Comic Book Course?

missychan

Hey guys...Just wondering (though I'm afraid I know the answer! )

Is there any form of a comic book course in Ireland (Kildare area, XD even!) I know all about the Animation courses around (Ballyfermot, etc.) but, an actual comic book course? In NJ there is: http://www.kubertsworld.com/kubertschoo ... School.htm

But...is there anything like it in Ireland? There was a (obviously?) bogus thing on DA: http://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers/1006678/

But the email won't work and I never heard of it?

Sorry to bug everyone! ^^ Thankies

Saruwatari

Hmm, I wouldn't trust it. I did a quick search, turned up no results save for that one comment on DA.
Sounds like a sham, maybe someone's willing to send him an email?

And as far as I know, there are no Comic Book courses in Ireland. The closest you'll get is probably Animation or Illustration.

Fysh

There are a couple of classes that have been mentioned in recent months. The Blackbird Gallery in Kilkenny started a program last October for manga classes, to be followed by life drawing and comic illustrationclasses at some point. Bob Byrne has also posted on his blog about potentially setting up classes on how to make comics.

I'm sure there are more out there, hopefully we can get a good list going here.

Edited to add: I've just remembered that Eugene J Byrne who used to do Havok 21 was talking about running a comics class in Dublin at some stage, but I don't think he's resident in Ireland any more so I assume that's no more.

Saruwatari

[QUOTE=Fysh;58603608Edited to add: I've just remembered that Eugene J Byrne who used to do Havok 21 was talking about running a comics class in Dublin at some stage, but I don't think he's resident in Ireland any more so I assume that's no more.[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, I remember reading about that on the Wolfman Productions website, I really wanted to go to that (that was some two years back though...)
Speaking of Havok 21, where can I pick up issues of it, anyone know?

ztoical

The blackbird gallery classes are being aimed at teenagers at the moment, they would just be evening and weekend workshops - the gallery recently relocated to a new building with two floors for its art lab but I've no idea when it will be ready as they've a whole heap of other workshops to plain as well.

regarding comic courses in Ireland there are none that offer any sort of accredited qualification at the moment. Alot of the irish comic book artists have done the animation course at Ballyfermot but Ballyer has also recently started an illustration course that might cover some areas of comic art - It only started this year though and will prob take another couple of years to get off the ground and find its feet. As mentioned Bob Byrne is or will be soon offering some comic classes that should be a good starting ground for anyone interested in the medium.

The DA thing looks like utter rubbish - what course would start in March? It says no where what type of qualification it is offering or through what body it is getting accreditation and why is it advertising via DA of all places?

David campbell who runs the 2D festival in Derry has started offering some cartooning course at the verbal arts center that are actually accredited. Off the top of my head I can't remember what the duration or the focus is but they've been expanding every year and I think it has something like a FETAC award attached to it but your better getting in touch with David and asking him - check the 2D festival website for contact info.

There are alot of options for courses outside of Ireland. Camberwell College in London has a good Illustration course [both BFA and MFA] that a number of good comic artists have come out of [like Sarah McIntyre who has an on going comic in the DFC] There are a number of very highly rated comic courses in France, esp in Angouleme and in Italy. Sekia University in Kyoto Japan offers one of the best comics departments, I know its Japan so people assume Manga and yes its called the manga department because that means comic in japan but I spent some time there late last year and you can do any style of comic you want. They offer a good one year resident program for non-japanese students and your level of Japanese doesn't have to be great for it [to do a full degree course you would need a very high level]

The Kubert school is ok but if your going to go to the effort of getting an F1 visa and pay the cost of an American school [its roughly $30,000 a year for just school fees, then you've housing and materials on top] then go for a full degree from somewhere like SVA [school of visual arts in new york] they have a 4 year BFA degree in cartooning/illustration and one of the most respected MFA programs in the USA. There is also SCAD down south that have a good comics degree course and of course the most recent and up coming one the Center for cartoon studies in Vermont.

magwea

Very few working professionals went to a comic college, indeed they are very new invention itself and surprisingly popular.

I know there are plenty of masters programs that have illustration and storytelling or graphic illustration around in Europe: England, France and particularly Italy. Might be cheaper then going to the states.

Thinking of going to funny book college?

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

Very few working professionals went to a comic college, indeed they are very new invention itself and surprisingly popular

This is often said when the subject of comic courses is brought up and while older comic artists didn't studied comics most have some sort of professional degree in art [either Illustration, fine arts, animation, graphic design etc] SVA has been teaching comics since the late 1940's so its not as recent as a development as some think [Steve Ditko co-creator of spiderman was a student there in the 1950's]. Alot of the comic book artists coming up now have studied comics - people like James Jean, Becky Clonnan, Dave Roman, etc I can name alot of cartoonists who have done well without training but I can name a hell of alot more who have done well who have the professional degree behind them.

