How much can you say without words? Silent comics can be tough. Don’t rely on word balloons to tell your story and try to avoid sound effects, too. How does silence effect different types of stories (for instance, funny, serious , action, etc.)? When silent panels appear in a comic, the reader has to “read” the elements in the panel and causes them to examine the panel longer. While doing this exercise, focus on how you can use silent panels effectively within your own work.

Homework for Artists and Writers:

Draw or script a one or two page comic with absolutely no dialogue or sound effects.

Extra Credit:

After drawing your own silent comic, flip through some of your favorite comics, and pick a page with minimal dialogue. Can you translate that page to no dialogue and still make it tell the same story?

PS: Don’t forget to turn something in for YAC’s Lost Lunches, Crash!Boom!Bang! or both! Official deadline is today but we will be accepting entries all this week. Click here for more information and submission guidelines! or Email CoreyMarie with any questions.

Think about the way you sneeze. For most people, there are three steps: Preparation, Execution, and Recovery. Now apply that theory to showing a complete action in a series of three panels. Most actions can be shown effectively in these same three steps. Think of a golf swing: The golfer pulling the club back, the contact of the club and the ball, and the follow through of the club and the ball flying through the air.

Homework for Artists and Writers:
Apply sneeze theory to show action in several three panel strips. Use this exercise to refine your visual storytelling technique and try several different types of action. Paying attention to the sneeze theory will make sure that you are always picking three of the most important parts of the action. Write and Draw at least three of these strips for practice.

Extra Credit:
No extra credit this week! See below:

Attention Artists and Writers!!
We let you off with an easy challenge this week. To continue this whole “school” theme, consider these your first mid-terms! Ok, wait, no. These are actually FUN.

Young American Comics currently has an open call for submissions for two cool group projects: Lost Lunches & Crash!Boom!Bang! Click here for full details and submission guidelines. Official Deadline is October 1, so get to it! (But now that we’ve seen that you can turn out one or two pages in a week, there’s no excuse!) If you want to participate, but know you’ll need a couple extra days, email me (Corey) and let me know which project you’re working on and when you can get the pages.

These are open invite projects. Spread the word!

When you wander into your local library, which section do you find yourself drawn (heh, heh.) to:  Fiction, or Non-Fiction?  Most libraries and book stores have a non-fiction section as large as the fiction section, so how come we rarely see non-fiction comics?  We’re strongly of the belief that comics and sequential art are a medium and NOT a genre.  Let’s see if we can’t prove this point over the next two weeks by trying out two different types of non-fiction works.

The “______” for Dummies series has shown us that we desperately want to be told how to do things, and we want it to be easy.  Most cook books include step-by-step photos along with the recipe, indicating how to chop, peel and fry our way through the process.  A comic is the obvious vehicle for teaching someone how to do something.

Homework for Artists and Writers:
Write and draw a 1-2 page comic that explains a step by step how-to process, whether it’s how to reassemble a vintage motorcycle engine, or your family’s recipe for potato salad.

Extra Credit:
Just like last week, avoid taking the easy way out of just pairing illustrations with narration.  Use what you know about making comics already to make your recipe or instructional guide an interesting as well as informative comic.

References and Examples:
At an early age we learn to read symbols on warning signs and in instructions.  We see these every time we’re in public and barely stop to recognize them!

 It might not be the most exciting comic you’ve ever seen, but that is DEFINITELY sequential art!

Look around your house, through your desk drawer or closet and find some safety manuals for electronics.  Often these have iconified illustrations indicating how to safely use your product — and what will happen if you do not  heed their warnings.  Notice the lightning bolts, smoke clouds, wavy heat lines, water droplets and other symbols used in comics all the time! Just for fun, check out this Japanese safety manual for the Nintendo Wii. 

When you wander into your local library, which section do you find yourself drawn (heh, heh.) to:  Fiction, or Non-Fiction?  Most libraries and book stores have a non-fiction section as large as the fiction section, so how come we rarely see non-fiction comics?  We’re strongly of the belief that comics and sequential art are a medium and NOT a genre.  Let’s see if we can’t prove this point over the next two weeks by trying out two different types of non-fiction works.

We know you’ve gotten sucked into the history channel epic biographies.  You waste hours at work reading through people’s wikipedia entries.  So this week, pick a historical/famous/important person that you find fascinating, dig into their wikipedia, then write and draw a biographical comic about some of their accomplishments.

