English: Making Comics

Representative topics include Forms of Journalism and Writing for the Web. May be repeated for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years.

Open to degree and PACE students

If you've read serious comics (so-called "graphic novels"), then you know that the medium can be used for a wide range of literary and expressive purposes. This creative writing course will develop your skills in comics storytelling. (It's to your advantage to read challenging and interesting comics -- possibly in a course on the Graphic Novel -- either before or while taking this course. It's possible to make good comics without first having read widely in the medium, but broadening your range of sources and influences is a major and important step in finding your own storytelling style.)

Students will complete exercises in comics-making at approximately a weekly pace. Most of these exercises will be short — on the order of a page or two — because comics take a long time to draw. You'll also be reading a range of appropriate models to go along with each assignment. Skill in figurative rendering ("being able to draw") is not required for the course, though you must be (a.) willing to draw and (b.) interested in getting better at drawing in order to earn good marks on the assignments. The main emphasis of this course is not on drawing or rendering skills, but on storytelling skills, both those particular to comics and more general narrative or dramatic skills.

Your grade arises from three factors: regular class participation, including workshop; regular and careful completion of the weekly exercises; and self-publication of a final minicomic (as a semester-end portfolio).