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Underground > Comic Books >

Center for cartoon studies

subcultureofone

20:04 / 22.02.05

center for cartoon studies

20:51 / 22.02.05

So, the Centre for Cartoon Studies it set to open its doors for its first crop of students in the fall of 2005...

The advisory board and faculty seems very impressive - but how useful will a bespoke two-year course for budding comic creators actually be? Can comcis be taught? Is it not better to teach comics as part of a wider graphic design course?

What do people think?

21:05 / 22.02.05

well, it's kind of the same question as can writing be taught... the answer is that there are technical aspects to comic creation that certainly can be taught, but the application of those techniques needs to be combined with whatever it is - talent, maybe is a good enough word - that takes an aspirant to the professional level of proficiency, and even then you're not guaranteed of publication, so I suppose it depends on your definition of success as a comic creator to determine whether this kind of thing is worthwhile.

also, this kind of thing would presumably provide a great networking opportunity for those savvy enough to take advantage of it.

m.

21:45 / 22.02.05

I suppose film director courses offer a similar basis for comparison...

19:48 / 23.02.05

Of course comics can be taught, and in many cases must be taught. While everybody has a basic grasp of visual language, comics use a specific subset of that language.
I attended the Joe Kubert school for a year, and about 85% of the first year students, including me, had no concept of effective page layout. Some of my fellow students actively fought against basic concepts like layout and design.
From the standpoint of training writers, there is a world of difference between writing a noel and writing a comic book. The two approaches I've encountered from novice comics writers are 12-panel grids with stick figures where four panels would suffice or a page-and-a-half of prose describing a panel.
Another area where comics differs from other media purely technical. Page sizes, printing techniques, distribution, submissions...
I think this is a good thing for comics.

06:57 / 24.02.05

James Sturm was on NPR a few months about this...

XXII:X:II = XXX

20:43 / 28.02.05

I got some of the promotional literature about this several months ago and for a little while I got all hot n' bothered to try to enroll, despite having no possible means to do so. I think it's better that I don't, not only because my personal efforts in terms of comics have been mostly academic and not nearly cohesive enough to qualify me at this point, but also because I'd like this to survive for several years and possibly lose some names. Not any names in particular, and I don't begrudge it at all signing up new creators of note; I simply wish to see the longevity of this idea tested and the products of its halls put to task on the open market to prove its overall worth over, say, the Kubert School or SVA. Perhaps by then I'll be more ready for it and it will be more ready for me.

/+,

23:19 / 01.03.05

what are the merits of the Kubert School? How does it work? what does it teach? And I'm not familiar with SVA - what's that.

lekvar, you make great points. I'm just starting to realise that wordy writing experience isn't counting for much when it comes to tackling comic scripts. I'm all at sea with that stuff. Trying to get an artist to have a go at a script of mine, so I can see what I'm doing wrong, but the process is taking a long time.

m.

XXII:X:II = XXX

17:33 / 02.03.05

SVA is School of Visual Arts here in NYC. A lot of wannabe comic artists go through them. Can't speak much about their merits or not, as I'm unfamiliar with them. Kubert, I've heard, is in the ass end of Jersey, and other than the Kubert boys themselves their next notable grad is Rick Vietch. Honestly, with the state of the industry I don't think anyone who's learning how to draw a traditional comic book is ever going to get to do one, unless it's for some fly-by-night outfit with no original ideas. Better to create your own idiom. Or learn to draw that manga stuff.

/+,

18:12 / 02.03.05

The one thing that the Kubert School had going for it when I went was the teaching of comics-specific technical issues, though I have no idea how it's any different from any other graphic arts curriculum now that the industry is so computer-centric. I also only went for one year. But the impression I got was that the actual art end of things was poorly handled, as the students were mainly left to figure things out for themselves.
The writing of comics wasn't covered at all. Just about everything I learned about visual literacy and layout I learned from Scott McCloud and Will Eisner through their excellent books.

20:49 / 02.03.05

SVA is a big, legit art school with a good cartooning department. It used to have Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, and Art Spiegelman as teachers. (I took a course there with Spiegelman in '86.) Now it has Jessica Abel, Nick Bertozzi, Tom Hart, Ben Katchor, David Mazzucchelli, Gary Panter, Walt Simonson, Seth Tobocman, and a few more.

The alums tend to bash it, but a fair number now work in the industry (Kaz, Mark Newgarden, Drew Friedman, R. Sikoryak, etc.) Also, if you're college age an SVA degree probably will take you a bit farther in life than one from Kubert or Sturm's school, especially if you don't actually go into comics afterwards.

21:23 / 02.03.05

Kubert does correspondence too, right?

SVA sounds real interesting. JEssica Abel as a prof? oh man WHY don't I live in New York?

m.

-

09:41 / 03.03.05

i met someone at a con showing his portfolio from the Kubert correspondence. He was totally into it and showed the pages sent back with comments, but i wasnt sold on it.

being that comics is art, i think it is fairly easy to be self taught. the above mentioned books are great but picking people's brains at cons probably second only to direct instruction. i was told that that the guys in artists alley are like your professors at exam time.

the fact of being in school means you're drawing comics more than you'd probably be on your own time. and you have contact with professionals which leads to job opportunites. there are specifics and lingo for each art/design discipline, but in general the play between them, it's still about art. of course there's people in any art discipline without formal training for such. still if you go into one area it's good to have a backup, but comics isn't probably the best backup as it's not easy to get into in the paying sense.

above all, motivation is number 1, wherever you are.