Matt Madden
Make a “foldy” minicomic
in ActivitiesHere’s a simple and novel approach to making minicomics (self-published, handmade comics) that we recently adapted into a classroom activity for our sophomore Storytelling class at SVA. I’m also considering using it in my upcoming Obstacle Course workshop at MoCCA. The Five-Page Folded Minicomic (AKA foldy), as developed and promoted by cartoonist Kenan Rubenstein, is…
ROYGBIV: a one-page, seven panel comics challenge
in ActivitiesOn my blog I just posted about a new comics-making constraint I invented for a recent workshop. The basic idea is that you need to make a comic that uses all the colors of the rainbow—but in black and white only! Read the post and see some examples here.
Tools & techniques: the brush basin
Welcome to the first iteration of a regular feature, Tools & techniques. We’ll periodically post about tools and techniques of the cartooning trade here, illustrated with drawings, photos, and video. Our topic today is a handy studio item that is essential if you ink with a brush: the brush basin. Let Matt take you on…
Activity: text/image dissonance game
in ActivitiesHere’s a weird and fun activity that we use to play around with the outer limits of the relationship between image and text. The basic idea is that you give students a one page comic with all the dialogue and narration whited out of the balloons and boxes. They fill in text while deliberately disregarding…
Activity: panel lottery, an exercise in narrative juxtaposition and editing
in ActivitiesThis is a collaborative game activity we came up with in order to teach principles of panel-by-panel storytelling. It is inspired by Scott McCloud in two ways: one reason we developed this game was to have an alternative to a game he invented called 5-Card Nancy, partly because of the rights issues (for our textbook)…