Teach House Styles
by Dash Shaw
Thursday, November 5, 2009
I studied cartooning at SVA and recently visited CCS, and so how to teach comics has been fluttering around in my mind for a while. What follows is a suggestion of how to run a Cartooning BFA or MFA course, just a potential direction that I think would be worth considering…
Instead of hiring teachers based on their achievements (and many of the current teachers are geniuses, no doubt about it), hire people who previously worked for many years in a now-defunct house style. Someone who drew Archie for years and is now selling their originals at Comic Con? Hire them. Did they draw Hanna-Barbera comics for years? Hire them. Did they ghost draw a daily comic? Hire them. Look for people who knew exactly how to execute a project on a regular basis and know, completely, the ins and outs of that particular assignment. They know everything about how that unique (now outdated) comic job should be done. They lived it.
The courses would be titled their house style—Archie, Hanna-Barbera—or I also think it’d be possible to get someone who has an expert knowledge of something like Little Lulu or Nancy or Astro Boy comics. There would be no courses devoted to “tools,” no penciling or inking classes. People can learn that elsewhere, like in their foundation year drawing classes. When that separation of responsibilities is brought into the cartooning class it’s usually based on an American production model that leads to people struggling with a tool for a whole year when they’re naturally suited to something else. The house style comic courses would require all of the students to draw everything with the same tools: whatever students write with naturally in non-art classes, probably just a ballpoint pen and paper. Everything tool-wise is nuts-and-bolts, no weird “try a Conté crayon” moments or “how to use a rapidograph” lessons. That’s for other classes.
The entire year-long class taught by these teachers would be based solely on teaching their house style. This would do a number of things:
The critiques would actually make sense. The teacher knows exactly how these stories are drawn, paced, structured, etc. Most of the cartooning class critiques I’ve been in are totally scattered, surreal happenings where the teachers are alternating between talking about character design, inking, storytelling, whatever. All of the students have different goals, and they’re often showing four pages of a long project out of context. Believe me: Usually nobody knows what the hell is going on. Everyone having the same goal (example: to tell an Archie story) would level the playing field. The teacher would know what they need to do to make it fit the assignment, how the characters behave, and the students would, over the school year, slowly hone in on the target, critique after critique.
Personal style and originality would be put on hold. In our current cult of originality, the pressure is to have a personal style as soon as possible, and the classroom environments often have this mentality as well. Everyone is freaking out: “What’s my style? What’s my thing?” It’s too much too fast. This race for originality has, over the years, spread from that future-goal timeline to just after college to (now) inside college itself. A safety zone no longer exists. For the most part, hardly anyone is hiring newbies fresh out of college to draw in a house style and then expect them to grow out of it. If these classes are explicitly devoted to learning a specific form, the anxiety for uniqueness would disappear and everyone would breathe out and look at their comics. The college would be the safety zone and after they graduate they’d start doing their own thing.
The more outdated and inapplicable the house style is, the better. They only have the understanding; they’re not being bred for a specific job that currently exists.
These would be year-long courses, so students would devote a substantial amount of time figuring out these comics. Most cartooning courses are extremely rushed-through. That’s understandable, since if you’re trying to teach a general Cartooning course, there’s probably a lot to cover! But these wouldn’t be general Cartooning courses- they’re very specific. And focusing on a specific world of comics for a whole year, I think, would offer more than week-long (one class) samplings of different worlds.
Finally, and maybe this goes without saying, I think there’s a lot to learn from digesting these house styles I’ve suggested. Regardless of what kind of comics you’d want to do later on, it’s probably going to involve some of the same elements that comprise these house styles.
This is all based on the assumption that the students are there (and pay to be there) to learn something, and the teachers exist (and are paid) to try to teach the students things. If they don’t believe that cartooning can be taught, then they aren’t involved in this exchange.
Students will probably hate this plan because they’ll want to work on their own comics. They’ll be pissed off for Sophomore Year, start to do their own thing through/inside a house style Junior Year, and then maybe Senior Year would be open. I donno. I’m still plotting this thing out…
Labels: education
The problem with way too many mainstream U.S. comics is how they forefront shape and texture over composition and storytelling (95% of Vertigo and Marvel Ultimates being exhibit 'A'). As much as I like All-Star Superman, it does feel like a 'plod' frequently (not much sense of 'movement' for an inventive fantasy).
I'm not being nostalgic saying even the most run-of-the-mill Silver Age hacks had a much better grasp of telling an engaging story than many of today's 'star' artists. The better storytellers of 'alternative comics' tend to be the ones who grew up on Silver Age standards – like the Hernandez Bros and Dan Clowes (ie. they can 'move' a lot of information along with economy – something that Dan Decarlo and Jesse Marsh shared with Ditko and Kirby). The E.C. fetishists from the generation before them (like the Zap artists) tended more towards decorative impact.
One isn't necessarily bettwer than the other, but this is why different styles/periods/approaches need to be taught.
I wasn't dismissing 'ideas I don't like' – I'm just weary after years of too much 'me-me-me' indulgences without any sense of style, communication or discilpline. Its an educational approach I've seen encouraged too often in recent years. But I'm probably in a minority when I find at least half of any 'alt' anthology unreadable.
Guber
Okay, I hear you, Guber. A little thin-skinned of me.
