Comic Book Challenge | Indoor Team Building Program | FocusU

The Comic Book Challenge

Most of us have a favourite comic hero. Who was it for you?

Was it Mandrake with his best friend Lothar? Was it the Phantom with his bandar tribe and beautiful wife Diana? Was it Flash Gordon? Was it Garth? Or if you are of a more recent generation – perhaps Superman, Batman, Spiderman or Wolverine?

For some of us with an everlasting love for Phantom comics for instance, the Ghost who walks was the ultimate crime fighter and guardian of the innocent. His fictional world of Bangalla was so compelling that we even spent hours with the Atlas, trying to search for it! And the “Old Jungle Sayings”, still remain fresh in our memories:
• The Phantom moves faster than lightning flash.
• You never find the Phantom, he finds you.
• When the Phantom asks, you answer.
• And many, many more….

Something that is so fascinating and engrossing had to be leveraged by us at FocusU! And so comes The Comic Book Challenge!

Think about it…. What would it take for a team to put together a comic book? Comic books first of all need to look like comic books – which means the frame of the page, size, orientation, and panel positions need to be decided. Then come the other elements – that include panels, balloons (speech bubbles), text (lines), and characters. And finally, colors that bring the story to life in an engaging manner!

For a team of people trying their hand at this, the questions come thick and fast: What is the story line? Who are the characters? How best can we represent it? Teams soon realise that in the guise of play, they are getting an express lesson in the art of story telling. Every story to be told needs a structure that is also called the “Eight point story arc”, these being: Stasis – Trigger – The quest – Surprise – Critical choice – Climax – Reversal – Resolution.

A challenge like this of course calls for diverse skills within the team. Story tellers, someone to sketch, someone to ink the dialogues and narration, someone to color, someone to direct the whole flow of activities, so that the team completes the task in the given time!

The Comic book challenge is run in many different formats. Stories after all, can be told in multiple ways. Teams can use it to tell slice-of-life stories of their workplace, stories woven around their core values, stories of a glorious tomorrow they are hoping for, stories of pure imagination, stories to tease and have a good laugh – well, you get the idea. Stories can also be told using different medium – pencils, drawings, sketches and paints, emojis, photo cut-outs, polaroid images…. you are limited only by your own imagination!

Is the Comic Book Challenge right for your team?
The challenge can be debriefed around many areas of teamwork, collaboration, creativity, attacking ambiguous tasks, thinking out of the box, the need for congruent and divergent thinking, diversity and communication within teams. Hence if you are looking at a challenge that calls for your team members to exercise their grey cells while working as a team on a creative problem, this challenge is for you!

Contact Us today – we will be glad to meet up and discuss the possibilities for your team!

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Download the Comic Book Challenge One Pager