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PRINCIPLES OF CARTOONING 2007/08 - CID 2030 C
Tom Hart
hutchowen@gmail.com
http://www.tomhart.net//teaching/sva/
Wednesdays, 12:00 noon ; 2:50 pm
Room 407A, East 21st Street Building

CLICK HERE TO SKIP TO SEMESTER 2

WHO I AM (1MB in PDF form)

e-mail me : hutchowen@gmail.com

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course description
semester 1
semester 2
rules/ grading and glossary

  


COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This class will look at cartooning as a powerful medium for all kinds of storytelling and idea exploration, from creative self-discovery and drama to social commentary and personal expression. Beginning with a focus on the basics and mechanics of panel, page and scene composition, we'll emphasize keeping sketchbooks, organized notes, stories and studies as the basis for generating work that will be refined later. Students will learn the basic tools of visual and narrative arts, including juxtaposition of images, narrative transitions, light and dark, clarity, rhythm and the psychology of drawn images and cartoons. A wide variety of cartooning and sequential art will be examined and studied.

Required Reading:

  • McCloud, Scott; Understanding Comics
  • Suggested Readings:
  • Mamet, David; On Directing Film
  • Eisner, Will; Comics and Sequential Art
  • Janson, Klaus: The DC Guide to Pencilling Comics

Semester 1

  • Weeks 1-5 ; Icons, closure, camera distance, drawing
  • Weeks 6-10 ; Inking demonstrations. First inked projects, storytelling, page design, etc.
  • Weeks 11-15 ; Composition, characters, stories. First semester final project.

Semester 2

  • Week 16-20; Further exploration of idea generation,
  • Week 21-30 - Begin final large scale project. Work
 
 
 


HOMEWORK AND ASSIGNMENTS

Week 1 - Sept 5

What we did: Intro exercise (silent introduction comic). Looked at silent comics and diary strips. Looked at all the first week stuff. Did a diary exercise.

Homework:

PART 1

6 (SIX) 4-6 panel strips/stories in your sketchbook.

  • •  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL – Treat it like a diary; tell something that happened during the day. Do one a day. (You don't have to draw yourself like how you really look!)
  • •  Use a full page for each one.
  • •  Pencil only is fine.
  • Three of them   must be:
  • •  SILENT! (NO WORDS!)
PART 2

COPY 2 of THE 4 attached drawings from Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace.)

Why Dennis the Menace?

Things to look for:

•  Hank Ketcham's amazing sense of WEIGHT . Watch how SOLID the characters look and feel.

•  Great line and efficiency of line. Watch the variation in the line.

•  Great sense of real depth . Watch the use of the various PLANES (foreground, middleground, background.)

•  Great use of evoking what's outside the PICTURE PLANE.

•  Pencil only is fine.

PART 3

Buy UNDERSTANDING COMICS and read Chapter 1.

WEEK 2 - 9-12

In class, we focused on TRANSITIONS, and on expanding the content and changing the focus via the addition of panels.

HOMEWORK- Due 9-19

PART 1- Take one of your simple diary strips and EXPAND it in the same
way we did in class to 20 MORE panels. Do this on index cards or torn
paper that we can pin up in class. Then be prepared to show us TWO
4-panel REDUCTIONS.

PART 2- From the two photo/panel combinations given at the end of
class, in a SHOT BY SHOT DESCRIPTION, tell us how to get FROM ONE
IMAGE IN THE BEGINNING TO THE FINAL IMAGE AT THE END. Describe each
shot in words only, and be prepared to hand in and read in class.

PART 3- BRING IN LAST WEEK'S COPYING ASSIGNMENT and the sheet that
went with it.

Week 3
9-19-07

In class, we critiqued our mostly awesome 25-ish page stories.

HANDOUT: Composition . Click here for it. (It's big - 23MB)

HOMEWORK!!!!!

Reshape this story into 20ish panels, and then re-compose every single panel 2 more times on index cards or cut paper. Bring in all 60 panels and prepare to tack up, show, etc in class. In class next week we will focus on page compositions...

Week 4
9-26-07

We looked at the stories, then looked at PAGE COMPOSITIONS.

Homework:

Recompose into two different page compositions. Make 1 crazy.

 

Week 5 - 10-3-07

We critted, then looked at ink lines.

HOMEWORK: bring in finished pencils for one perfect version.

 

Week 6 -

10-10-07
We worked in class

Homework - ink some, prepare to work in class next week

Week 7 - 10-17-07 worked in class.

