Graphic narratives are generally told using words and images, ranging from strips like Calvin and Hobbes, to traditional comic series like Watchmen and Wonder Woman, to book-length novels and memoirs like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, and John Lewis’s March.
Together, we will explore how comics work, focusing mainly on the fundamentals of visual storytelling. We’ll discuss technical aspects of cartooning, such as pacing, point of view, character design, and dialogue—as well as the comics process from start to finish, from storyboarding and penciling to inking and coloring. We’ll also explore how comics and graphic novels help writers and artists tell stories in new and compelling ways. Be prepared to do a variety of simple, hands-on comics exercises designed to improve your visual storytelling skills. No artistic background required.
Intensives are fun, fast crash courses.
Two-day Zoom Intensive
Place & Price
Registration fee $25, paid once per term
The Zoom Intensives are taught via the Zoom videoconference platform.
Comics and Graphic Novels Intensive topics include: conceiving and writing stories in an illustrated medium, how artists utilize such techniques as penciling/inking/coloring/lettering, getting published.
Course components: lectures, writing exercises
Intensives are open for writers of any level. Students must be 18 years or older.
Students may reschedule a Zoom Intensive one time.
One-day Intensive
Place & Price
Registration fee $25, paid once per term
The NYC One-day Intensives are taught in-person.
Comics and Graphic Novels Intensive topics include: conceiving and writing stories in an illustrated medium, how artists utilize such techniques as penciling/inking/coloring/lettering, getting published.
Course components: lectures, writing exercises
Intensives are open for writers of any level. Students must be 18 years or older.
Students may reschedule a One-day Intensive one time.
