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I taught a comics creation class at a summer program and included a few days worth of reading. Since I wanted to focus on construction and medium potential I inluded stuff like the middle portion of the Rorschach issue of Watchmen (panel/page layout) the first issue of Millar's run on The Authority (superheroes in the real world) and, most importantly, the scene in Cerebus (in Guys) in which Cerebus contemplates the role of his creator (Dave) and how malicious and untrustworthy a bastard he is. Evan Dorkin's Dork #7 which was entirely autobiographical, but also equally hilarious and toucing. There was other stuff, a few pages of Priest's Black Panther, Optic Nerve, mostly contemporary stuff, as it was only a three week program.
If I had the opportunity to treat it as a straight lit course and eschew construction issues, I'd probably start with early Marvel, talk about the introduction of human beings with inward emotion (as opposed to DC characters who literally wear their emotions on their sleeves, or, more accurately, chests). Yeah, I'd probably do a kind of paper chase, trailing the use and illustration of emotion in comic narrative. Throw in some Peanuts, of course. Sandman, most importantly the "So live" page. I mean, you can spend all day on that page. Honestly the way that We3 juxtaposes the undeniably cute tropes of anthropomorphism with Manganese violence probably deserves a period of class devoted to it. Clowes, Tomine, and Derek Kirk Kim, and the mundane. There's a day. Chris Ware and a brief timeline of advertising design. Akira is a must, as its characters have two emotional states, completely wooden and full stop apocalyptic, observe the oscillation between the two and recall your most recent teenage state.
I could probably think up a few more classes along those lines. |
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