8 weeks at The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles Headquarters located at 5119 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90041

NOTE: Dec. 23 and Jan. 6 are dark.

Writing Long-Form Comics: Graphic Novels and Series

During the first two decades of comics history, it was common for readers to pick up a comic that had multiple short stories in it. After that, multi-issue stories became the norm. Now, it’s more common to see multi-issue arcs than single issue stories. Meanwhile, stand-alone graphic novels, which starting blossoming as a form in the late ‘70s, are now everywhere. Some are a mere 88 pages – others, like Craig Thompson’s 672-page Habibi, are huge.

In this eight-week comics writing class, students will learn to map out a long-form story – either for a planned series (print or web) or graphic novel. They’ll learn how to work within the structure of the two formats and how to plan either a long story arc or episodic chapters that make up one long tale. There will also be discussions about how to get and work with an artist and how to approach potential publishers with a pitch or proposal. Students will finish the class with a detailed outline, a pitch document, and a plan to make their series or graphic novel happen.

The workshop is led by Jim Higgins, who has been a writer and editor in the comics business for 20 years. He has done screenwriting and been a comics consultant for films and TV. He was an editor and assistant editor at DC Comics in the Paradox Press division (The Big Book of Grimm, Hoaxes, and the ’70s, plus the graphic novels A History of Violence, Road to Perdition,and Stuck Rubber Baby), and is the editor and publisher of New Thing, an international anthology of short comics stories. He taught comic book storytelling for eight years at The School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and cinema studies at The City University of New York for four and a half years. He teaches or has taught classes on writing and drawing comics at The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), UCLA Extension Program, Cal State Northridge, and at Otis College of Art and Design. He created the long-running comic book writing and drawing program Meltdown University at Meltdown Comics.