Bernard Caleo

The staff were impressed with his professionalism, his presence and his knowledge.

The primary school class that visited loved the event. Everyone loved the Kamishibai that Bernard presented. Bernard’s presentation was very engaging, amusing and fun for all involved. The students loved drawing their own Kamishibai.

The students were enthused and responded very well to the speaker and were very keen to try their own cartoons. His description of the process was clear and informative making the students aware of the history and process of cartooning.

Bernard came to CGS Malvern and presented to the children for part of our Book Week celebrations and all of children were just “blown away”!!! They excitedly relayed to me about how much they had enjoyed listening to him and experimenting with their own drawing.

Unfortunately I wasn’t at school that day, although over the years I have seen Bernard work his magic on the students and, it’s obvious he still has heaps of “magic dust” up his sleeve. However, as each of the classes have come to Library I have asked them what they thought about Bernard’s presentation and what they learned. Words such as “awesome”, “amazing”, “totally out of this world”, “cool” have been but a few of the adjectives that have floated my way. One student today spoke of how he needs to learn to do less detail in his drawings (less is more), another spoke of how to draw eyes and so it goes on. Even the art teacher has discussed with me that in her sessions students wanted to experiment using the “cartoon” style.

The students have been working on their own comic strip during Library sessions over the past couple of weeks, but this week they all have come in with extra enthusiasm and ready to make adjustments using some of the techniques that Bernard had shown.

The inspiration he has left behind has been dynamic and I am overjoyed seeing that in the students.

His presentation was wonderful, energetic, informative, fun, knowledgable, engaging and relevant.
He bounced, waved his arms, grabbed our attention, yelled (softly), illustrated with his on-screen images, enticed us with interesting tidbits and made graphic novels a more attractive option to students than before.

Bernard Caleo has run workshops and lectures at Redeemer Lutheran College for Year 9 students for the past two years. He has enthusiastically engaged large groups of students in the history of comics and in his personal approach to creating his own comic pamphlets. Bernard’s knowledge and passion for the subject inspired students to create their own small-scale comic strips. His approach to teaching smaller groups of students the finer points of drawing characters and designing panels was energetic and allowed less confident students to feel comfortable expressing themselves artistically. Throughout the course of a 2 hour workshop, students applied their new found knowledge of comic design and style and were able to develop complex drawn characters that they could utilize in their assignment. Bernard’s lectures and workshops provided an extremely valuable experience for students. He was able to build rapport with students with ease and kept them engaged in well-managed and entertaining sessions. His workshops have provided such a unique experience for our students that we would happily welcome him back in future years.

Geelong Regional Library Corporation recently engaged Bernard Caleo to present to local school students as part of our National Youth Week celebrations. Bernard ran two sessions – a presentation to a large group of students, as well as a smaller workshop. We were really impressed by his ability to read the dynamics of each of the groups, and to capture the attention, and the imaginations, of the children. He did a wonderful job of engaging with his young audience members as he shared his skills and extensive knowledge of comics with them. Bernard has an energetic and humorous style which the kids absolutely loved.

Bernard was really engaging and had the children eating out of his hand for the whole session. The first, younger group was enthralled with his animated and fast paced approach and the despite the second group being small, Bernard gave as much energy and enthusiasm as he did to the first group. I was also impressed with his passion and excitement about comics, which the children readily picked up. We’ve already booked him for our next school holidays and are eagerly awaiting his storytelling session.

Bernard’s visit went very well – his Year 8 workshops were fun and engaging, and the students responded very well to his enthusiasm and obvious love of comics. The library staff were very pleased to speak with Bernard and get his recommendations for books to stock the library.

Year 12 students were keen to learn more about Maus and have asked lots of follow up questions since Bernard’s talk with them, which is great to see. The staff that Bernard spoke to at the end of the day were also very appreciative of Bernard’s insights into the texts that we are studying.