It’s Friday! You know what that means: Cartoon History! As I said earlier, I think it’s an important, oft-neglected subject. It’s also a nice way to end the week, and provides a nice rhythm to the semester. And yes, history is fun.

Objective: Exploring the history of Cartooning

Do Now: Who do you think the FIRST famous cartoon character was? When do you think it was created?

Activities:

•  Brief discussion based on the Do Now

It’s always interesting to experience students’ gauge on history. A not infrequent answer is something along the lines of “Mickey Mouse in the 1960’s”.

• Teacher will introduce The Yellow Kid and Richard F. Outcault using hand-out accompanied by visual examples.

The Information Age is a wonderful thing. There are any number of terrific resources with which to gather material. Some of my favorites are listed below under Resources. (Old-fashioned as I am, many of them are books. Giant, musty books.)

I start with The Yellow Kid simply because most Cartooning Histories use him as a convenient starting point, coming as he does near the dawn of the 20^th century. This approach has merit, though it is certainly debatable (as we’ll see below). Your presentation method is up to you. As I’ve said before, I use Smartboard. Some major points you may want to address in your discussion:

• Outcault’s career took off when he was hired by Joseph Pulitzer to work on the New York World.  Teacher will elicit responses to gauge students’ prior knowledge. Who was Joseph Pulitzer? Where have you heard the name “Pulitzer” before?

• Outcault’s feature, titled Hogan’s Alley, took place in a crowded, urban slum. How does this reflect to the early twentieth century in America?

• The Yellow Kid’s name was Mickey Dugan. What is a stereotype? (Note some of the different portrayals of ethnicity.) Are images like this offensive?  Why were they acceptable back then? Are there stereotypes today?

• Readers recognized Mickey because he always wore the same yellow nightshirt. What other cartoon characters always dress the same way? Sets a precedent.

• What are the words on his shirt? His dialogue. Why are they there? This is before the invention of the word balloon.
• What else is odd about his dialogue? Outcault used the street slang of his era.
• Hogan’s Alley reflected its era, from the everyday (football game)-

• to major events like the Spanish-American War.

• Speaking of which, what helped to fuel U.S. involvement in the war? What is “yellow journalism”? The term was coined due to the immense popularity of The Yellow Kid. His presence drove up sales as readers would buy the New York World to see what he was up to.
• Outcault was eventually hired away by William Randolph Hearst. Who was he? Outcault began producing Hogan’s Alley for Hearst’s New York Journal. Pulitzer meanwhile hired another artist, George Luks, to continue drawing the feature for the New York World. There were no copyright laws regarding comics at the time.
• The Yellow Kid was so popular that he became the first comics character to be heavily merchandised, from toys:

• to sheet music (this was before radio):

• to advertising:

• Is Hogan’s Alley truly a comic strip? No word balloons, no panels, not sequential. It’s closer to our current project, Gag Cartoons, but it’s not quite that either.  Then why are we studying it? The Yellow Kid is the first character created by a cartoonist to appear regularly in a newspaper, become widely recognized by the public, and cross over into popular culture.

Exercise: The Yellow Kid achieved fame around the turn of the twentieth century. Students will create a Yellow Kid for the early twenty-first century. Here are some examples:

Here he is, flummoxed by modernity…          Here, all ‘gangsta’ as the kids say…  And here, with lobster claws for some reason.

Thanks Shannon, Nic and Reily!

Resources:

The Comics, Brian Walker. Abrams ComicArts

America’s Great Comic-Strip Artists, Richard Marschall. Stewart, Tabori & Chang 

100 Years of Newspaper Comics, Maurice Horn. Gramercy

Masters of American Comics, John Carlin, Paul Karasikand Brian Walker. Hammer, Moca, Yale

There was also Don Markstein’s excellent Toonopedia website, but I haven’t been able to access it since Mr. Markstein sadly passed last year. If anyone has any information on this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Self-Assessment:

So this week you:

• Introduced the concept of Gag Cartoons
• Helped students generate ideas through warm-up exercises
• Guided their ideas through individual discussion
• Expanded the possibilities of the subject with the concept of the Anti-gag cartoon
• Given students visual tools through the Drawing Lesson
• Provided related historical context

Next week we’ll develop this project in earnest. ‘Til then, Happy Friday!

