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Syllabi

The Graphic Novel – 16 Week Class

The Graphic Novel ENG 411J – CRN 34984 Spring Semester, 2008 Instructor: Rebecca Gorman Classroom: King Center 314

Comic Book Superheroes

Developing a Syllabus for a Course on Comic Book Superheroes By Elaine M. Deering Instructor of English, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida For years, I bought our family a stylish coffee table book on Superman or Spiderman or other comic book superhero each year at Christmas time. As I paid for my purchase, I would produce my faculty ID and ask if I could get a teacher’s discount. The cashier would invariably reply that the book would have to be related to a course I was teaching, to which I would confide my desire to develop a literature course on comic book […] Read More

Image, Text, and Story: An exploration of graphic novels

Written by Rachel Williams Image, Text, and Story: An exploration of graphic novels is an interdisciplinary class designed to help students explore a variety of graphic novels that focus on social issues, personal stories, politics, and war. The graphic novel is a literary form that has grown in popularity over the past thirty years. They provide a compelling juxtaposition of image and narrative.Students will discuss the visual construction and written content in excerpts from a series of graphic novels and cartoons. Finally, students will construct their own graphic novella. Download attachment:  image_text_and_story

Introduction to Comics Art: Gateway to Visual Storytelling

This class is meant to serve as a basic introduction to the elements of visual storytelling. Depending on the school and what best suits its curriculum, this class could be offered as an art studio class, an illustration course, part of a writing program or within a film and video department. If a school is only looking to offer one studio class in comics, an Intro class like this could easily serve as that class.

Studies in Literature and Culture: The Graphic Novel

Written by Brian Cremins REQUIRED TEXTS:Chynna Clugston-Major, Blue Monday: Absolute Beginners (Oni Press) Will Eisner, A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories (DC Comics) Mike Gold (Ed.), The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told (DC Comics) Harold Gray, Little Orphan Annie: The Sentence (Pacific Comics Club) Jason Lutes, Jar of Fools (Drawn & Quarterly) Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Harper-Perennial) Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli, Batman: Year One (DC Comics) Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (Vol. I) (Pantheon) James Sturm, The Revival (Bear Bones Press)

Reading Comics as Literature

Written by Isaac Cates In the last two decades, comics, a medium that most Americans had long dismissed as pulp fantasy and cheap entertainment, has begun to mature into an impressive and promising literary form. The 1980s saw the emergence of the “graphic novel,” the long-form comic that aspires not only to narrative coherence and closure, but to formal complexity and psychological depth. The current generation of comics artists has built on this foundation, and is now in the process of creating what may be the major literary medium of the twenty-first century. These so-called graphic novels are the texts […] Read More

Media in Cultural Context: Comics, Cartoons, and Graphic Storytelling

Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures. — Harvey PekarThis is a course about words, pictures, and stories. We hope over the term to map as broad a range of different things you can do with words and pictures as possible. Our central focus will be on two important strands of graphic storytelling — comix (understood as both comic strips and comic books) and cartoons (understood as moving images). We will also be looking along the way at other forms of graphic storytelling, ranging from tapestries to children’s book illustrations. We will be […] Read More

History of Comic-Book Art

Written by Andrei Molotiu NOTE: This page contains only the introduction to this class; the syllabus itself, as well as related materials can be downloaded as a PDF document at the bottom of the page Course Level: College Course Objective: Appreciation of the artistic and formal dimensions of comics in their historical context. Andrei Molotiu has been one of the earliest professors of art history to teach a course on the history of American comics. In the materials he kindly shares with NACAE readers, you will find a syllabus with a schedule, assignment set and a reading list. In addition, he includes essay […] Read More

Explore Chicago: The Art of Chris Ware

Course Description:Understanding the cultural diversity of Chicago involves more than a study of race and ethnicity. It is concerned with the interests and activities of subcultures such as those in popular media. A study of the texts of these subcultures should reveal a fresh perspective on the issues of diversity, and a unique view of the city. This course will focus an analysis and scholarly examination of the “Chicago-based” graphic novel – Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. Its author, Chicago resident, artist / writer Chris Ware is a creator of comic books and graphic novels whose narrative / visual […] Read More

Comics in American Culture

Course Description: An historical survey of American comic art and artists from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. The course is primarily concerned with how comics has developed and matured as a distinctively American art form, reflecting and commenting on post-W.W. II American society in a variety of narrative forms: comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels. But not simply reflecting American culture, comics themselves have often been at the center of debates about the influence of media in shaping the national character.