I’m teaching an intensive course in comics this summer along with co-teachers Tom Hart and Keith Mayerson at SVA. It’s a great group of students, and I hoped to post a video of an intensive critique of one student’s page–but the sound was too bad to salvage (need a new video camera!). Here’s the page, by Adam Munger, in any case (some pencil marks on there are mine, done as we discussed the page.
The critique method, by Keith Mayerson, is interesting: he has students photocopy their pencils for everyone in the group. He reads the page out loud. Then each person in the group has to give and “attribute” (a positive observation) and a “nitpick” (a critical observation) on the page. Finally, Keith (and in this case, I, since we’re co-teaching) weigh in. It’s very thorough! The crit of this one page took an hour, and we all liked it. No crit that day lasted less than 20 minutes. Fortunately, the class is six hours long.
Jessica, Tom, Keith
Introduction
story development: each discuss own methods,
Jessica review work organization ideas, story structure, narrative arc
Field Trip to MoCCA (time permitting)
Homework:
-Obtain materials
-Read chapters 1-3 of Understanding Comics
– thumbnails for your 8-10 page comic: make 5 sets of photocopies.
read DWWP chapters 5, 6, 7 (penciling, layout, lettering) 9, 10 (narrative arc, characters)
Jessica, Keith
small group crits: thumbnails
Keith: Composition Basics: The Gag Cartoon,
McCloud discussion
Jessica: Lettering/layout demo (chs 6-7)
Homework:
-revise thumbs fully
-Create first penciled page, Xerox for class members, Keith & Jessica
-read the rest of Understanding Comics
read DWWP chs 8, 13 (inking)
Keith, Jessica
First group critique of page 1 pencils
Homework:
Make corrections of first penciled page, ink page, and create 2nd- 3rd penciled page
Keith, Tom
Critique of 1st inked, 2nd -3rd penciled page
Homework:
Make corrections of second-third penciled pages, ink pages, and create 4th penciled page,
Xerox new pages for group critique for all class members and instructors
Tuesday, June 29
Tom, Keith
Third group critique
Homework:
Make corrections of 4th penciled page, ink page, and create 5th penciled page
Tom, Jessica
group crit follow up
Inking demo
“Master drawings” (inked copies)
Homework:
Ink page 5, pencil 6-7
Jessica, Tom
Page 4, 5 Critique
Homework:
Ink page 7-8, pencil 9
Free week – finish p 9, pencil p 10
Tom
Page 8 Critique
Lesson on how to make minicomics
Homework:
Ink page 10
make mini comics for class final critique
Jessica, Tom, Keith
Final Critiques
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