I do think some distinction probably should be made between students who want to work in the mainstream industry, and those who are interested in something more personal. Sure, maybe that's a blurry line, but I do think different things motivate those two sets, and while the latter can certainly benefit from some craft and structural training, you're going to have a tough time convincing many of those kids to enroll in a program that essentially tells them to forget about developing their own ideas for a few years.
Well, there's a wider sociological implication about what 'education' means now – there's a place I worked where they ended up letting 'creative writing' be defined as hip-hop lyrics (an not much else to keep the kids happy).
I've got nothing against youth subcultures or indeed highly personal 'outsider' or 'underground' arts – but why the hell go to college to learn that? if you want to 'rebel' – it may help to know what you're reacting against.
I'm not even sure it broadens things out as much as narrow them – its like consulting four year olds on how we should teach reading.
Guber
But hip-hop lyrics are great…way better than contemporary poetry, for example, which does often get taught in schools.
And when's the last time you talked to a four-year old? I talk to my six-year old about what he wants to read and how he wants to be taught reading all the time. There's a back and forth, sure, but he's definitely involved and consulted in the process. And, yes, thanks, it's working quite well.
If you are trying to teach people something, it makes sense to consult them about what they want to learn and how. It's not the only consideration, but dismissing student input as egotistical or overly ambitious (which I think Dash comes close to doing here) is a quick path to bored students, irritated teachers, and no one learning much of anything (and ideally in the classroom, the teacher should be learning more than the students.)
As a self-taught cartoonist of only middling talent, I would leap LEAP at the chance to take a year long course in nearly any house style, just for the discipline and the chops I'd get out of it. I could do a year of Archie or Don Heck or Curt Swan, no sweat. Or Caniff, oo-boy.
Although truthfully, I'd probably prefer to do a year of Jaime or Guy Davis or some modern person whose work I feel more connected to, but I don't think a real connection is the point. Not to me anyway–the value would be in the discipline and the kinda zen focus on a style and the vocabulary necessary to deliver that style.
I've got nothing against youth subcultures or indeed highly personal 'outsider' or 'underground' arts – but why the hell go to college to learn that?
Well, you can go to college to learn drawing, composition, narrative structure, and so on. These things are of use no matter what kind of art you make. (Even the kinds of work you dislike!)
if you want to 'rebel' – it may help to know what you're reacting against.
Is it 'rebellion' to simply not be interested in mainstream industry comics? Honestly, I've never really cared for that stuff, but I don't think that makes me a rebel. Or part of a 'youth culture'. Or an 'underground artist'.
Noah –
I wasn't dismissing input from those being taught. What I am apprehensive about (I live in the U.K. if that matters) is how education is becoming increasingly ahistorical, decontextualized and limited by pop-cult trends in order to prioritise 'entertainmnent value' with students.
I'm speaking from experience, but when the students were consulted on what subjects they wanted to 'study' it was narrow and market-led (ie. sports, pop stars and whatever horror movie movie remake was out that week). Education should produce knowledgable and skilled adults, not reduce adult responsibility to childish whims directed by advertising departments. The worst example of this was teacher (desperate to be 'down' with the kids) who wrote his class hand-outs in text message abbreviation and slang that was out of date by the end of the semester.
This doesn't mean I'm dismissing pop culture as worthy of study (I studied it too) – but I'm weary of fads and personal indulgences being taught as the be-all and end-all of educational achievement.
Guber
I just got a stack of old Blondie comics. Man, I'd kill to have the kind of chops Paul Fung Jr. does. The pacing, composition, motion…everything is gold. You can tell he really loved and understood the basic mechanics of his craft. And drawing them in someone else's style forced a nice, rich clarity out of him.
And to comment on the topic (SORRY!), I think this would be a very good course. Not for first year students, but for juniors and seniors. You have to be a good cartoonist to be able to cartoon like someone else. The first few years would be foundation, and this class would be a good test, forcing the students out of their comfort zones/interests and focus on what makes a story really tick, appealing, and clear. With everyone working on the same characters/style/script, there would be very little competition. I wouldn't have the same guy teach the whole year, but have a different teacher each semester for comparison and contrast.
I'm not so interested in the comics at college subject, but I'd love to see a few talented and eager cartoonists get together and actually create work ( lots of it) in a bullpen/"house style" mode. Isn't that what we're really getting at here? I mean a physical studio, three or four regular titles, writers, pencillers, inkers, editors, etc., working together under one roof.
It's not like people working together on things a lot like comics is weird, you know? Why has auteurism become the standard? There's room for all of, I think— I think people are figuring that out, too. I see a lot less preciousness going on, and I like it.
It seems silly not to use different peoples skills in concert in order to get work out at a regular clip.
It's a pipe dream, yes, but it's not like working alone as a cartoonist is less ridiculous in terms of financial reward. I think it's more ridiculous, not only in $ terms, but in how not working with other people can really limit growth. Even if it flopped, it'd be a real noteworthy experiment.
I'd love it if Benjamin Marra's new imprint did something along those lines, if Frank and Dash worked out something like that.
Imagine the possibilities! I could rant forever about it; I just think the kind of comics we're talking about need to get over this resistance to the idea that while they might be art, they're also product. It's some kind of lame post punk ethic, or something.I like that idea, personally. I'm much more excited about approaching comics from that angle than getting some forced weirdness from cartoonists that are interested in presenting themselves as artists in the art college sense of the word.
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