The Sequential Artists Workshop 2019 - The Creating of a Comic School

the sequential artists workshop The Sequential Artists Workshop is a non-profit grassroots comics school and creative community. We teach people from all backgrounds how to tell stories and make comics.

What does that look like? A core component is a yearlong comics intensive that looks at everything from storytelling to drawing techniques, as well as comics history, character creation, page design, inking and lettering. These are offered in shorter, condensed forms throughout the year through week-long residencies, visiting artist events, one-day workshops, short courses, evening classes and online offerings. Since we started, hundreds of students have studied in our low-cost programs, taking advantage of this high-quality, affordable alternative to expensive art schools.

More than an enthusiastic, supportive community of artists, the school holds unique resources including studio space, a comics reference library and zine collection, risograph printing, and first-rate instructors armed with knowledge, talent, experience and generosity of spirit.

SAW brings celebrated cartoonists from around the world to Gainesville to lecture, teach workshops, and exhibit their work. We host art shows, draw jams, talks, music shows, and other events, helping to make Gainesville a vibrant oasis of creativity in the region.

Through a variety of online offerings, from courses to one-on-one instruction and comics mentorship groups, we’ve made the unique SAW experience available around the world.

bringing our selves into existence “My belief has been, and continues to be, that art school should train us to be the people we want to be. We use our art training to bring our selves into existence. A good art teacher teaches us to access our power, and to also raise our expectations of what we can see and do. A good community keeps us accountable.”

Tom Hart, Founder and Executive Director of SAW Tom Hart founded the Sequential Artists Workshop as an alternative or supplement to art school, one with a small institutional foot-print to keep things intensive and affordable for students.

Tom taught at SVA for 10 years. During that time that he was nominated for numerous awards, worked at a NYC advertising firm, and even helped relaunch the US 20 dollar bill.

He created SAW to be the school he could never find.

As a young artist in the late 80s, Tom was looking for structure, schooling and mentorship, but couldn’t find it in the higher education art schools, which felt like factories for a different kind of person.What he wanted was a little weird. Who goes to school to tell personal stories in comics in 1987?

In 2011, Tom moved to Gainesville and founded SAW. He’d left New York because he didn’t like the commercial nature of it. He wanted to go deeper into his art practice and help others become artists.

For 20-years he studied outside of any kind of educational system, learning about what it meant to be a cartoonist.Tom read the best work he could, and wrote, drew and published the best work he could, meeting as many people in the art form and industry as possible, and ultimately teaching at the same art school he dropped out of 15 years earlier.

Since starting the school,Tom has also published a number of books including his New York Times best selling memoir, Rosalie Lightning, and a number of instructional books on comics making. His personal comics making has continued with his latest strip, ‘B is Dying’. All this as he teaches and mentors hundreds of students every year through the year-long workshop, week-long workshops, online courses, ongoing forums and artists visits from practitioners around the country (and sometimes the world).

at a glance: who are we?

CURRENT STAFF

Mayerik (Punisher, Conan), Frank Thorne (Red Sonja), and Jeffrey Catherine Jones.

SAW has been built by a dedicated group of working cartoonists, illustrators and artists who are committed to helping our students tell their stories. We’ve had dozens of visiting artists and ongoing teachers, with a core group of teachers who have stayed throughout SAW’s year-long workshops over the last five years.

JUSTINE INKING)

ANDERSEN

(DRAWING

AND

Justine Mara Andersen is a comics artist with a rich teaching history. She continues the tradition of comics mentorship after learning from top names in the industry, including luminaries P. Craig Russell (Elric, Sandman),Val

Justine has worked as an inker and illustrator for DC Comics, Image Comics, Wizards of the Coast, Lucasfilm, and others. She struck out on her own to create the long-running series Mara, Celtic Shamaness for Fantagraphics.

JOHN RONAN (COMICS HISTORY) John Ronan is a comics history academic with a specialised knowledge in 18th and 19th century comics, from Gillray to Topffer, and the underground comics of the 20th century.

LEELA CORMAN (ILLUSTRATION AND PERSONAL STORYTELLING) Leela Corman is an illustrator, and award-winning graphic novelist. She self-published three issues of her minicomic, Flimflam, before winning a 1999 Xeric Grant to publish her first graphic novel, Queen’s Day. Her latest graphic novel, Unterzakhn, has been nominated for the L.A. Times Book Award, the Eisner Award, Le Prix Artemisia, and won the Best Anglo-American comic at the Rome Festival.

illustration, and storytelling challenges.

SHEILA BISHOP (STORYTELLING PERFORMANCE) Sheila Bishop has an MFA in theater studies and has taught theater, movement, playwriting, public speaking in Gainesville for 15 years.

