Comics for People Who Can’t Draw!
with Aubrey Hirsch
Comics are great! They’re enjoyable to make, quick and easy to read, and people love to share them. But when I talk to writers who are interested in comics, they often point to the same roadblock that keeps them from experimenting with this fun and innovative form.
“But,” they say, “I can’t draw!”
I’m here to tell you that your fine art skills have very little to do with your aptitude for making comics. And how you (yes, YOU!) can make comics without any drawing ability at all.
In this workshop, we’ll identify main goals of comics artists and talk about the fundamentals of using art as communication. We’ll discuss ideas to work around gaps in artistic skills while still producing work that is visually compelling. We’ll also identify and practice ways you can leverage what you have to create a readable style that’s uniquely yours.
This workshop is for anyone with an interest in comics, and no special equipment or drawing skills are required!
Learning and Writing Goals
- You will learn about communication in sequential art and the fundamentals of successful comics.
- You will look at published comics and identify points of visual interest.
- You will learn how to use the skills you have to make interesting, visually-compelling comics for an audience.
- You will write and draw a four-panel diary comic.
Workshop Schedule
This workshop runs from 7-8:30 P.M. U.S. Eastern Time. The 90 minutes will include:
- Lecture: 20 minutes
- Discussion: 20 minutes
- Break: 5 minutes
- Comics exercise: 15 minutes
- Sharing: 10 minutes
- Q&A: 20 minutes
Student Feedback for Aubrey Hirsch:
When I taught with Aubrey at the University of Pittsburgh, we’d occasionally talk about the writing assignments we were giving our students. Aubrey’s assignments were always so imaginative and fun. I often stole them, and they were always big hits. Students loved and got a ton out of them. I’ve seen her give craft lectures and talks at conferences, and I often found myself wishing I could take a class with her. Even after I published a couple books. Robert Yune (author of Eighty Days of Sunlight and Impossible Children)
Aubrey’s workshops not only enlivened my work and my spirit, they gave me tangible, usable tools that I have been able to incorporate into my daily creative practice. She has the unique ability to encourage imagination and to help a writer learn how to deploy their imagination out there in the “writing world.” I think of prompts and feedback from Aubrey every time I sit down to write, and I find that my writing—and my whole self, really—is better having had her as a guide. Mike McClelland (author of Gay Zoo Day)
The environment that Professor Hirsch fostered led to more trust and risk-taking than I had experienced in most of my courses, but my greatest takeaway was watching how she encouraged, guided, corrected and refined us all. I realize she was teaching us by example how to do the same, as the expectation was that we were supposed to be growing because of one another, rather than alongside. Nick Barletta
