I’m going to be doing a summer correspondence course. The focus will be on advancing your understanding of layouts, color, contour line drawing, and printmaking for producing comic books. The 8-week class is $500. Payment plans available. This class is limited: only ten students will be accepted.
Who the hell am I? I’ve been drawing comics since 1988 – and writing about comics since 1995. I’ve taught drawing at Parsons. My work has been exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. I have worked as an assistant to fine arts painters such as Francesco Clemente, Dorothea Rockburne and Gary Panter. Many of my paintings are in the collection of Bruno Bischofberger. My comic Storeyville is, allegedly, one of Chris Ware’s favorites. I’ve collaborated with Ben Jones. I was in a drawing contest against the French master Blutch – and it was deemed a tie! I have appeared in two volumes of Kramers Ergot. I am working with Dash Shaw on an animation project. I worked for the silkscreen wizard Frank Kozik. I am friends with Yuichi Yokoyama. I got into a yelling match with Brian Chippendale because I’m against photo-referencing. Jaime Hernandez taught me where all the freeways meet in Los Angeles. Gilbert Hernandez said my comic Pompeii was “pretty good”.
Application guidelines:
-3 figure drawings done on 3 x 5 index cards
-3 landscape drawings done on 3 x 5 index cards
-3 still life drawings done on 3 x 5 cards
-specific url links to any comics work you have done.
Applications due by June 1st. Email me - capneasyATgmailDOTcom - and I will send you an invite to the course blog so you see what it’s like. Check out my “Layout Workbook” series over at The Comics Journal. Overseas students welcome. Payment plans available - I will work with you to make it affordable. Thanks! -Frank Santoro
My favorite comics these days seem to come from north of the border. Hair Shirt by Patrick McEown, Very Casual by Michael DeForge and Journal by Julie Delporte.
-FS
Scale
People send me mini-comics all the time. Which is great. I love them. However, I have noticed that *most* mini-comics makers try and crowd too much in to the small format. My advice - to avoid crowding - is to draw the comic at the scale you intend to publish it. If this is impossible because of the level of detail - then draw the “pencils” at the original size - then enlarge it 150% - then “ink” your work at the larger scale. The idea with drawing at the original scale is to see the space or lack of space at the printed size. Too often makers will overload the details at a larger scale and then when it is reduced the work suffers from crowding. FS