ROXANNE PALMER (TEEN-TWEEN COMICS)

She is a contributor to Nautilus Magazine, The Nib, Tablet Magazine, Symbolia, and The OC Weekly. Her editorial clients include PBS, the New York Times, and BUST Magazine. Leela is represented by Wales Literary Agency.

Roxanne Palmer is a comics artist living in Gainesville, Florida. Her comics and illustrations have appeared in The Nib, The Toast, Newsweek, Narrative.ly, Symbolia, Modern Farmer, Speculative Relationships and other publications.

SIDNEY DAVIDSON (TECHNICAL DRAWING AND LIFE DRAWING)

OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Sidney Davidson is an illustrator based in Gainesville, FL. He has a BFA in Sequential Art and MFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. His editorial work has appeared in The Boston Globe, High Country News, and The Iguana.

Sidney has rigorously and analytically studied drawing, inking techniques, and composition for 12 years. He has a strategic solution-oriented approach to drawing,

Our board is made up of a mix of past students, local artists and committed patrons of Gainesville arts, including: Zannah Marsh, Deanna Zandt, Roxanne Palmer, Maxine Worthy, Lisa Klug, Margaret Tolbert, Nancy Hunt, and Erin Curry.

building our comics community SAW’s goal is to provide quality education to students dedicated to challenging themselves and learning interdisciplinary visual storytelling. Here in Gainesville, we aim to educate and promote comics literacy in our local community through outreach, partnerships and making space for a diverse group of artists, illustrators and comics makers.

We’ve worked hard to push the boundaries to reimagine what a comics community might look like.

PARTNERSHIPS From day one, SAW has sought to foster partnerships with existing community and arts organisations in Gainesville and around the country, sometimes the world. The following list represents some of those partnerships.

• The Doris Arts Centre, Gainesville

• E-line Media, online

• Satchels Pizza, Gainesville

• Harn Museum, Gainesville

• University of Florida, Gainesville

• Womanthology

• American Cancer Society, Alachua

• Florida Museum of Natural History,

Gainesville

• Atlantic Center for the Arts

• Swampcon, Gainesville

• Reitz Union, University of Florida, Gainesville

• Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, Gainesville

• Sweetwater Print Collective, Gainesville

• Will Eisner Foundation

• Alachua County Library, Gainesville

• FLA Gallery, Gainesville

• Gallery Protocol, Gainesville

• Gainesville CRA, Gainesville

• Civic Media Center, Gainesville

• Graphic Artists Guild of Gainesville

• University of Florida Student Council

• UF Lazinger Center for Education (UF LCE)

• UF Arts in Medicine Program

• UF Department of Architecture

• UF African Studies Department .

GUEST ARTISTS An important part of SAW’s ongoing curriculum has included visiting and guest artists who practice comics, illustration, animation and art, over and above our core instructors.

Since 2011 we’ve welcomed dozens of national and international artists to speak, present and exhibit: Derek Ballard, Caroline Paquita, Tom Galambos, Tim Kreider, Majed Badra, John Porcellino, Andre Frattino, Krissy Wilson, Corazon Higgings, Hilary Alison, Ian Bertram, Megan Kelso, Gabby Gamboa, Lark Pien, Jess Rulifsson, Gil Murray, Ron Rege, Pat Aulisio, Josh Bayer, Box Brown, Elif Ackali, Sarah Glidden, Fran Lopez, Kurt Wolfgang, Billy Simms, Rich Tomasso, T. Edward Bak, Marc Arsenault, Gabrielle Bell, Dash Shaw, Carol Tyler, George Pratt, Aidan Koch, Ed Piskor, Dylan Horrocks, Dave Kiersh, James Turek, Anna Haifisch, Max Clodfelter, Kelly Froh, Jen Sandwich, Laura Park, Mitsuhiro Arita, Metafrog, Thi Bui, Andre Frattino, Julia Gfrörer, Jessi Hamilton, Didier Viode, Fiston Mwanza, Jason Lutes, Nick Bertozzi, Leslie Stein, Emily Flake, Jackie E. Davis and Campbell Wyte

looking back: SAW in review 2012 SAW opened its doors in the January of 2012, hosting the first of many adult night classes. Tom Hart taught a range of classes in this first year from storytelling, to sequential art with teenagers at the Doris Arts Center in Gainesville.

In March, SAW hosted Tim Kreider and Majed Barda for a Political Cartooning Mentoring Summit, beginning the tradition of guest and visiting artists. This was followed by a week-long workshop taught by John Porcellino, which culminated in a group show of student work.

The SAW space was frequently made available to local and visiting artists during this time for exhibition. By August of 2012, we had hosted a long list of artists including Caroline Paquita, Tom Galambos, Andre Frattino and Leela Corman among others, as well as a large collection of student produced work from the year-long workshop, teen workshops and weeklong intensives.

