Department of English

• Saturday, October 4, 2014 (All day) to Sunday, October 5, 2014 (All day)

University of Pennsylvania

October 4-5, 2014

This coming Spring semester cartoonist Rob Berry and Professor Jean-Christophe Cloutier will be offering a new experimental course/workshop in both the analytical and practical sides of comic-making here at Penn. The language of comics (or graphic novels) is a fairly specialized, rarefied, and some might even say arcane discipline; for an art form that has flourished in popular culture alongside the growth of modernism and the development of cinema, it has remained largely untaught and understudied for the first hundred years of its thriving, challenging, and really rather unpretentious history. But comics have an exciting ability to render the dreams and fantasies of individual creators into stories celebrating personal vision; comics presents one of the cleanest, most direct routes for storytellers to put their narrative forward through the mesmerizing connection of words and images. As we move into a world of much more visually-based writing through media like television, cinema, gaming, and even online learning, it seems important for young writers and readers to take a good long look at the language of comics and its methodology. It is our belief that it will help to inform their work in these contemporary industries as well as nurture their potential for individual expression.

Beginning with the 24Hour Comic Jam here at Penn on October 4th-5th (see poster!) and leading right up through the course, we will continue to build this site; all the feedback we get will help inform us regarding what people might be looking for in not only the course we’ve designed, but also in the collaborative potential of comic-making. Please visit: http://makingcomicsatupenn.wordpress.com and email us at: makingcomicsatupenn@gmail.com