The reason I would push people to look into an accredited course is that it is a very tough industry to work in full time in, the majority of comic professionals out there also do alot of illustration work, storyboarding, character/product design etc etc so it is worth having a degree behind you to get that work or to get something like teaching to cover your ass between jobs, it also helps alot when looking for funding, Ireland isn't great for it but some countries offer great grants for comic books and your on better standing with a degree behind then without. Also alot of comic book professionals got ripped off because they didn't have a clue about contracts and the like and any half decent college course will cover the business side of the art world.

magwea

Spend $30,000 a year for four years just in fees sounds to me like money that could have been better spent self publishing your own book.

Don't get me wrong though, i'd have loved to have gone to a higher level course in comics and learnt fromt he masters. The Vermont school sounds amazing, i would still doubt the usefulness of the whole thing.

The Indiespinner Rack's podcast on CCS Vermont is worth checking out.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

Spend $30,000 a year for four years just in fees sounds to me like money that could have been better spent self publishing your own book.

thats a different discussion about the state of the american education system - 30,000 for college in the US for any course is pretty standard, you should check what places like NYU charge. Plus most students would only do 2 years, they would go a cheaper community college to get rid of their humanities credits and only do required credits for their courses and go part time for senior year.

magwea

ztoical wrote: »

thats a different discussion

I don't follow how is this not a central part of making the decision to study in the states, I'd imagine you would have to decide it was worth the money or even value for money at all and indeed for many students it isn't.

ztoical

magwea wrote: »

I don't follow how is this not a central part of making the decision to study in the states, I'd imagine you would have to decide it was worth the money or even value for money at all and indeed for many students it isn't.

I didn't mean in the context of the OP but just within the general discussion of going to college to study comics, it was more in the context that it wasn't something unique to a comics course but to all college courses in the USA.

I've had both the cheap education going to Ballyer and paying less then 100euros per year and paying for an american education by going to SVA to study Illustration and I can say that I got alot out of both places but it does come down to each person and what they do with their time in college. The question was asked about comic book courses and from the OP I got the impression it was full time courses not a short 2 or 3 week course, I wasn't suggesting the OP go to america to study but they linked to the Kubert school which I would rate being well behind programs offered at SCAD, SVA and CCS.

I'm not sure what peoples view is of a comics course or what you think your going to be doing but its not a case of sitting around and reading and drawing comics - any course that wants to be accredited needs to inlcuded alot of required elements like Humanities and Art History, SVA has a junior thesis as part of its program. I learned silkscreen, etching, oil painting, watercolour, collage, as part of the course, there was ALOT of business stuff - taxes, contracts, book keeping etc, its like going to study any other area of the arts like Graphic design or Fine Art - if your going to say comics shouldn't be taught at 3rd level then why should any area of the arts be taught at 3rd level?

livingtargets

Saruwatari wrote: »

Speaking of Havok 21, where can I pick up issues of it, anyone know?

There`s a fair few copies in the comic shop on the corner of Crow St in town,if I remember.

And I`m just curious to know what people think of the Ballyfermot animation course?I`ve only heard good things about it but what do youse think?

ztoical

livingtargets wrote: »

And I`m just curious to know what people think of the Ballyfermot animation course?I`ve only heard good things about it but what do youse think?

It's gone down hill a little since they merged the classical and computer animation programs a few years back - it use to be two diploma courses CAD which was computer animation and DAP which was classical animation but now its one course CCHND but they actually kept the same work load of both course, which is alot as the DAP work load was already too much. You can't focus on one over the other you have to do equal amounts of both classical and computer. The course became a full degree course but its taken them a few years to work out the kinks. The equipment needs to be majorly updated but that was the case back when I was a student there - we were using amigas right up until my last year. They've only just started teaching flash and were running Photoshop 7 or something when I was teaching there in '06 But like I said this isn't new for the place, its always had feck all funding and made it work, mainly through the teachers working they're asses off. As ballyer isn't full art school [it has lots of different VEC courses] the college admin don't always do whats best for the animation course which has sometimes has been a pain. Theres been some new people coming in to teach as of the last year so it might be getting back on track.

I know that sounded very negative, its still a good course and has a good rep in the animation industry just not as high as back in the 80's/90's - I would rec at least doing the one year animation portfolio course ADS as you'll get a really intense year of drawing out of it and see massive jump in your basic drawing skills and you'll know then wither you want to go into the 2 year diploma or not.

Shelka

Dunno if this will help, but if you can't find a course, and you're into self education...

