Assignment: Continue independent projects

For class on April 8:
= Draw at least one new page of your independent project and post it to the class blog. Bring original art to class. We'll discuss all this during class critique.
= Come prepared to work in class on your independent project.

Note: April 8 class will run from 10 to 4:10 p.m. to allow time for screenprinting demo at 3 p.m.

Also that day, we'll be taking down the class exhibition.

And remember that there are six more classes after today, including our last class on May 13.

Assignment: Continue independent projects

For class on April 1:
= Draw at least one new page of your independent project and post it to the class blog. Bring original art to class. We'll focus on how the comics reproduce online during our class critique.
= Come prepared to talk to the class about what you're working on for your final project.
= Come prepared to work in class on your independent project.

Class exhibit reception is from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, April 1.
= Put up posters and invite your friends.
= Optional: Bring photocopied comics to share with guests.
= Optional: Bring snacks to share.
= We'll be hanging art beginning at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, March 28. Be sure to get me your art by then. Optional: Come help tack up the artwork on Monday afternoon.

Note: Class will start at 10 and run to 4:10 p.m. on Friday, April 8, because we'll do a screenprinting demo from 3 to 4 p.m. that day.

Assignment: Wordless comic

Draw a one or two page comic without using ANY words. Goal is to practice how to tell stories through acting and staging. You can do any story. Or try describing how to tie a shoe.

Bring your Superhero/Monster Adventure comic to our next class, so we can discuss how to finish the book.

Next week if the weather's decent, we'll be drawing outside. So please dress accordingly and bring something to draw with and draw on that will work in cool temperatures.

Also: We're about halfway through the semester. Classes will continue to include exercises, but will focus more on your own comics, and working on the final project. So think of stories to develop into comics.

And: Our class will be exhibiting work in the 3rd floor hall from March 28 to April 7. I would like to show the Superhero Monster Adventure comic (and also hand out copies), plus display a comic or two extra from each person. So begin bringing in this work at our next class on March 11. And do people have poster ideas?

Note: Our March 11 class is the last before our spring break. So we won't meet on March 18. But will meet again on March 25.

Assignment: Superhero adventure

1. (Ruby) Police at crime scene in Beverly discover skeletons and ooze. (Scientists no there.)

2. (Ryan) Scientist guy (Dr. Fred Guy, 1950s short, straight, black hair, average build, round glasses, lab coat) and assistant (Alyssa, shoulder length blonde hair, frail, lab coat, pants, secretly: a good shape shifter) at their lab in the Cummings Center hear about the crime scene. Scientist recognizes it as the work of his son. “This is the [number] body.” “And it’s getting worse.”

3. (Ethel) Flashback: Boy (Marc, short black hair, round race, elementary-school age) gets into the middle of an experiment. It goes awry. Explosion. Boy blasted to bits.

4. (Kelly) Flashback continues: View of boy’s blasted remains. Scientist and assistant bury bits in the woods. Dialogue: This is where boy used to play/fort. [Add: After scientists depart, body reforms.]

5. (Waka) Return to present: Scientists searching for boy in two places that in dialogue they describe as places boy used to hang out.

6. (Ron) Scientists find and explore seemingly empty dead school bus hideout in the woods.

7. (Jon) Scientists find boy at school bus hideout. They say: “We can help you.” [Boy says he’s been trying to figure out his confused identity.]

8. (Ben) Boy attacks. [Boy continues explaining that he’s been trying to figure out his confused identity.]

9. (Greg) Fight between two shape shifters: boy and assistant.

10. (Pete) Fight ends with boy captured.

11. (Ashton) Back at their lab, scientists try to fix boy. Scientists explain how they figured out how to do the experiment correctly on the assistant, and so know how to fix the boy. “Want to make things right.”

12. (Harley) Experiment is a success. Happy, tearful reunion.

13. (Chelsea) Slowly revealed that experiment didn’t work.

14. (Amanda) A sacrifice to save the world. Perhaps scientist or assistant sacrifice an organ that they may not be able to live without that is transplanted into boy.

Assignment: Lynda Barry comic

Draw a two-page comic inspired by Lynda Barry and based on one of these prompts:
= Regrets--Things you'd like to make right.
= Happiest ever.
= Ten cars from your childhood.
= Other people's moms and dads.
= Dogs, pets--loose animals

Bring in your original drawings to share. Also post the comic to the class blog. Upload the two pages separately. Be sure that your words and texts are clear and readable when you click to enlarge the images on the blog.

Important
Next week we'll practice inking. So you must bring in a brush and pen, some ink, and tracing paper. You'll probably also need some paper towels.

Assignment: Dialogue

For this assignment we'll focus on words and dialogue. Write or find a script for a one-page comic. (Sample script below.) Draw the page twice, changing where you break the lines and sentences, and inserting or removing pauses to see how it transforms the drama. How does the feeling change if you put lots of dialogue in a single word balloon? What if you split that same text into several balloons? What if you add a pause, or pauses?

Post your work to the class blog and bring in your original drawings to share with the class.

Over the coming weeks we'll begin working with ink, so please acquire a quill pen, brush, and racing paper. (See guidelines in "How-To" suggestions at top of right column.)

Extra challenge:
In this week's comic, while repeating the page of dialogue, turn it into a story in which the same characters for some reason are repeating the same lines. Perhaps add a new page between as a transition.

Sample script:
William Shakespeare's "Macbeth"

ACT I
SCENE I.
[A desert place.
Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches]

First Witch: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.

Third Witch: That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch: Where the place?

Second Witch: Upon the heath.

Third Witch: There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch: I come, Graymalkin!

Second Witch: Paddock calls.

Third Witch: Anon.

ALL: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[Exeunt]

(Find notes on the text here.)

Assignment: Newspaper strips

(1) Finish a week (five) of newspaper comic strips. Each day's strip should be: 1 ¾ inches tall by 6 inches wide. Create a sheet of five strips (one week of comics) at this scale. Then post to blog. Bring in sheet of five strips plus your original drawings to next class critique. Work should be ready for start of class at 9 a.m. Arrive promptly.
(2) Bring in several pages of your previous cartooning to discuss one-on-one with Greg.

Assignment: One-sided, eight-page mini comic

Make an eight-page mini comic using the fold and cut technique described in class. To next week's class, bring (a) your original art and (b) 14 copies of the finished book, so that everyone in the class gets one to keep.

Also upload a version of the comic to the Monster Rat blog. Include your first name in the blog post title (example title: "Greg: The three-legged horse"). Also label/tag your post (see window at the bottom of the post window) with your first name. At next week's class, we'll all present and discuss our original drawings, photocopied comics, and blog comic.

Comic can be inked or just pencilled. Can be any subject or style. Include a title page. Some story ideas: Robot that can't go very far because it's plugged into wall. Experiment goes awry in Montserrat print lab and spawns Monster Rat. Snowperson must protect its carrot nose from a pesky critter. Nonfiction diary of something that happened to you during the winter break/session.