Course Description
In this course, we will consider how comics combine words and images to tell compelling stories. As a form of serialized storytelling with narratives split up into weekly or monthly issues, comics rely on suspense, cliffhangers, and plot twists. How are comics changing now that they are increasingly distributed digitally? How do contemporary comics address issues of race, class, and gender? How are current writers and illustrators innovating in a medium that is almost two hundred years old?
Our exploration of comics will serve as a vehicle for considering the interrelationship among Written, Oral, Visual, Electronic, and Nonverbal (W.O.V.E.N.) modes in individual and collaborative projects. We will use this W.O.V.E.N. approach to examine a wide variety of comics, including superhero, mystery, noir, sci-fi, adventure, and horror. Students will analyze the narrative, visual, and thematic aspects of comics, as well as work in groups to create their own comics.
The ongoing pandemic will make this another stressful semester. I have designed this course to be as stress-free as possible while still meeting our course goals. The deadlines on the syllabus are intended to help you develop your writing process by breaking assignments into manageable stages. If you need more time to complete an assignment please let me know. Some of us may need to isolate because of illness or covid exposure and we may need to hold some classes virtually. I hope you will join me in being as flexible and accommodating as possible so that we can all learn together in a safe environment.
Learning Outcomes
Rhetoric: Create purposeful, audience directed artifacts that present well-organized, well-supported, well-designed arguments using appropriate conventions of written, oral, visual, and/or nonverbal communication.
Process: Use recursive strategies, including planning, drafting, critiquing, revising, publishing/presenting, and reflecting confidently.
Multimodality: Develop competence in major communication modalities (W.O.V.E.N.) and understand that modalities work synergistically.
Collaboration: Be productive in communities of practice—for example, as readers and critics, as team members and leaders—balancing their individual and collaborative responsibilities.
Critical Thinking: Systematically analyze and question information in a manner that identifies and evaluates problems, processes, values, assumptions, and arguments in order to reach understanding, determine solutions, and initiate actions.
| Date | Reading | Writing |
| T 1/11 | Introductions | |
| R 1/13 | WOVENText chs. 1-3 | |
| T 1/18 | WOVENText ch. 4-5 | First Week Video due |
| R 1/20 | WOVENText ch. 9 “Quick character design for comics” “How to design comic characters” | First Week Video reflection due |
| T 1/25 | “[Mining] Process Pt. 1” “[Mining] Process Pt. 2” “[Mining] Process Pt. 3” | |
| R 1/27 | “[Process] The Lab” | |
| F 1/28 | Character Design proposal due | |
| T 2/1 | Bitter Root #1 Off Panel with Sanford Greene | |
| R 2/3 | The Good Asian #1 | |
| F 2/4 | Character Design draft due | |
| T 2/8 | Invisible Republic #1 iFanboy: Talksplode with Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko | |
| R 2/10 | WOVENText ch. 10 Peer review | |
| F 2/11 | Character Design final due | |
| T 2/15 | East of West #1 Off Panel with Nick Dragotta | Character Design reflection due |
| R 2/17 | Black Monday Murders #1 Off Panel with Jonathan Hickman | |
| F 2/18 | Off Panel with Jonathan Hickman | |
| T 2/22 | Nocterra #1 Undiscovered Country #1 Off Panel with Scott Snyder | |
| R 2/24 | No class-independent work | |
| T 3/1 | Monstress #1 Marjorie Liu: Making a Monstress | |
| R 3/3 | The Department of Truth #1 | |
| F 3/4 | Genre Analysis proposal due | |
| T 3/8 | Wayne Family Adventures #1-4 | |
| R 3/10 | True Beauty #1-4 | |
| F 3/11 | Genre Analysis draft due | |
| T 3/15 | Peer review | |
| R 3/17 | The Remarried Empress #1-4 | |
| F 3/18 | Genre Analysis final due | |
| T 3/22 | Spring break | |
| R 3/24 | Spring break | |
| T 3/29 | WOVENText ch. 7 | Genre Analysis reflection due |
| R 3/31 | Cursed Princess Club #1-4 | |
| F 4/1 | Original comic proposal due | |
| T 4/5 | Kingdom Come 1-2 “Representation and Agency of Aging Superheroes in Popular Culture and Contemporary Society” | |
| R 4/7 | Kingdom Come 3-4 “Confrontations and exchanges of virtue ethics: a study of dialectical friendship between superman and batman in comic books” | |
| F 4/8 | Original comic draft due | |
| T 4/12 | Peer review | |
| R 4/14 | Far Sector 1-6 “How N.K. Jemisin’s Green Lantern comic taught her to think visually” | |
| T 4/19 | Far Sector 7-12 | |
| R 4/21 | Final portfolio workshop | |
| F 4/22 | Original comic final due | |
| T 4/26 | Final portfolio workshop | Original comic reflection due |
