Life Writing and Graphic Narrative Spring 2017: 2017

Monday, April 24, 2017

"Love is Love" raises $165,000 for Orlando Pulse tragedy victims

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2017/03/27/all-star-comic-book-love-is-love-raises-165000-for-orlando-pulse-tragedy-victims/?utm_term=.2a30a61db1b9"

Cavna, Michael. "All-star comic book ‘Love Is Love’ raises $165,000 for Orlando Pulse tragedy
victims." The Washington Post. March 27, 2017.

Ava's Demon

A webcomic suggested by Madison:
http://www.avasdemon.com/

How does the electronic format change our ideas of comics?
How does one's life experiences inform fictional comics?

Maximilian Uriarte's comic strip is a humorous, often satirical look into the daily lives of members of the lowest rank in the U.S. Marine Corps, the lance corporal. The comic strips feature two fictional main characters, Abe and Garcia, but are based on his own experiences in the USMC (he was deployed twice to Iran). Uriarte's commentary in his accompanying blog posts give readers insight into how his own life experiences inform his comics. The comics are updated twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
http://terminallance.com/2017/03/28/terminal-lance-467-relativity-ii/

No "I" in Sex

A webcomic by New Zealand author Toby Morris. This is an interesting example of a comic tackling current issues, such as "teenage boys and rape culture," directed to adolescent boys by Morris.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-no-i-in-sex

Resist!

The website for political comics and graphics, edited by Francoise Mouly and Nadja Speigelman.
Submission deadline for next issue: April 28, 2017

http://www.resistsubmission.com/

Monday, April 10, 2017

Should mainstream comics have more diverse characters?

Detail of cover of America #2, by Gabby Rivera and Joe Quinones, starring America Chavez,

Marvel's lesbian Latina superhero. Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics, one of the most famous publishers of comic books, has been re-thinking its strategy to publish more authors that are women and/or people of color, even though comic book readers are becoming more diverse. Should mainstream comics have more diverse characters written by more diverse authors? What do you think?
Listen to this podcast from NPR: "Changing Colors in Comics"

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/05/522749425/changing-colors-in-comics

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Lynda Barry: Accessing the Imaginary

University of Michigan, October 7 2013
This lecture is part of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design Distinguished Speaker Series.

Introduction to Lynda Barry's One! Hundred! Demons!

Barry, Lynda. One! Hundred! Demons! Seattle, WA:

Sasquatch Books, 2002.

Questions we have been considering in WRT 307 all semester!

Barry explains how art by a Japanese monk inspired her to create One Hundred Demons.

The Aswang: A Filipino vampire dog-lady! What demons are part of your ethnic or family culture?

In Barry's world, even pups have inner demons.

Website for Panel Templates

Some of you may struggle with creating panels by drawing them freehand. Here is a website that provides many templates that you can download for free. I like how the different panel shapes and sizes give me ideas of how to use the gutter when planning the story.

http://comicbookpaper.com/

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Field trip to watch Fun Home at the Ahmanson

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Fun Home Preview

Our field trip to the Ahmanson Theatre is set for Wednesday, March 22. The show starts at 8pm. Class meeting will be canceled for the day to allow travel. Let's talk about carpooling on Monday March 20.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Nonfiction source material: the ITunes terms & conditions?!

The artist R. Sikoryak found his source material in the iTunes terms & conditions... you know, the legalese that you normally just scroll through before hitting "I AGREE" at the bottom to get to your content. Take a look at his blog. How does he transform this typically boring text into a narrative through images?
Also, he takes us through a who's who of comics artist with his stylistic imitations of well-known authors and writers, including some we read in WRT 307 like Scott McCloud, Alison Bechdel, and Lynda Barry.
http://itunestandc.tumblr.com/

A Four-Panel Comic (Drawn in Four Minutes!)

This student's four-panel comic is a great example of action-to-action transitions. Purely visual, we follow this dancer through a full plie (three moves) then end with a leg lift. How's that for closure!

Drawing Jam!

We spent class today doing a drawing jam: one student does a one-minute quick-draw of a specific type of person, then passes the paper to the next student, who does a one-minute quick draw in the next box, and so on, until we did 12 one-minute quick draws of PEOPLE.