Week 8 - 10-24-07
Critiqued our final stories.

Tom showed powerpoint of creating characters action and plot. Homework: Complete rough draft for open assignment.

Week 9 -

10-31-07 Critiqued stragglers from last week. Looked at this week's homework in 2 groups. Have 1/3 tightly pencilled for next week.

Week 10 -
Critiqued more stragglers.
Showed "striking" powerpoint show. Homework: begin pencilling story.
Week 11
Week 12 -
Week 13 -
Week 14 -
Week 15 -

SEMESTER 2!!!! -
Find an inspiring artist to you (does not have to be visual artist) and find a book on that person and read through it. You don't have to read the whole thing, but come in next semester with some understanding of the artist, and some small stories and incidents at your ready.

Bring this book every week, along with drawing supplies every week.

We will be working to create different stories about this artist for between 5-7 weeks.

Pick an artist that won't bore and frustrate you after that long!

Week 1 Jan 16

IN CLASS
- We looked at biographies on the screen, and then did 3 short exercises:

  • a series of empty panels with just text. only using simple sentences to fill the boxes.
  • a silent version of same story illustrating the same
  • a version below the text where we DO NOT REPEAT what the text says, but instead AUGMENT

HOMEWORK

Part 1- Take the EPISODE you drew in class today and tell one more time, this time from another person’s point of view. This could be a viewer or watcher, or perhaps another person in the event that happened. Tell it from that person’s point of view, but we still have to be interested in your artist. But the new main character of this piece will be someone else.

Use the present tense. In other words, don't tell it like a history and you're just a historian.

Words are fine, silence is fine. One or two pages.

Part 2 –Combine, edit , pencil and ink one PERFECT VERSION. Make use of earlier drafts. Finish on bristol board in ink.

Part 3 –BRING IN AT LEAST 10 PHOTOS OR other pieces of visual references. PRINT THEM OUT if you don’t have them in a book.

Week 2 Jan 23

In class crit. PRESENTATIONS: DRAWING PRINCIPLES, DESIGNING IN BLACK, REFERENCES.

Homework - PLACES

Create a comic of 1-2 page (INKED!) of 7-12 panels in which you attempt to describe your artist, or create a biography of that person using only images of places.

PLACES ! No people, (unless they are completely anonymous strangers and are not the focus of the panel.)

  • You can use any text you like:
  • •  Off-camera word balloons?
  • •  Captions in the third person (“She did this. He went there.”)
  • •  Letters written in sand, in blood, in alcohol?
  • •  I encourage you to be bold, don't just use captions in the first person (“I did this, I did that”)?

You can use one of the stories you wrote in the first week, or find new stories that are more appropriate.

Think about how you can make this interesting and a profound look at your SUBJECT . Not just some boring description of places in his or her life, but a real DELICATE exploration of place in their story. Be smart and brave.

REFER TO THE CD FILES :”PLACE AS CHARACTER” FOR VIVID EXAMPLES OF PLACE AND ENVIRONMENT. SOME OF THESE HAVE CHARACTERS, ETC, BUT JUST LOOK AT THE VIVIDNESS OF THE PLACE, THE DETAIL, THE ABILITY THE DRAWINGS GIVE THE READERS TO INHABIT THE SPACE.

BE INSPIRED BY THESE IMAGES AND GO FORTH ON YOUR OWN PROJECT!

Due next week , Jan 30

Week 3 Jan 30

HOMEWORK:

Due Feb 6

SHOJO MANIA:

We looked at the principles of SHOJO MANGA in class today. The assignment is to create a three page comic (tight pencils, no inks) using at least NINE those principles.

It does not have to LOOK like SHOJO, we just want to try some of the techniques.

Those techniques. to recap:

  1. Background patterning or rendered for emotional content
  2. Transparent balloons to allow drawing of characters
  3. Shading used to bring characters to focus of panel
  4. Word balloons rendered for emotional effect
  5. Simplified character moment (chibi, or similar, used in simplistic, base emotional moments)
  6. Little facelets
  7. Elongated, stylized bodies
  8. Viewer and object viewed visible in same panel, with viewer rendered in separate style
  9. Inventive expression of emotion (emanata)
  10. Characters introduced in margins, initially or as ar recap
  11. Unfinished drawing in composition
Page layouts created for slow movement and moment-to-moment transitions

 