Derek Mainhart is an art teacher at Deer Park High School and at the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. He has taught widely at many institutions such as Molloy College, Boricua College and Hofstra, among others. He teaches cartooning workshops in the greater New York area. In addition, he was the first Vice President of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in Manhattan, and was instrumental in the formation of its annual MoCCA Art Festival. He has organized and participated in numerous gallery exhibits in and around NYC. His self-published works include The Iraqi Tinies and W. He is married to web-cartoonist and fellow art teacher Ali Solomon. They live with their daughter in Forest Hills (not far from the house where Peter Parker grew up.) 

Read Derek’s comic book reviews at: http://imagesandnerds.wordpress.com/

At this point your students’ minds should be buzzing with ideas. Now that they’re approaching the final version of their Gag Cartoon, it’s time for some more drawing lessons. Nothing terribly complex, but these simple concepts can make all the difference in the work of a neophyte cartoonist, both in visual appeal and readability.

Objective: Basic character design

Do Now: Try to draw a simple cartoon character

As always, circulate the room during the Do Now. Gauge the various skill levels of your students and use this as a guide in terms of how far to push this lesson (or indeed if you should skip it altogether and proceed to the next one—though in my experience, even slightly more advanced students like to see these simple approaches codified.)

Activities:

• Brief discussion based on the Do Now
• Teacher will demo, step-by-step, simple character design. Students will follow along.

Emphasize the utility of what you’re about to show them. At the same time remind them that this is only one approach. After today, they are free to use it or ignore it.

As with most representational drawing, we start with simple shapes, in this case an oval:

Followed by a trapezoid:

Then some half-circles:

And then these, um, things:

At this point, ask, “Who is this?” You will likely get the name of one of The Powerpuff Girls. Emphasize that is, in fact, all of them, because they all use the same formula. It just depends on what details you add.

(oh like Bubbles isn’t your favorite…)

I begin with this because it’s easy and gives everyone a chance at success. Next, a slightly more complicated character. Start with a circle:

Underneath that we’ll add a  neck:

Then, again, a trapezoid. Add a half-circle on either side for sleeves:

Next the arms. Now’s a good time to introduce the concepts of cylinders into the demo. When discussing the rendering of appendages (arms, legs, prehensile cybernetic tails, etc.) it is useful to think of them in terms of cylinders. It may not be readily apparent in this particular drawing, but it will be helpful later on. May as well get your students accustomed to it now.

Some fingers. (Don’t get too caught up in hands right now. Keep it simple. Students tend to find them incredibly frustrating.)

A rectangle, then two more cylinders:

Finally two half-ovals.

Who might this be? Some might say Charlie Brown:

The more attentive student may say it could be any of the Peanuts characters, depending on the details:

You may suggest that this basic formula extends beyond Peanuts. For example:

Now let’s add a wrinkle. What happens if we squash (term from the previous drawing lesson) this figure?

What if we stretch (also from previous lesson) the formula?

What if we do a little of both?

Without adding any details, which of these figures is younger? How can you tell? What makes the other one look older? What details could you add to emphasize this?

Exercise: Students will use the techniques learned today to create two unique characters.

Here are some student examples (Thanks Ashley, Joel and Paul!):

There will be a couple more drawing lessons before the students begin the final version of their Gag Cartoon. But tomorrow’s Friday, and that means: More Cartooning History!

Derek Mainhart is an art teacher at Deer Park High School and at the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. He has taught widely at many institutions such as Molloy College, Boricua College and Hofstra, among others. He teaches cartooning workshops in the greater New York area. In addition, he was the first Vice President of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in Manhattan, and was instrumental in the formation of its annual MoCCA Art Festival. He has organized and participated in numerous gallery exhibits in and around NYC. His self-published works include The Iraqi Tinies and W. He is married to web-cartoonist and fellow art teacher Ali Solomon. They live with their daughter in Forest Hills (not far from the house where Peter Parker grew up.) 

