Our Superhero Selves

by Anna the massage therapist

Our classes just started at Goshen College, so I’m a bit behind on my review of Lorena Alvarez’s Nightlights. In the meantime, however, I have some fun student work to share with you.

I’m teaching a course on graphic novels this semester. The students are learning about the history of comics and graphic novels, and will create short graphic memoirs of their own by the end of the class.

Part of what we practice as a class is sketching rather than drawing, so that students can create the types of simple, iconic characters that help readers engage more fully with the language of comics. Scott McCloud, in his seminal 1993 work Understanding Comicsa book in comics form about how comics work—illustrates the importance of icons to visual storytelling in these two now-famous frames:

McCloud on icons and realism
Image from understandingcomics177.wordpress.com

Continue reading “Our Superhero Selves”

A Girl and Her Dog: Review of _Fetch, How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home,_ a Graphic Pet Memoir by Nicole Georges

First review for my new site below! And as promised, I’m also beginning to upload my archives from the Elkhart Truth. I was planning on starting with my most recent, from February 2016, but today’s news about Charlottesville prompted me to start in the middle of 2015 with John Lewis’s March: Book Two. Check out the archives links to the right if you’re interested.

A Girl and Her Dog: Fetch, How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home, a Graphic Pet Memoir by Nicole Georges

Nicole Georges and the cover of Fetch, from the Center for Cartoon Studies

Continue reading “A Girl and Her Dog: Review of _Fetch, How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home,_ a Graphic Pet Memoir by Nicole Georges”