While looking for examples of full color comics that we might use in DWWP2, I discovered that what I often think of as great coloring has less to do with the approach to an individual panel than with its larger context: the page, the spread, the work as a whole.
I just posted a whole bunch of weird and excellent comics done by School of Visual Arts cartooning majors over the last few years in a class of mine where I present them with a series of assignments based on creative rules or constraints.
While I’m pretty decent at writing comics, when I started out writing prose fiction I had no idea what I was doing. Not only that, I didn’t particularly like doing it. On the other hand, I’ve had a number of students in comics classes who are prose writers first, and they all tend to hit certain sticking points. So here are a few observations about turning from comics to prose or vice versa.
Jessica’s 2002 strip, “What Is a “Graphic Novel?”” is a great tool for introducing comics into your classroom or library. here we have a print-quality PDF version of the strip, which you can use to print posters and handouts. There are black and white versions of the poster (11″ x 17″), and the handout (two Read More
One day a year, venues all over the globe (and online) sign up to host 24-hour comics marathons. This year, that day is October 2, or more precisely, October 2-October 3 (10 am to 10 am).
Hothouse student Lisa Anchin worked intensely this summer toward mastering the language of comics and visual clarity. The first run through of her thumbs felt slow and confusing, but Lisa showed total commitment to revision, as tough as it can be, and remade her story until it’s clear, compelling, downright exciting ride. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
James McMullan, a wonderful illustrator and poster designer who Matt calls the “guru” of figure drawing at SVA, launches a new 12-part series in the online version of the New York Times to encourage adults to return to their drawing roots.
I’m an English teacher from Cambridge, England. I work in an 11-18 comprehensive school, teaching students across the full age and ability range. Like most English teachers in the UK, almost all the reading I do with students in the classroom involves purely print-based texts. However, for a while I’ve been wanting to explore how teaching comics might work in an English classroom.