Read Derek’s comic book reviews at: http://imagesandnerds.wordpress.com/ 

Our first art project: Gag cartoons!

In DWWP, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden begin with this basic unit of comic art—the single panel cartoon. This approach only makes sense, and I utilize it as well. Comic art, as we will see, offers the artist an enormous amount of choices. Starting students off with this bite-size format is a good way to get them thinking about some of these choices in a manageable way. It also affords the teacher the opportunity to begin introducing the basic elements of the comic art form.

Objective: Experimenting with Gag Cartoons

Do Now: Draw a one-panel cartoon of what you did over the weekend.

As always, circulate around the room and see what your students are doing. They likely won’t be drawing gag cartoons per se, which is fine. You didn’t ask them to. If you see something noteworthy, don’t be afraid to say so.

Activities:

• Teacher will distribute visual reference.

In my case, as I make my rounds, I leave some old copies of the The New Yorker on each table. Students will naturally start flipping through them.

• Class discussion based on the Do Now and visual reference.
• Teacher will introduce gag cartoons.

After briefly discussing some of their work from the Do Now, I ask my students if any of them are familiar with The New Yorker (yes, yes, I know—asking teens if they are familiar with a literary magazine—print no less!—is like asking them if they’re fans of Jack Benny. But sometimes they’ll surprise you.) After briefly discussing its cultural import, I mention that it is the premiere venue for gag cartoons. Indeed most people’s conception of gag cartoons is probably informed by the type of work that appears in The New Yorker. I then elicit a definition of what a gag cartoon is from the class. (As most teachers know, knowledge that students construct themselves is generally more important to them than that which is spoon-fed.)

Next I present some different approaches to gag cartoons. (Note: for visual presentations I often use a Smartboard, a high-tech, interactive iteration of the classic chalkboard. If one isn’t available, a Powerpoint presentation or some other method is fine. As we’ll see, I differentiate my mode of presentation—handouts, drawing demo w/ a marker on a large pad, digital—based on what works best for a given lesson.)

Again, there are thousands upon thousands of examples to choose from. Here are some I use:

A play on words from noted gag cartoonist Mike Lynch:

In addition to being a first rate cartoonist, Mike is a veritable font of knowledge on the history of his profession. (Be sure to check out the blog on his website:  http://www.mikelynchcartoons.com/ )

Next, a juxtaposition in tone from master of the macabre Charles Addams:

Addams is of course the seminal creator of the Addams Family as well as an inspiration to Tim Burton, Gahan Wilson and all those who dwell in the space where Dark meets Funny.

Next, the legendary Gary Larson, an artist who has gag cartoons down to a science (literally – his work has appeared in natural history museums and scientific journals).

In his musings on the relationship between man, nature and the cosmos in general, his work tends to linger in the mind, and at times approaches the profundity of Art with a capital “A”. Not bad for a one-panel bit of funny.

Finally, returning to the gutter of “low-art” we have Doug Bratton’s gleefully twisted “Pop Culture Shock Therapy”, the type of postmodern mash up of beloved kitsch that’s so popular with the kids nowadays.

Check out his website. (But be forewarned: it’s not all kid-friendly.) http://www.popculturecomics.com/index.php

Exercise:

• Students will play The New Yorker Caption Contest

For those unfamiliar, every week The New Yorker provides its readers with a drawing and challenges them to write a caption for it. Here’s the link:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/caption

I always give them two examples to work with in order to avoid the “I’m stuck” excuse. I tell them to come up with captions for both examples (figuring at least one will be decent). This also gets them into the habit of not settling for their first idea (an important aspect of any creative endeavor). I give them about 5 minutes to complete the task. As they’re working, I circulate around the room looking for particularly effective responses and cajoling the reluctant and recalcitrant. I also inform them that they will be hanging up their work momentarily to increase their motivation.

Here are some images I’ve used in the past:

And here are examples of student responses (typed for legibility):

(I’d love to actually submit some of this stuff to The New Yorker, but alas, you must be 18 in order to play.)

