Comics are two worlds: the visual and the textual. To create successful comics, one must balance these two worlds and mix visuals and text to create one distinct vision, one distinct voice.
My goal as a teacher is to give students the tools necessary to take an idea and make it a reality within the medium of comics. In whatever form a piece takes, whether it be a graphic novel or a comic strip, autobiography or science fiction, it is necessary to identify and address a student’s strengths and weaknesses, find what works and what doesn’t for each individual, and provide support and guidance as students make their way through their creative process.
Within comics, this means addressing everything and anything from page layout to narrative structure, tool choices to dialogue, and character development to word balloon forms. There are many choices to be made, and my role is to make students aware of the choices and possibilities by providing an understanding of the history and context of the medium within which they are working.