I'm hoping to take another class this fall-- I always try to take at least one art class each semester-- yes even thought I would consider myself a seasoned artist it's important to keep pushing yourself and challenging those skills. At the very least I'll get myself to the Life Drawing sessions at WAM that are a terrific value and maybe they'll have 'em at Worcester State University too.
For my classes-- I've got a new take on COMIC ART for WAM-- if you've taken the class before you'll find this one is different, more intense and more results oriented. I'm hoping to get a classroom full of veterans so we can make this a sort of Comics Art II-- and by veterans I don't mean you've had to have taken a class, I mean artists who are already doing comics.
Over at EMERSON they've taken the graphic novel program and launched it online. I've spent the better part of the last month building both the online classroom and the blog that will go with it. The course is THE ART OF COMICS which will cover the history of the medium and get you so that you can recognize periods, specific artists and see where and how artistic movements were created in this medium that is American born and has only been with us since 1935.
We'll go through the Golden Age of Comics including the birth of Superman and the introduction of the superheroes, up through the crime and horror comics of the fifties that launched the comics code authority when parents became horrified by the graphic nature of comics. Then we'll roll into the re-birth of comics with the launch of Marvel Comics FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and comics have not been the same since.
We'll cover all this with an extensive reading list (comics provided) as well as following along with a terrific documentary and online classroom discussions. It's all part of the graphic novel certificate program at Emerson and if I weren't teaching it I would be taking these classes-- I'd equate them to the level of course offered at SVA in New York.
