In June 2015, the Boston Comics Roundtable began a new project in collaboration with Whatever Floats Your Boat Studios (media artist Heide Solbrig). launching a new studio space, The Boston Comics Workspace, located near Inman Square in Somerville’s Taza Chocolate Factory building (561 Windsor Street, Studio 306A, Somerville, MA 02143). In this space, we are building a comics community center, encouraging creativity and art production in Boston and would like to invite you to join us.
This spring we will offer courses for comics enthusiasts, 15 and older, with artists/instructors from the Boston area, as well as guest lectures from visiting artists. These courses are great ways to start making comics, continue a practice that you have begun on your own, or get back into comics creation after a while away. Our first classes began in September—and they were met with great enthusiasm. Beginning in March, we are offering two classes at the workspace: Introduction to Comics 1 and Comics Autobiography & Non-fiction Storytelling. Sign up here!
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Introduction to Comics 1: Comics, Cartooning and Storytelling.
Students will learn the fundamentals of cartooning and various approaches to visual storytelling by looking at the work of published cartoonists. Each student will be given the tools to develop their own narratives and begin to establish their own visual style, which they can carry into further comics projects. By the end of the course, each student will have a working knowledge of character creation, page layout, and visual storytelling. Sign up here!
Section 1:
Duration: April 7th to May 26th (Thursdays)
Thursday, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Instructor: John Carvajal, M.F.A
8 week course: $185.00 + $15 materials fee.
John Carvajal is a graduate from The Center for Cartoon Studies. His work has been published in various publications including Compositional Studies and The Cambridge Historian. He has exhibited his work internationally and currently lives in Norwood, MFA. You can see some of his work at jacarvajal.com.
Comics Autobiography & Non-fiction Storytelling: Comics, Graphic Novels & More.
Have you ever wanted to tell your own story in comics form? Do you have an unusual family story, off-kilter philosophical approach to the world, travelogue you’d like to tell in pictures? Are you an artist who would like to see your drawings become a story, a character, or a visual poem? These days autobiographical and journalistic comics are an important and popular new comics genre. Comics artists like Joe Sacco, Alison Bechdel, Guy Delisle, Linda Barry, and many more have invented a new visual language for telling truthful stories about the world. In this class on non-fiction comics storytelling we will look at how some of these innovators built non-fiction worlds while also exploring the ways that comics and autobiography have migrated online on such sites as Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter. Tell your own story and find a platform to present it to the world!
For the first half of the class we will focus on drawing and writing for genre, technique, and story construction, while the second half of the class will focus on students’ own projects with an eye to creating an online presence with your own story world, linked to the Boston Comics Round Table’s other online platforms. This should be a really special course that kicks off Boston’s newest, hottest comics space and educational venue!!! Sign up here!
Section 1:
Duration: April 12th to May 31st (Tuesdays)
Tuesday, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Instructor: Heide Solbrig (Ph.D., M.F.A.)
8 week course: $185.00 + $15 materials fee.
Heide Solbrig is the author of The Dandelion King, a graphic memoir about the 1970’s and has taught media art, film and communication at Wheaton College, Emerson College, Bentley University, UCSD, and SFSU. To see examples of her work, please go to www.dandyking.comand www.hydafloats.com.
