Come and see our new location at 445 W. Colorado St. in Glendale

(adjacent to Swain’s)

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Making Comics: A Class For Both Writers and Artists

Join this weekly workshop where you can accomplish your goals as a comic book writer, artist or both. In this class, participants bring in their work, exchange useful and honest criticism, and share ideas while being led and instructed by an experienced, passionate comics professional. Honest feedback is encouraged as well as support and a focus on what the participant is doing well.

Learn the most important aspect of writing — how to structure a story as it relates to the medium of comics and graphic novels. Cartoonists will often take art classes to improve their drawing, but not enough take the time to hone their skills as a writer. In this workshop, writers and cartoonists learn the essential knowledge needed to write a story with interesting characters, an engaging plot, and a satisfying ending. Artists will be given drawing tips, instruction about technique, and examples of work by great masters, new and old, to help with visual storytelling, composition, light and dark, figure work, and other drawing skills. The goal for writer/artists is to have a finished 8 to 10-page mini-comic at the end of the classes. The goal for writers is to have a completed script for a 14 to 15-page short comics story. The students have fun and learn at the same time.

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.

Required reading: One graphic novel, about $20, title TBA. Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner. Supplies: Bristol board pad, 11 x 14, 20 sheets. Ink pens (waterproof, archival), pencils, sketch paper.