The Crux of Comix

And the sweet spot of sophisticated simplicity

I was invited to teach a two day comix class at the North Fork Arts Center in Greenport, NY. I don't normally teach. At best, I mentor. So when the opportunity arose, I had to come up with a plan for two three-hour sessions.

Day 1 started with a self-portrait exercise where each student draws themself four times. Starting with a 2-minute drawing, then one minute, then 30 seconds and finally 15 seconds. The challenge is meant to show the economical powers of comix art while eliminating unnecessary rendering. Many of the students were surprised by how the 15 second drawing presented a more accurate portrait than the two minute drawing. In discovering the essence of your face, they learned their first important lesson to drawing comix. Reduce. Reduce. Reduce and find that sweet spot of sophisticated simplicity.

I then presented three different examples of producing a comic book page from script to layouts to finishes (line art, colors and letters). I showed them scripts for a Godzilla comic, The Fantastic Four, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. A monster story, a superhero story and a memoir. Three different approaches to writing comix, especially Pekar's, who basically wrote dialogue with little art direction. The point of this presentation was to focus on the layouts and what to think about when visualizing a script. I explained that images were text, too, and that the artist was the co-author. And once you figured out how to best show the story, everything else was craft. Layouts are the crux of comix.

Then I presented a script from a Fox story I wrote and drew for Archie Comics. I also gave them reference material as searching for people, places and things is a big part of graphically realizing a story. I also provided a drawing of The Fox so they knew what he looked like. We discussed what the script was asking for, what seemed to be the most important panel on the page, how best to exploit the narrative real estate of the blank page, and I gave the students 15-minutes to crack their layout. As we compared and contrasted each students version, it was fun to see the different yet somewhat similar takes. Some storytelling ideas can be improved for clarity and flow but there is never a wrong solution. Just different. I showed them my published version and everyone was armed to think about creating a story in visual terms.

Next I asked everyone to design a character with a name. Could be a hero, villain, alien, monster, a version of themself or someone else or anything they wanted, frankly. Once everyone designed their characters, we discussed who they were and what they were about? How did they get that way? What did they want and what were their obstacles? With those questions in mind, they were tasked with writing story notes; a panel-to-panel breakdown for a one page comic. A group discussion led to notes on what to focus on. Their homework was to take their character design and story notes and write a script they would draw the next day.

Day 2 started with another fun exercise: a short version of Lynda Barry’s Character Jam. Since there were six students, everyone folded a piece of paper into six quadrants and came up with six quick character prompts. Something that would describe a person or a thing like "Nervous Car" or "Scared Alien." Only, the students came up with far more funnier and clever prompts. The exercise was to pick one of your six prompts, draw it in 2-minutes, and then pass your sheet to the person to your left until all six prompts were illustrated by each participating student. The results were hilarious and energizing. Everyone had inadvertently collaborated with each other!

Next, we sat around and reviewed each of the student's one page comix script presentations. Some offered opinions on dialogue and ideas on how to best realize their concepts. Then everyone was given some time to layout their scripts and, once again, we reviewed everyone's visual storytelling solutions and made some adjustments for narrative clarity. Finally, everyone sat super focused while tightening up their layouts, and penciling and lettering their comic for a final presentation of their finished results.

Everyone went home a cartoonist.

As a parting gift for further education, I gave them printouts of Whitney Matheson's WE MAKE COMICS (illustrated by Genevieve Kote, published by Epic! Originals), and Russ Kazmierczak's THE VISUAL LANGUAGE OF COMICS.

I still prefer to mentor one-on-one but it was heartfelt fun teaching comix to curious youths. I learned a lot and I hope to do it more often.

BIG UPS to Whitney Matheson for her invaluable assistance. Josh Neufeld for his teaching tips. Shannon Goldman for all his jokes and help. Tony Spiridakis for championing me. Liz Gillooly for her support. And the North Fork Arts Center for letting me rock comix in their hallowed halls.

Speaking of comix mentoring: in 1985, my senior year of high school, I got a gig assisting Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, and Elektra: Assassin in a room with Denys Cowan and Michael Davis. Down the hall was Upstart Studios housing, at the time, Walter Simonson, Howard Chaykin and James Sherman. Previous studio mates included folks like Frank Miller. A few months in, I became a second assistant to Chaykin on American Flagg!, and occasionally assisted on Simonson’s Thor. I learned everything I needed to know about making comix at 231 West 29th Street, NYC, which I just happened to be strolling by a couple of weeks ago.

I’ll be a guest at TERRIFICON this weekend from August 16th - 18th at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. I’ll be bunking with Russ Kazmierczak, who is debuting his new comic, Amazing Arizona Comics #51!

Get your tickets HERE!

SAVE THE DATE: Friday, Sept 6th, 2024 for Jen Ferguson and Janice McDonnell’s upcoming art show at Gowanus Dredger’s Boathouse in Brooklyn, NY!

Happy 16, Ruby! ~xo

—Dino

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