• Students will hang up their work.

After time is up, I have students tape their work up on a wall (have multiple roles of tape or this will take forever).

• Students will read each other’s responses.

I usually allow a couple of minutes for this.

They will choose two of their favorites to discuss.

They choose two in order to avoid the “my choice already got picked” excuse during the discussion. They’re also not allowed to choose their own.

• Students will engage in a class critique of the exercise. Students will discuss their favorites and analyze why they are successful. Were there any trends in terms of the responses? What were some of the different approaches?

A lot of pertinent points will be raised in the discussion: unexpected juxtaposition, shifts in tone from one response to another, clever plays on words, etc. As you wrap up, instruct students to keep these in mind as they begin their first project tomorrow—their very own gag cartoon!

Derek Mainhart is an art teacher at Deer Park High School and at the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. He has taught widely at many institutions such as Molloy College, Boricua College and Hofstra, among others. He teaches cartooning workshops in the greater New York area. In addition, he was the first Vice President of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in Manhattan, and was instrumental in the formation of its annual MoCCA Art Festival. He has organized and participated in numerous gallery exhibits in and around NYC. His self-published works include The Iraqi Tinies and W. He is married to web-cartoonist and fellow art teacher Ali Solomon. They live with their daughter in Forest Hills (not far from the house where Peter Parker grew up.)

A big wall for critiquing comics pages is a must

An architecture student from the Phillipines wrote recently asking what we thought the optimum set-up would be for a comics classroom/workspace. It occurred to us that there’s no real standard, primarily since such a beast is practically non-existent. As teachers at the School of Visual Arts we have managed to get a pretty good set-up for cartooning with the help of our co-faculty and our department head but there is plenty of room for improvement, especially in the realm of technology. As visiting teachers, lecturers, and workshop leaders we have an opportunity to compare set-ups at a lot of different institutions, from fine arts studio programs to museums and libraries. We have seen a lot of cool stuff but we can’t say that we have come across the Ultimate Comics Teaching Studio Environment.

So in the interest of throwing out some ideas at the beginning of this schoolyear and in the confidence that some of you will chime in with additions, adjustments, or criticism we offer a quick list of essential class/studio items based our experience as teachers:

IN THE CLASSROOM

• sturdy drafting tables with adjustable angles, ideally with tabouret attached (This table is similar to the model we suggested ordering for SVA)
• adjustable height chairs
• open wall area for posting/critiquing art
• blackboard/whiteboard
• A/V unit with projector and audio, ideally an all-in-one “smart classroom” set-up

ideally also:

• an in-class light table for tracing work
• slop sink
• opaque projector (Matt saw a digital version recently that was as small as a book light, something like this)

It's great to have a light box or table available to use in the classroom.

IN A SEPARATE STUDIO/WORKROOM

• as many Apple computers as possible, all equipped with, CS & Wacom tablets
• 2 or more large format scanners (11 x 17″)
• 2 or more light tables or lightboxes
• large, flat work area equiped with cutting mat, paper cutter
• laser printer or other high quality printer

ideally also:

• silkscreen printing set-up
• Wacom Cintiq or two

Teachers and students out there, what would you add to this list? What would you prioritize? What do you think is overdoing it?

I’m just winding down an intense 5-day workshop at the University of Minnesota. A really committed (and cheerful) group of students meant it was huge fun, plus they’ve produced a mountain of new work in a very short time. But the intensity meant I didn’t have the time to blog as we went as I’d wanted to do.

But now that it’s over, here’s a quick wrap-up.

First of all, I based the class on the structure of my Wolfsonian (10 days) and Huntington Museum (3 days) classes, but of course split the difference in terms of time. Also, because this class is offered optionally for credit, there was a “pre-assignment” also, which was challenging. How do you ask students who may never have made comics to make comics before you teach them how? (I had them adapt a scene from Paul Auster’s City of Glass into thumbnails, then read the comic and compare…subject for another post.)

