Radio - An Illustrated Guide Review

This comic was by far the most educational comic I have ever read, although I do have a few critiques of the it One, there were no super heros and/or laser beams. Two, there wasn’t a super intense arch nemesis. Three, some of the blurbs were pretty long and there weren’t any sweet BOOM’s or SHAZAM’s. As far as critiques go though, that’s all I have. It was so fun to actually read and learn from a comic for a class. It was really nice to have an illustration along with a description. It certainly kept me interested and reading. I think it is a really good example of how much Ira Glass values visual media and keeping his audience actively engaged. Like he said, radio is a visual medium and he also emphasized the importance of suspense to keep people listening. In a similar way, I feel he chose to write this in a series of comics to keep readers interested in what he was saying. His passion for an audience’s attention is definitely something I feel he conveys in everything he does.

The greatest thing I picked up on though was the importance of collaboration on a project. Sure, Ira listed many steps to giving a great interview, how to use music, how to find a good story, how to edit the story and so forth but throughout every part of the story-making process, people were there collaborating. I bet that if you counted the number of scenes/squares in the comic where Ira was collaborating with other people, it would be at least half of the comic. That is my guess anyways. I learned a lot from this reading but I mostly learned the importance of other people’s opinions and suggestions. I tend to be a “lone wolf” sort to speak. It is exactly as stupid as it sounds. Hopefully, I can learn to ask for other people to listen to my work and help me along the way to make it the best it can be. Overall, this was a really fun and helpful reading.