS: “Tri-Rivers Career Center Residency,” Grades 11 & 12 participated in storytelling and comics-making activities throughout the school year. Their finished comics were showcased and distributed to the community at a Thunderfury Comics, a local comics store, on Free Comic Book Day. The students’ work was also displayed in an art installation on the outer walls of the Career Center. Funded by the Ohio Arts Council’s TeachArtsOhio grant.

“Feeling Heard Symphonic Performance,” Two 12th grade students from Tri-Rivers Career Center produced and recorded a cartoon host’s dialogue for a symphonic performance at The Ohio State University. Click here for a recording. This performance integrated music with comics storytelling coinciding with the exhibit “Facing Feelings: The Art of Raina Telgemeier,” at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Funded by the Ohio Arts Council’s TeachArtsOhio grant and The Ohio State University.

“Ashland High School Art Show,” Ashland Middle School students (grades 6-8) participated in an afternoon workshop wherein they made their own zine-style minicomics. Ashland High School Students (grades 11 & 12) participated in a comics-making game show, revealing and performing key storytelling principles of the medium. Ashland High students recorded and edited the event into a video that can be viewed through this link. Funded by the Ohio Arts Council’s TeachArtsOhio grant.

 

 

 

 

 

Images and video courtesy of the teaching artist.