Highlights of the first couple of days:

1. Panel Lottery.

I find this to be such a productive activity: it demonstrates all kinds of transitions and the meaning of closure, it teaches the nature of a “scene”, it shows the value and method of editing, it shows how narrative builds and changes, often gets at the narrative arc, at least obliquely, and, bonus, it’s funny and gets the class talking and participating.

This particular lottery turned out tighter and more logical than most. The lesson: making decisions based on the needs of the story rather than panel-to-panel laffs makes for stronger storytelling. There might have been funnier individual transitions to make, but the whole story now has a punchline it might not have achieved had we gone for the cheapo.

2. Strip it down.

This is an activity where students do a tight thumbnail for a “daily strip.” It can be funny or not, as they please, but should use a kind of gag structure–set-up and punchline–ask a question and answer it surprisingly being the non-funny way of putting it). I haven’t had the opportunity to teach this particular assignment often, so it was great to get some practice. My take on it at the moment is that it’s in just the right place in DWWP, in chapter 3. Tech skills not necessary, and compositional challenges are relatively simplified because there’s just one tier. It’s tough, though, to be funny on demand in just one night. The critique on this was really great.

Jamie Penny managed to get done early enough to ink his strip.

Check out the rest of Jamie Penny’s great class work, including the thumbnail version of this strip, on his site.

3. Layout and lettering demos & the Pictureless Comic.

The Comic with no Pictures is another project I keep returning to. Not only does it lock those technical skills into place (of course you can do this without those tech skills, if you do only thumbs), but it really pushes students’ understanding of the syntax of comics, and is a great way to start looking at the compositional and clarity issues that come with a complex design like a comics page.

Barbara Haugen's circus comic

Roy T. Cook gets all meta on us

4. One-page comics.

After this, we plunged into a one page comic of completely open assignment (although I encouraged using funny/not-funny gag structure). Now, this kind of perform-on-demand openness can be disastrous for some students, but this week it just worked. Take a look at some of what they came up with.

Jenny Schmid's love of Eartha Kitt

Kristin Johnson and the Hulk

Howard and Klaus do now occasionally offer a version of the program to aspiring cartoonists, most recently at the Baltimore Comicon.

I’m an art teacher from Long Island who specializes in teaching cartooning. Every summer for the past six years, I’ve had the good fortune to teach an intensive cartooning course at an institution dedicated to the visual and performing arts. Increasingly, I’ve been incorporating some of the approaches outlined in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures.

I always begin with terminology in order to facilitate intelligent discussion about the comics we’re creating (critique group/individual, formal/informal is a big part of my class). We then brainstorm for concepts. I find the card game in Appendix C of DWWP especially useful for this.

Following the structure of DWWP, I introduce gag cartoons first, then move on to comic strips and finally to comic books (graphic novels, whatever). I find this approach loosens students up by breaking the work down into smaller chunks first, instead of having to come up with an idea for a “full-length masterpiece” coming out of the gate. (To be sure, there are always students with grand epics already in mind). This also encourages students to experiment with different formats (i.e. making comic strips the focus of their work if they want).

Once they’ve chosen their format, we begin thumbnails in earnest. At this point I just let them work, getting ideas out without fear of whether the work is “good” or not. Overcoming fear of the blank page is enough.

Once their ideas are on paper, we begin the revision process. Through the various forms of critique mentioned above, I try to get students to see how their work can be improved. I’ve found this generally involves two storytelling concerns: clarity and pacing. I do specific pacing exercises (presenting a scenario with terrible pacing and asking students to improve it) to help illustrate its importance. I also show them pacing examples that are deliberately awkward to create unconventional (usually comedic) effects (I find Jason’s work helpful in this lesson)

During the revision process I also begin to take the role of “editor”. In addition to emphasizing clarity and pacing (not to mention keeping deadlines!), I try to offer suggestions that get students to think more critically about their work, or to take a step back from their drawing board and consider possibilities for their story that they perhaps hadn’t considered. I try to tread carefully while doing this. It is always a fine line between opening up a student to new possibilities, and hijacking their work. I always try to remain respectful of this. The critique pointers in Appendix B of DWWP are especially helpful in this regard.

