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Prologue Page 5

by Peter Gruenbaum and Amanda Kingsley on June 9, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Prologue

Recommended Graphic Novels
By Peter

I’m finding it’s not easy to come up with something new to say each week. I thought I’d take some time to recommend some graphic novels that are good for the same age range as Coiled. Let me start with Kukuburi by Ramon Perez.
Kukuburi is the story of a young woman who works as a delivery girl. She is delivering an ordinary package when she suddenly passes into a surreal world filled with flying sea creatures and other extraordinary creatures. She finds she has friends in this world, and a connection to her childhood, but she also has an enemy – a well-dressed, sunglasses-wearing skeleton. Why she is there and what she is trying to accomplish is secondary to the extraordinary visual atmosphere of the comic.
Kukuburi exists only on the Web. It’s free, and updated whenever the author has time to do it. He is in demand as a professional artist, so sometimes there are long breaks where there are no updates. But it’s worth the wait.

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Prologue Page 4

by Peter Gruenbaum and Amanda Kingsley on June 2, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Prologue

Emerald City ComicCon

By Peter

Amanda and I recently went to the Emerald City ComicCon. I go every year with my two sons, and we visit the HalfPixel tables and buy their books. They’ll always sign their books with a drawing, and it’s just a really fun event. Amanda sat in on the Web Comics panel talk given by the HalfPixel guys, and it sounds like they had some useful insights into the business of creating Web Comics.

One of the highlights for me was meeting Pete Abrams, creator of Sluggy Freelance. Sluggy Freelance has extraordinarily creative and complex storylines, yet every single strip has a punchline in it. I don’t know how Pete does it. When I showed up at his booth, I discovered he was, well, a regular guy. I told him that I considered him one of the first to create a Web comic and I asked him what he thought about the explosion of Web comics all around him. He told me that people come up to him all the time to ask him how to get started in the business, but that when he started it was all new, and he had no advice to offer. “I’m really not that good at it,” he told me. I pointed to the books on his table and said, “You do this very well.” He gave me a shy grin and agreed that he drew comics very well.

The most amazing thing about the ComicCon is the sheer amount of creative energy. Highly talented artists are crammed back-to-back into a convention center. It’s rather overwhelming, but inspiring as well.

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Prologue Page 3

by Peter Gruenbaum and Amanda Kingsley on May 26, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Prologue

The origin of Coiled, part 2.

By Peter

In 2005, I was teaching at the Yesler Terrace community center computer lab, and I would always arrive half an hour early to set up. Once I was set up, I would hang out and watch the room. Most of the people looked like they were from East Africa, and a few looked like they were from South East Asia. Adults were checking email or working on resumes. Kids were working on homework or playing computer games.

But there was one white guy who was sometimes there. He was in his fifties and wore large glasses, like the kind that were popular in the 1970s. I just couldn’t figure out what he was working on. His screen was filled with a series of brightly colored triangles, and he would slowly adjust their shape and size.

I began to speculate. What if he were doing computer research, right here in a public computer lab? It used to be that in order to do research, you needed a special high-tech lab. But that’s no longer true. You just need a computer, and it doesn’t even have to be your own.

What would drive a person to work on a high-tech research project in a public computer lab? Surely someone with that kind of experience would have enough money to buy his own computer. But maybe he’s hiding out from someone, and the last place someone would look would be in public housing. My imagination started to go a little wild.

Eventually I went over and talked to the guy. It turns out he was doing 3D, stereoscopic animation. It was pretty cool and unusual, but not exactly a technological breakthrough. Still, I had already begun to think of a story where a computer scientist would end up at the Yesler Terrace computer lab, working on technology that could change the world.

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Prologue Page 2

by Peter Gruenbaum and Amanda Kingsley on May 19, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Prologue

The origin of Coiled, part 1.

By Peter

In 2002, I hatched a plan with a few colleagues to create a company that would do a mix of mainstream software and cool education projects for teens in low income neighborhoods. We had ideas for interesting projects, but we needed the kids and a place to teach. I called around, and eventually the head of community technology for the city of Seattle suggested I contact a man named Asfaha Lemlem, who was in charge of the computer lab at the Yesler Terrace community center. I met with Asfaha and explained what we wanted to do. He listened, and then simply said, “Let’s do it.”

For a year, we wrote grants together to get funding for the classes, and got nothing but rejection. But one day, the Gates Foundation contacted Asfaha and said that they liked what we had proposed. In the end, they funded us to teach a 3D modeling class that used University of Washington’s Augmented Reality technology. Soon afterwards, more funding followed. You can see videos of some of the projects that we did at http://sdkbridge.com/youth.php.

The kids were mostly from East Africa: Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea. It was the first time I had worked with immigrant kids, and my first class, I was unbelievably nervous. But they were great. They were friendly and smart, and they loved technology. As I got to know them, I got to see how they saw themselves as American, African, and African American, all at the same time.

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Prologue Page 1

by Peter Gruenbaum and Amanda Kingsley on April 14, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Prologue

Welcome to Coiled! Coiled is a graphic novel by Peter Gruenbaum and Amanda Kingsley, with new pages published on this website every week.

Coiled is cyber-fiction that takes place in present-day Seattle’s Central District, home to many East African immigrant families. Joshua, a boy from the suburb of Redmond, is on a mission to find his mother, who suddenly disappeared from his life. He traces her path to the neighborhood of Yesler Terrace, and then eventually into an extraordinary virtual world, populated by soldiers, computer scientists, and a mysterious black jaguar.

Coiled is illustrated in two styles: the virtual world is drawn in shades of gray, and the real world is drawn with pen and ink.

Why the name Coiled? That’s for you to find out. But here’s a hint: it refers to an invention created by Thomas Edison’s biggest rival.

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