Week 4 Feb 1

Week 5 Feb 8

Week 6 Feb 15
Week 7 - Feb 22
Week 8 -Feb 29
Week 9
week 10
week 11
week 12 work
week 13 work
week 14 -work
Week 15 final crit
GRADING:
You will be graded on:
  • QUALITY OF WORK
  • QUALITY OF EFFORT
  • PARTICIPATION IN CLASS
  • IMPROVEMENT AND UNDERSTANDING

If you don't finish your assignments, you damage your grade and bring the class down. Please finish your work.
HOWEVER, SHOWING UP FOR CLASS WITH NO WORK IS BETTER THAN SKIPPING CLASS BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T FINISH YOUR HOMEWORK. SHOW UP FOR CLASS!!!!!!!!!!
 

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT!

  1. 4 Absences is a failure. Exceptions due to lost limbs, trauma only.
  2. 3 absences is a grade lower.
  3. No parts of Epic stories, unless it is a self contained whole unit in itself. TO GET TO THE EPIC, YOU MUST CONCENTRATE ON THE MOMENT. THIS IS AN AXIOM OF REAL LIFE, NOT JUST THIRD YEAR CARTOONING.
 

GLOSSARY

SYNOPSIS ; Refers to paragraph or two of text that describes the action to be depicted on the page. A reader should not need a synopsis to understand what is going on in your pages however.

THUMBNAILS ; This refers to initial drawings of complete pages in reduced format, to think through ideas of how to compose a page and tell a story. Do thumbnails for this class in your sketchbook or on 8 1/2 x 11 paper.

ROUGHS ; Refers to larger sketched versions of page before penciling. Still searching for solutions and storytelling ideas/composition ideas, etc. Some people use "thumbnails" and "roughs" interchangeably. Roughs for this class are on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. (You can rough on your final boards if you like, though I don't recommend it.)

LOOSE PENCILS- Somewhere in between roughs and tight pencils (see below.)

TIGHT PENCILS- Refers to full-size, on Bristol board penciled version of your page.

INKS ; Refers to finished work, with lettering, of above page.

STORY ; Usually refers to whatever your final work is. I prefer "PIECE" to describe the work you hand in. "Story" to me, describes the underlying narrative "arc" that is the raw material you are working with in your piece.

For instance, you may be telling the story of a man's life, birth to death, but your piece is only 10 panels long. Thus you make lots of choices in how to work with your "story", having created a piece of work from it.

SOME APHORISMS TO KEEP IN MIND:

  • FINISHING IS BETTER THAN ABORTING A LESS THAN PERFECT PROJECT
    • You always learn more by completing a project, rather than failing to finish something because it is less than perfect.
  • DON'T LET THE PERFECT GET IN THE WAY OF THE GOOD.
    • If you get caught up on making something perfect, you may fail to realize it is working well enough.
  • STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE ANYWAY
    • Strive for perfect, settle for good, and move on.
  • LEARN TO DRAW BY DRAWING.
    • Bernie Wrightson, who created Swamp Thing used to say that you could become a good artist only after you've drawn 1000 pages (or a stack of pages as tall as you- I forget which.)
  • COPYING OTHER DRAWINGS IN YOUR SKETCHBOOK OR IN YOUR PRACTICING TIME IS GOOD. COPYING TECHNIQUES ON YOUR FINAL PAGES IS ESSENTIAL.
    • Learn to LOOK at professional artwork for techniques, solutions, thoughts and decisions beneath the surface. Copying other work will help do this. You can then implement similar solutions or thinking in your own work later. Style emerges when you make informed decisions.
  • CONCENTRATE ON THE MOMENT, AND THE EPIC WILL UNFOLD.
    • I am only interested in your epic story if the individual passages are good and complete. This is true of any reader. No unfinished sections of large stories will be allowed. You will be forced to find a way to complete the story (this can always be done, by thinking of story in new ways.)

 

Some Resources:

Archive of many amazing stories by amazing artists HERE
including: Jack Kirby | Harvey Kurtzman | Jaime Hernandez | Samm Schwartz | Peter Arno and more

Scott McCloud UNDERSTANDING COMICS Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 6

Some Diary Comics

- Some Biography Comics -

Some Examples of Location, Place and Environments

Some recommended books

 

Andy Bugpowder's Early Comics Archive

Making your own comics

Printers and printing your own comics

Some pics by Eduard Muybridge here

 

Tom's 2004 tutorial from notion, inspiration and theft to idea development to final inks and scan. (7 MB PDF)

Tons of links on my webcomics class link here

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