I do intersperse some drawing lessons in my curriculum. (I find there are always some students who take the course primarily to learn how to draw.) However these are always ancillary to the goal of storytelling. I am gratified that DWWP espouses a similar approach.

I also think the use of examples from comics art history in DWWP is excellent. It’s something I incorporate into my curriculum as well (indeed, I’ll base entire lessons on a particular artist. I sometimes think I’d like to teach an entire course on comics art history.)

Of course any teacher knows that one of the most integral parts of education is keeping students motivated. In this case, motivation comes in the form of seeing their work published. At the end of the course, students receive an anthology of their work (generally running from 40 – 70 pgs depending on class size and how much work they produce). In our increasingly digital age, it’s reassuring to see the satisfaction students still get from flipping through the pages of their very own comic book.

In closing, I’d like to say how grateful I am both for the DWWP text and for this website. As a cartooning teacher, it’s sometimes difficult to find other educators who treat the subject with a seriousness of purpose. It’s reassuring to know that they’re out there.

Derek Mainhart is a cartooning teacher at Deer Park High School as well as the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, both in NY. He is a former Vice President of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in lower Manhattan.

Students hanging their original pages

Tom Hart and Lauren Weinstein survey the finished comics

What’s remarkable and rewarding (for teachers as well as students, I think) about this class is how ambitious it is: the kids (ranging from 14 to 17 in age) meet from 9-4PM every weekday and write, pencil and ink a 10-page comic in a little over two weeks’ time. The last few days are spent copying and collating all the comics into a master copy which is printed as a limited edition anthology, then mounting all the originals on the walls for a parents’ reception on the last day. Keith designed it this way deliberately operating under the assumption that the kids, not knowing what a huge task is being given to them, will find a way to finish their comics AND make them excellent. Like throwing them into the deep end. (A student sighed to me one afternoon, “Today I’ve only penciled, lettered, and inked one page, is that good enough?” Kid, if you can keep that up you’re already a pro! ) And it turns out Keith’s right: virtually all 25 kids finished their comics (well, two kids did only pencils and one kid only made it to 8 pages because his punk band had an out of town gig).

Keith Mayerson oversees installation of the art show

On the last day, after installing the show salon-style in a classroom and after the printed books have arrived, Keith has every student read their story outloud while the rest of the kids read along in the book. This is followed by student comments and a few words from us teachers. I was a little skeptical of this idea but it proved to be a blast. Many of the kids did inspired readings of their work and all the students enjoyed seeing all the finished stories and commenting on stuff they liked.

reading through students' finished comics

You’ll find a few more observations and photos in a recent Twitter feed roundup.

There is also a school year version of this course that is less intensive and taught primarily by Lauren Weinstein. you can find out more information about it here.

Finally/Coming soon: on the second to last day, Lauren and I dreamed up an exellent activity which I will blog here shortly: an improvised comic using two live models.

co-teacher Tom Hart critiques a student's work-in-progress

Over the last two years, Tom Hart and I have been offering an advanced comics workshop that I believe is a new and fruitful addition to comics education. We offer the class under the title “Independent Projects Seminar: Comics” through the School of Visual Arts‘s Continuing Education program (I realized while writing this post that seminar isn’t really the right term for what we’re doing, though that’s apparently where it fits in SVA’s curricular structure), and it’s designed for advanced students of cartooning, often ones who have taken classes before and are ready to work on extended projects on their own. Many of them have already launched into long-term projects like graphic novels or simply long comics stories or webcomics, while others veer off into related forms like gag cartoons or narrative sequences of illustrations.

Recently we held the second meeting of our summer session and as always the conversation was lively;  the atmosphere supportive, relaxed, and congenial. I thought it would be worth sharing the outline of the class as well as a few observations about it.

students critique each other's work and exchange notes at a recent class meeting at SVA.

