As you've probably noticed, I am interested in comics in all ways, from reading, to analyzing, to creating. Recently I picked up Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, by Jessica Abel (whose brilliant La Perdida is already on my recommended reading list) and Matt Madden. These two authors have a lot of experience in teaching comics courses, and wrote this as a definitive text book.
DW-WP contains a lot of the normal things you'd expect in a text book: in class activities, definitions, links to further reading, extra credit assignments, and homework. But it is written in fresh, engaging text that doesn't ramble on for pages at a time. The actual work DOES NOT focus on learning to draw. In fact, there are no drawing lessons in the book. The course instead around the practice of combining pictures and words to create a narrative.
Still worried about not being a good enough artist? Not every comics writer needs to be a Jim Lee:
Many successful comics creators rely on simple art to get their message across:
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| Cyanide and Happiness |
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| Mutts |
Even if you can't draw at all, you can STILL create comics! This creator uses free clip art of dinosaurs and has created one of the most famous webcomics of all time!
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| Dinosaur Comics |
He doesn't even change their poses!
In conclusion, I am very interested in starting this course as a group. I by no means, am an expert. I've never finished a comic in my life! But together, maybe we could all learn. Even if you don't have ambitions of creating comics, it could still be something fun to do together.
For more info, visit the book's companion site at http://dw-wp.com/.
Please, let me know what you think about this idea! If enough of the group is in favor, I can ask the library for an additional day each month to use the Civic League room. Let me know!
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