Fight Club

I’m currently enrolled in an Intro to Comic Book Art class at the Comics Experience. I’m two weeks in and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a class at any level as much as I’m enjoying this. The class has top notch instruction from Robert Atkins and a smart use of internet technology. Furthermore, the education philosophy of the enterprise fits in with mine. Here is a tidbit from the syllabus:

HOMEWORK:
This is entirely up to you. I don’t give speeches about it. As an editor, I expect you to meet the deadlines no questions asked. Our class outline is tight. You miss a week, I don’t know how you’ll be able to make it up. You get as much as you put into this course.

GRADE:
I don’t give you one. You’ll know what your grade is when you go out into the world and start to pitch stuff.

ATTENDANCE:
Come as often or as little as you like. I obviously suggest that you come to all six sessions.

Not getting grades is actually very important. It frees student artists up to take risks without having to worry about being punished for them. If I want to go out on a limb with something experimental, I’m free to do so.

Below is the pre-critique version of our first assignment. We had to take a prose novel and covert it into a three pages of rough layouts. I chose to do Fight Club, which was one of our options. It turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be. In a novel, the author has to tell you everything. In a comic book however, the creative team tells you some things, but shows you others. The story telling medium of comics is unique. Distilling the novel into words and pictures took a while to wrap my brain around, but I was pleased with the results. Robert did a great critique on this to show me where I can improve. I may use his notes to make this into a more polished piece.

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