Homework for Artists and Writers:
Write and draw a 1-4 page biographical comic of a historical or famous person.  For the sake of doing something unique, stay away from comic-related famous people.  No autobiographies!

Extra Credit:
It’ll be easy to fall into the trap of  using nothing but illustrations and narration in this comic.  Try to stay true to the facts while also including dialogue, action and other elements of sequential storytelling.

References and Examples:
The 2002 SPX Anthology, featured this exact same theme.  Don’t have it?  You can get it for just $10 (and $10 going straight to the CBLDF, at that.)  There are 40 biographies in this anthology, including one by YAC’s own Tod C. Parkhill.

The art of music often inspired other artistic endeavors. What happens when we mix comics and music?

Homework for Artists and Writers:
Pick a song that has lyrics and a strong visual motif and illustrate a portion of it in a 1-2 page comic, (don’t rush it! You may find that it takes two pages just to do the chorus), using the lyrics as your word balloons and narration. Try to capture the tone and feel of the instrumental portions of the song as well.

Extra Credit:
How many elements of the song can you work into your comic? Can you represent what you hear, visually, without distracting from the story telling aspect of your comic? For instance, do you see a guitar player in your comic where the guitar solo falls?

For an extreme example of visually represented music, watch Michel Gondry’s video for Chemical Brother’s Star Guitar.

Another great Michel Gondrey Video: Daft Punk’s Around the World

While the music videos above do an amazing job of representing visually what’s going on with the music, you will find it much more challenging to do so in a comic setting, since we do not have absolute control over the pacing that our readers will read the panels. Try focusing on one element at a time, instead of focusing on EVERY element the way Gondrey does. (After all, he’s a freakin’ genius!)

References and Examples:

An old favorite that’ll get you started.

What could you do with a few extra panels?  Most of the comic pages you put together probably have between 6 and 9 panels.  What if you use 20 or more?  How does using more panels affect the passage of time?  Will you use more panels to show more time passing, or will you use them to show more details all happening in the same amount of time? 

How is dialogue and action affected when there is more space to work with?  Scale of the panel sizes will also be extra noticeable.  A page with 20 panels of the same size will convey a feeling of repetition, while 19 small panels and one large panel will make the largest panel extremely important.

Homework for Artists and Writers:
Write and draw a one page comic with twenty or more panels.  You’ll instantly realize that you have a lot less real estate to work with, so drastically simplifying your artwork may help!  Simple, clean lines and minimal, carefully chosen dialogue will be crucial.

Extra Credit: 
Now that you’ve practiced small panels of super simple drawings and subtle writing, put together a flip book!  Grab a stack of Post-It Notes and start at the back.  Never animated before?  Give it a shot and have fun.  Put what you know about comic making into your flip book and then flip through and see your drawings come to life.

References and Examples:
Google Image Search “Quimby the Mouse” or check your local library or book store for the Fantagraphics Collection.  Chris Ware shows us how it’s done with his stylish simplicity, but also notice how he uses the panel layouts, the shapes of the panels themselves as well as “non-panels” of text, elaborate titles and even pages shapes to complete the overall look, design and flow of each page.

There’s something special about you — we can just tell. Whether it’s the ability to make red lights turn green, or a certain knack for predicting NFL scores, it’s time to come clean and tell the world about your own mundane “super power.” Even better, tell us how you got it!

Homework for Artists & Writers:
Write and Draw a 1-2 page comic about your own “super power” and how you got it. Your super power can be realistic or completely made up, but pulling actual autobiographical elements into the fantasy will make it fun and interesting. Have fun!

Extra Credit:
Add an extra 2-4 pages showing an example where your “super power” has helped you save the day, solve a mystery or caused you extra trouble.

References and Examples:
You may recall reading a short story called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty back in an english class and discussing escapist fantasy. In comics, we’re all familiar with Snoopy’s fantasies of being a World War I flying ace and fighting against the Red Baron, and Calvin imagining himself as Spaceman Spiff, Stupdendous Man, or a “Calvinosaurus.”

Read through some of your old collections to see how Schultz and Watterson compared and contrasted what was “actually happening” with the fantasy that was going through Snoopy or Calvin’s head. The elements that tied the two together added contrast and irony and made the strips funny and so fun to read.

Sorry for the delay, kids - we’ll be updating with extra info and finishing up the site this weekend. Monday, August 20 we will launch Challenge #1!