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Before writing DW&WP and Mastering Comics with Jessica, Matt made a book called 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style in which he told the same one-page anecdote in 99 different ways including different points of view, different genres, homages to famous artists, and many formal games which explore the many possibilities available to storytellers of all sorts.

Since the book came out in 2005 it has been used in all kinds of classrooms around the world and Matt has taught with it regularly in his class and workshops. Recently a fellow teacher asked him if he would share some of the activities he has done with “99X” so he put together a long and heavily-illustrated post about it over on his personal blog.

Keith Haring-style version by a student at Alberta College of Art + Design

To give you a small preview, here are the four approaches Matt talks about:

I. Further variations on the 99X template
II. Make your own template
III. Build an extended project
IV. Activities for non-artists

You can read the full post here. Have you taught with 99X? We’d love to hear from you about it here or at Matt’s blog.

You can purchase the US edition of Matt’s book here. There are also UK, French, Spanish, Flemish, Italian (out of print) and Japanese versions available and Matt’s always searching for new audiences. In addition, you can find the whole work being serialized online in German and Hungarian.