For the theory side: you could get a day pass to a college library and look for dissertations/theses that use comic books/graphic novels as part of their subject, especially fine art/fine studies/animation and courses like that...

There are a few really good history books out there too (maybe try starting with something like Tezuka and the development of the style of a manga page and the diagonal reading pattern). Look online!

For the practical: Not so good at this side but I'd say an extensive online search would kick up a few good draughtsmanship books aimed at comic-book artists.

Fysh

Shelka wrote: »

For the practical: Not so good at this side but I'd say an extensive online search would kick up a few good draughtsmanship books aimed at comic-book artists.

There's a lot to be said for what people can teach themselves using books - plenty of people have good things to say about "How to draw comics the Marvel way", for example, and there are several books on the subject by the grandfather of comics Will Eisner.

The problem with teaching yourself from books is that while you can learn from them and get useful tips on how to develop yourself, you won't get feedback of the kind that's really necessary for development and often learning how to be brutally self-critical for development and growth purposes is one of the things that people learn through going to college. A book can teach you the criteria for judging something in terms of draughtmanship, but it can never look at your work and tell you what you're doing right or wrong, much less offer insight on how to improve based on that work.

ztoical

Fysh wrote: »

The problem with teaching yourself from books is that while you can learn from them and get useful tips on how to develop yourself, you won't get feedback of the kind that's really necessary for development and often learning how to be brutally self-critical for development and growth purposes is one of the things that people learn through going to college. A book can teach you the criteria for judging something in terms of draughtmanship, but it can never look at your work and tell you what you're doing right or wrong, much less offer insight on how to improve based on that work.

+ 1 being able to self edit is something you find self taught artists have alot of difficulty with - you don't have to take a full college course there are plenty of evening and part time courses that can be of use. Life drawing being the main one, there are a number of really good on going life drawing classes around the country. We sadly don't have the system for continuing education you'll find in places like London and New York and we don't have the intern system that you'd find in France or Japan but there are few bits and pieces you can do and put together to get what you want. Just sign up to the Visual Artists newsletter to get updates on the different workshops taking place around the country.

I'm all for learning from books to a point but there are some things that you need to learn either from someone one on one, or in a workshop/classroom setting. I also have issues with books like the how to draw Manga series or the How to draw the Marvel way as they aren't teaching drawing skills they are teaching you a style and its better to have the basic drawing skills learned before trying to learn a style. All this stuff about 8 heads into the body, or how the face is divided up, take enough life drawing classes were you really study the body and you'll know those things just lead to stiff, uninteresting drawings with weird anatomy. Picasso is often waved around as someone who had very stylised work and ignored the basics but what people either forget or even sadder don't know is that Picasso was traditional trained and did alot of very standard work before he moved away from it. You can't start with a style, its something you need to develop otherwise everyones work ends up look the same.

erok

I don’t think there can be any question that the main skill of cartooning is drawing; and books abound for teaching yourself. Betty Edwards’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is just one of the better-known of the many books for generalists. Then there are a bunch of books geared specifically towards cartooning and several more on producing comics.

Formal learning environments have a couple of great advantages over self-teaching.

The first is formal critiques where skills, techniques and finished work can be appraised. The other big advantage of attending a course is meeting other students with whom you can share ideas; learning how other people do things helps you be critical of your own work and informally teaching other people how you do things helps you understand your work. (In my experience, doing all kinds of courses, I learnt as much (if not more) from my peers.)

The con of attending a formal course (particularly at university or college), is that you often have a lot of other stuff to do as well. This is all part of a rounded education, but if you are hell-bent on cartooning and nothing else, it can seem beside the point.

In all cases, the truism that ‘you get what you put into it’ holds good. You can teach yourself to draw to a pretty good standard (even without critiques or friends who are aspiring cartoonists) if you are honest about your work and your endeavour. I recently posted on the subject here, so I won’t repeat myself.

Jon Kricfalusi (of 'Ren and Stimpy' fame) offers an online drawing class here and tons of other material on his blog. He’s willing to offer critiques, but not without reasonable effort from participants. Actually, the best starting place for Jon's instruction is here. Regarding how-to books, there are some excellent lessons (available as PDFs) here.

The other aspect of it - the community aspect, for want of a better term - could be addressed by starting a drawing group or forming a graphic novel book club. (Incidentally, the Comic Creators Challenge could easily be re-purposed as a critiquing group, without much additional work, if all the contributors were willing to meet up and discuss their own and each others' work.)


Fysh referred to Bob Byrne’s proposed comics drawing and production classes; I hope they get off the ground, because that would be a great way to kill all the birds with one stone. Until then, sharpen the old 2Bs!

Cheers,

Erok
http://okerok.blogspot.com/