Weekly Comics Classes in Woodbridge

and the feeling of falling behind

I am very excited to announce that I will be presenting a series of weekly cartooning lessons at The Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge, New Jersey, on Tuesday nights from either 5-6PM or 6:15-7:15PM, beginning September 19th and running through October 24th. Click through to the link for information on how to register, or contact me directly.

The Barron Arts Center has hosted me twice this year to present my one-hour cartooning workshops, and I am thrilled that they are allowing me to use of the space as I develop this expanded six-week course. The focus of the class will be on learning how to use the language of cartooning, and will emphasize developing the skills needed to write comics clearly so that the reader can easily understand the stories we want to tell. We won’t worry so much about how “well” anyone can or can’t draw, though of course there will be plenty of image creation going on.

Falling Behind

At the other end of the spectrum from young artists learning how to tell stories using comics, here’s some of my thoughts about being an older artist who’s pretty good at doing that himself by now. Maybe it’s just me, but personally, I’ve never not felt like I was just “starting out”. I still feel it acutely now, even though there’s a good amount of cool stuff cooking and some things I’m looking forward to announcing publicly soon.

Maybe I’m just being naively optimistic, it’s not a great thing that the Comics Industry barely has an institutional memory. Many of the “big name” alternative cartoonists who inspired me when I was just starting out, have now become obscure and wouldn’t be recognized by a lot of readers. It’s a tough business to sustain a career in, and that’s a bummer. But, on the other hand, if there’s no institutional memory, then there’s nothing stopping anyone from creatively reinventing themselves and finding a new way of working at any time, no matter what their age.

Teen Photographer

Last item, I thought this was funny. It’s Summer Break, and my fifteen year old is home, so last week I asked her to join me at one of my cartooning workshops, explicitly for the purpose of taking some photos that I could post here. It was a great event, there were lots of kids there, and we had a great time, but these were the pictures my daughter got me:

Incredible “I’m having a great time with a group of kids teaching them all about comics, they’re all just out of frame drawing and having fun” energy…

Thankfully the librarian who organized the event took a few photos as well.

If you would be interested in scheduling a cartooning workshop at your public library, youth group, or school, get in touch or check out my website with more information here.

I hope the Dog Days of Summer are treating you well!

Mike