The class has two interrelated goals:

• give students a structure in which to work independently while still getting periodic feedback
• prepare students to continue working on their own as independent artists

We meet only occasionally—three times throughout the four-month semester—so that students have a chance to set goals and make substantial progress before coming in to have their work critiqued. This kind of structure is common in creative writing programs but to my knowledge it hasn’t been attempted much in comics instruction. (If you know of anyone else out there teaching a course like this I’d love to hear it.) However, it strikes me as an excellent arrangement since comics require so much work time, even to finish just a few pages of inked work, or a chapter of thumbnails.

Although it is not essential to team-teach this class, Tom and I find it much easier to give in-depth feedback to everyone in the group (class size has ranged from 8 to 15) working together. We also have differing yet complementary visions of comics so students get a more nuanced take on their work (on occasion, we even contradict each other’s advice (the same is true when Jessica and I teach together)). Plus, I believe it might reduce the tendency of students to view a single teacher as an authority figure.

Students post work in progress on the wall for classmates to critique

Here’s how the three class meetings break down:

First meeting:
During the first class meeting Tom and I talk about our creative process and our history as professional cartoonists. Next, students talk about projects they are working on or planning and show whatever work they have with them–sometimes the work itself in an early stage, or else exmaples of other work they’ve done. We then help them choose a project to work on for the duration of the course. This might be a complete 10-12 page story from thumbs to inks but more often it’s a matter of choosing a workable chunk of a longer project, for example: finished pencils and a few pages inked, or even just thumbnails and concept sketches. We make a list of everyone’s goals for the next class. We also set up a class wiki so that people can upload files for comment, ask questions, view the syllabus and list of goals, and so on. (I love the idea of a shareable online space, but we haven’t found an ideal tool for it yet. PBWorks is quite good but the interface isn’t all that easy to navigate and not as many students use it as we would like.)

Second meeting:
The second meeting is the meatiest because students are in the thick of whatever project they’re working on. Classmates and teachers offer detailed feedback about what’s working so far and what’s not, and try to help each student find the best way to move forward—which includes setting/revising a goal for the final meeting. A few students weren’t able to produce much—life intervenes, that’s part of the process—but most had met part or all of their goals. Some of the issues students were facing this time around ranged from lettering style and text placement to wrangling scanners to striking a balance between weirdness and narrative clarity.

We encourage the students to critique their own work and we talk a lot about time management and career development: organizing your work time, setting goals, getting into publishing, and so on. The second meeting is also when bring in a guest artist to talk about his or her creative and career path into comics. Most recently we had in Sarah Glidden, whose  first book, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, is coming out in the fall from Vertigo. In addition to sharing her experience, she did a demo of the watercolor technique she came up with to color her book.

Cartoonist Sarah Glidden shares insights into her creative and career path

Interim “office hours”:
A few semesters we have offered informal “office hours”, a chance for people to check in with me and Tom during the two month stretch between the second and last meeting. In truth, only two or three students have ever availed themselves of it (and they’re the ones who would get in touch to ask questions anyway) so we’ve basically scrapped that feature. Between the wiki (which only a few students use productively) and occasional e-mail contact, everyone seems to get the feedback they need.

Last meeting:
During the last meeting we make a final assessment of people’s progress. We emphasize meeting goals as much as the quality of what was accomplished. I’m always impressed at the number of students who meet and even surpass their goals, especially considering these are often older students with day jobs and families. We talk about what goals to set going forward and we discuss publishing options for those whose work is getting ready to send out into the world. We knock off on the early side and go to a nearby bar to have a drink and continue the conversations in a more informal setting.

We designed this class to be an ongoing workshop for anyone who’s working on comics, whether they have been in a classroom recently or not. We invite students to take the class as often as they want—they may get bored of Tom’s and my opening day talks but otherwise it’s garuanteed to be all-new each time around. Many of our students keep in touch online and at local comics events and several have in fact taken the class multiple times. We’ve seen quite a few minicomics come out of the class but many of these comics are long-term works in progress, a few of which you will be certainly hearing about a few years down the line. It’s a simple structure but it seems to be working well so far.

Part 1: about hand lettering and the Ames guide

Part 2: laying out lettering guidelines