1. SSC 3990 Graphic Storytelling: Comic Book Art and Narrative
#1: Introduction to the Course
Comics Language: Reading the Page, Working with Sequence
Drawing in Photoshop: Pen Pressure tools

2. Before we start: Comic Jam
In most classes there will be a comic jam, inspired by the practice of the local Boston Comics Roundtable.

3. Before we start: Comic Jam
If you are first, start a panel in the upper left corner. Include a person, place or thing, and optionally include text.
Pass to the right!

4. Before we start: Comic Jam
When you get the page, read what has come before and add the next panel, to tell the next moment or part of the story.
Participation is voluntary. Add or Pass!

5. Beginnings… Where to start?
NARRATIVE: This is a storytelling class. We happen to be using comics as our medium, and that will have a dramatic impact on how our stories will be told, but many principles are universal.
For example, it is true of movies and songs, theater, novels, and comics: beginnings and endings are challenging. Every story has near infinite possible places to start.
It is the chicken and the egg problem. Do we start when the chick cracks open its shell, or when that egg was laid? When it takes its first bite of feed? When it fights with another chicken for the first time? The day before it dies at the jaws of a fox?

6. Beginnings… Where to start?
Different starting places have big impacts on the overall story.
For example: name a popular story, in any medium. Where does it start? What is the impact of that start on our experience of the story?

7. Beginnings… Where to start?
Consider these story parameters for a story. How might each influence your choice of how, when, where to begin a story?:
Length
Genre
Audience

8. Beginnings… Where to start?
A Couple of Comics Examples: Jen Van Meter and Meredith McLaren: Hopeless Savages - Break Alan Moore and Brian Boland: Batman – The Killing Joke

9. Beginnings… Where to start?
Have you ever struggled with a creative project because you didn’t know how it should start? The most important thing to remember for this course, as for any storytelling or creative venture, is to not let yourself get stuck on a beginning. GET STARTED: CHOOSE A SHOT AND GO WITH IT Consider: Perfect is the Enemy of Good

10. This Course 1/3: Participation
This course is about developing your skills as storytellers specifically through the unique medium of comics.
You will make a new, short comic each week, typically 1-3 pages long.
Your final project will be a longer narrative, between 5-24 pages.
Active participation in all class meetings is critical.
Participation in local evening events at least once: MFA drawing (Wed), BCR (Thr), Animatic Boston.
Want to go see Thor?

11. This Course 2/3: Content
The teacher is providing a library of culturally and historically-rich graphic novels, and you are expected to read and respond to at least 5 of them this term using the parameters of the course.
While many of you are excellent artists, you are not yet expected to know “how to draw.” You are expected to draw a LOT this term, every day.
I encourage you to play with many media and styles! Consider the narrative power of the stick figures in the webcomics “Order of the Stick” and “XKCD.” Consider the very sketchy style of Eddie Campbell, and the wild, emotionally-driven shapes and colors in Bill Sienkowitz’s work, and so many other.

12. This Course 3/3: Tools/Grades
The course will be taught using Adobe Photoshop, and some Illustrator, but you may use any analogue or digital tools for homework, as long as your work is submitted digitally as high quality flat scans or photos to the course dropbox BEFORE each class. Please use school computers in class.
While the execution of your work matters -- the quality of the presentation will affect our understanding of and engagement in your stories-- the bigger grade for each assignment is how you use the narrative tools of comics in your page and panel layouts, and the cinematography and pacing of the content within and between the panels.
You will receive responses to all projects. The single week projects are pass/fail: Do the work and submit it on time and you are fully successful. I expect effort, experimentation, and improvement in these first few weeks – the entire point is for you to practice the narrative tools, by completing the assignments. The final project will be graded for use of the narrative tools and quality of execution.

13. How to Read A Comic To make comics we need to understand the form.
Comics are weird. As we will see this term, time and space work completely differently in comics than any other mode of storytelling.
Comics work differently in different countries, utilizing varied visual languages for panel order, text display, character emotion, and many other aspects of storytelling. For now, I propose we focus on the language of Western comics.

14. How to Read A Comic: Terms
Page
Panel
Frame
Speech/Thought Bubble
Gutter
Action/Motion Lines
Bleed

15. How to Read A Comic
How do we read panels? The order matters:

16. How to Read A Comic
How do we read panels? The order matters:

17. How to Read A Comic
How do we read this page?

18. How to Read A Comic
How do we read this page?

19. How to Read A Comic
How do the bubbles affect our reading?

20. How to Read A Comic
How do we read this page?

21. How to Read A Comic
What does this design add to this story moment?

22. How to Read A Comic
How do the text bubbles affect our understanding?

23. How to Read A Comic
Can a comics page be designed problematically?

24. How to Read A Comic Can a comics page be designed problematically?
Do these arrangements improve readability? If so, how?

25. Partner Exercise: Please Give Full Attention

26. Partner Exercise: “First Time I Ever”
(3 min) Alone, remember the first time you did, saw, ate, or tried something. Compose a roughly 1 minute story.
(6 min) Choose a partner. Tell that person your story. Listen to the story of your partner and write down key points.
(5 min) Choose one of these key points from your partner’s story: one you find visually evocative. Draw a thumbnail sketch; this can be as simple or detailed as you like, but I suggest you keep it rough and quick.
(10 min) Create thumbnails for at least two more story points which go directly before and/or after the first. Each sketch can anywhere on the paper.
(20 min) On a new piece of paper, draw out a new draft of all your sketched story points in loose frames.
Remember: “Perfect is the Enemy of Good.”
Show your sequence to your partner! Take a photo, post to piazza

27. HOMEWORK #1a: Personal Narrative Text
(Due by to class Friday) TEXT: In a single paragraph tell the story of something specific you witnessed or that happened to you. Please keep the content appropriate to a mixed-age class.