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KC Carlson. Art by Keith Wilson.
by KC Carlson
Johanna outed me last week, over at Comics worth Reading, so I much better fess up.
MATC
Beginning in October, I will be mentor a six-week history of American Comic books class for the Madison area technical college (MATC) right here in Madison, Wisconsin. I was put in get in touch with with the institution via area artist Jeff Butler. He’s most likely finest understood for drawing The Badger with writer Mike Baron from funding Comics/First Comics, as well as he has been included with others in establishing a quite solid bit group of comic book as well as animation classes. He’s been mentor a number of different comics drawing classes for MATC over the past a number of years.
The Badger #4. Art by Jeff Butler.
After moving back to Madison last year, as well as bumping into Jeff at free Comic book Day this spring at Westfield, I approached him, wondering if MATC needed anyone to teach comics history or potentially composing classes. Within a couple of weeks, I was in get in touch with with the people at MATC, as well as I was authorized to begin in the Fall. We’re trying this history class to see what the response will be. If it’s successful, we’ll begin discussions about future classes on composing for comics as well as graphic novels as well as potentially more focused history classes, concentrating on specific eras or genres. however first, let’s get with this one.
This specific class will be 12 hours in length, including six regular two-hour sessions. The very first class begins October 16, 2013, as well as ends November 20. At this point, I honestly don’t understand exactly how much history we’re going to be able to cover. There’s at least 75 years of comic book history (over a hundred years, if we include the subject matter of the very first comic books — reprinted newspaper comic strips). I plan to survey the class in the very first session about what’s important to them, however I’m likewise adamant about including genres beyond superheroes. (They dominate comic book history however do not always define it.) This is the very first time I’ve done this, in this format, as well as I’m sure that we’ll be tweaking as we go along.
BUT WHAT DO WE READ?
High on the listing of suggested reading for the class.
Already, a few people have been asking me about textbooks. There are a great deal of wonderful books available about comic books as well as their wonderful as well as frustrating history. trainees going to the class will get a detailed (and annotated) suggested reading listing of lots as well as lots of important books about comic books, largely compiled from our integrated libraries. (My spouse Johanna has a Masters in prominent Culture, concentrating on comic book fandom. She saved all her texts, while I have been buying, collecting, as well as reading comic book histories since the late 1960s.)
What we don’t have is a single book that can act as an general textbook for the class. I want something that satisfies these requirements:
* must be an overview of comic book history from (at least) the 1930s to today.
* must cover all (or most) of the different comic book genres (horror, western, crime, humor, romance, etc.) — not just superheroes.
* must cover all (or most) of the major comic book publishers, all of whom have their own unique histories.
* must cover different formats, not just comic books, however likewise graphic novels as well as webcomics. (I’d state manga as well as bandes dessinées, however I already restricted the class to American comics.)
* as well as must still be in PRINT, or otherwise available.
I understand that such a book would necessarily be not able to cover all these topics in detail, however there needs to be something that provides an overview of all these areas. There are most likely close to a hundred different books that would fulfill part of these requirements: histories about eras, or characters, or creators, or publishers. (Those last are usually self-published as well as more “gift” oriented than historically detailed. Plus, they tend to whitewash the material about controversies.) We’ve got lots of great, extremely detailed genre studies. However, most are self-published, have restricted distribution, as well as are usually rather expensive. a few of the very best books about comic book history are long out of print, as well as potentially not quickly obtainable in libraries.
I’m not looking to bankrupt trainees by having them buy a great deal of different books, just to concentrate on a fraction of their general contents. I’m currently working with MATC for solutions to this concern, as well as I hope to have answers on this fairly soon. (Have a suggestion? Please get in touch!)
I’m secretly hoping that we’ll have fantastic rate of interest in this very first class, sufficient that in the future, I would be able to have more tightly-defined classes based on specific genres (horror, crime, superheroes, newspaper strips, etc.) or eras (Golden Age, Silver Age, etc.) or even publisher-based. With focused classes, it would be much easier to point to specific books.
In the meantime, please inspect out these little overviews of general rate of interest comic book history books that I composed previously for Westfield.
The Well-Stocked Comic book Bookshelf
Les Daniels as well as the early history of Comic book history Books
MY history IN mentor COMICS
This is not the very first time I’ve taught comics. Somewhere, there are about 12 people who took a multi-week minicourse on the history of Comic books at the university of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in the late 70s. They liked it so much that all of us stuck together later on as well as created our own comics fanzine, Comics Chronicles. (It assisted that one of the group helped a copy shop.) I believe we created something like 6 or 8 quite great problems before I moved away to begin my comics career at funding City Distribution, as well as ultimately right here at Westfield, where I’m able to sometimes share some comic book history with you.
Nowadays, Johanna often encourages me to contribute more history pieces at Comics worth Reading. as well as people like Westfield’s Roger Ash as well as speaking With Tim’s Tim O’Shea can attest that I can’t shut up when I’m speaking about comic book history. Both — as well as many others — have lost lifetimes of sleep trying to keep up with me after-hours at conventions. In fact, it seems that Tim has been skipping conventions just to rest up — or perhaps to prevent me completely! (Actually, he’s been extremely hectic in his real-life job.)
I have checked out as well as accumulated comic book history in my brain for over 40 years. It’s getting quite congested in there. Time to provide a few of that back. Or to pass it on.
KC’s going back to school
I’m going back to school! hope I have at least as much fun as Rodney did. (Not really…) If you’re in the area, hope to see you in class!
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KC CARLSON: What rhymes with comics?… Ba-Bomics?
Also… going to have to like apples a lot.