Over this time we announced the beginning of an annual year-long comics intensive to start August, 2012.

At the same time, we continued adult night classes, teen and pre-teen classes, regular exhibitions, special events at SAW and partnerships with other community organisations.

In May this culminated in the first Professional Inking and Drawing class taught by Justine Mara Anderson.This class continues to form an integral part of the yearlong intensive and online curriculum. 2012 also saw the beginning of core workshops, such as the low-residency weeklong workshop, which opens its doors to repeat attendees.

SAW began outreach to artists, with microgrants for comics publishing.The first artists to receive this award were Julia Gfrörer and Jess Ruliffson.

Attendance at comics and zine fairs became a primary means of outreach and in September Tom gave a free workshop at SPX, the annual small press expo in Bethesda, Maryland. This crossed over into ongoing workshops with the University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History and the Harn.

2013

In 2013 SAW continued its commitment to working with local organisations, partnering with the annual comics festival here in Gainesville, Swampcon, as well as the University of Florida English Department’s one-ofa-kind academic comics conference.

We received our 501(c)(3) status, making our non-profit and community work official. An important part of this was offering sliding scale pricing for students for all our

courses, and our commitment to providing access to affordable arts education continues.

With this status, we also introduced the SAW board.

In the inaugural year we began with 5 members: Megan Kelso, Brian Brown, John Porcellino, Erin Curry and Margaret Tolbert.

2013 was the first year students graduated from the year-long comics intensive. In August, the second cohort started with an exhibition of their previous work.

Our exhibitions continued with artists including Gil Murray, Kurt Wolfgang and Billy Simms.

Our visiting artists included John Porcellino, Ron Rege, Pat Aulisio, Josh Bayer, Box Brown, Elif Ackali, Sarah Glidden, Fran Lopez, Rich Tomasso, T. Edward Bak and Marc Arsenault.

We were especially excited to bring Bak to Gainesville

and partner with the Alachua County Library for artists talks.

2014 2014 was another great year for SAW as we continued our regular programs, and worked to bring comics to new and different organisations.

Our year-long intensive workshop continued, while our week-long workshops brought a host of new artists to Gainesville including Dash Shaw and Gabrielle Bell.

Dash Shaw’s work was also offered in a free exhibition through our partnership with FLA. Exhbitions were a major focus, with a large-scale free exhibition provided in the Gallery Protocol.

In April we hosted Carol Tyler and worked to again assist the University of Florida English Department in

their annual comic conference. This partnership with UF continued later in the year when we brought artist George Pratt to speak to a group of over a hundred people and provide a free demonstration of his work.

2015 2015 marked the beginning of our fourth year-long workshop, and our fourth year of providing comics workshops in Gainesville.

We were excited to welcome visiting artists, Aidan Koch and Ed Piskor for week-long workshops. During Ed’s visit in April, we coordinated with the Civic Media Center to deliver a talk on the convergence of Hip Hop and Comic Art. At the tail end of the year, we brought Dylan Horrocks and Dave Kiersh to speak to the year-long workshop, both artists who have received considerable critical acclaim for their comics work.

In November we hosted German artists James Turek and Anna Haifisch, founding members of The Millionaire’s Club, an independent Comics and Graphic Design Festival. They spearheaded a comics reading program which brought to SAW avid students, professional artists, and the public for evenings of public art.

Over the course of the year we operated over two sites, adapting our programming to best utilise the spaces. In practice, this allowed dedicated space for our resources including the library, printing and computer stations, and art making studios.

2016 In 2016, SAW continued its calendar of workshops, visiting artists, art shows, and events partnered with community organizations, all in an effort to teach comics and continue public outreach.

Over and above the year-long program, SAW offered classes in silkscreen printing for our community members and continued the regular Low-Residency week.

We again welcomed six exceptional visiting artists.

Among them Aidan Koch, internationally recognised comics artist, returned for a week-long public workshop, attended by over 50 people. Aidan also gave a lecture co-sponsored with the University of Florida’s Department of Architecture entitled “Make a Tree A Forest”. Over 100 people attended. The lecture has been digitized and is available to view online, free.

Our exhibition calendar continued throughout the year with work from visiting artists, SAW year-long students, and participants from our short courses.

We also invited Jess Ruliffson to present her work in a public venue and teach. Previously recognised by SAWs micro grants, Jess’s practice has evolved to interview US veterans and tells their stories through sequential art.

Her workshops have added an unique and significant voice to SAW’s offerings.

The most significant event to occur during the 2015 school year was the transition and expansion of the school space into the Poole Building, across from Depot Park.

Other visiting artists in 2016 included the Tampa-based, and Society of Illustrators-featured artist, Jen Sandwich for a lecture and art show; cartoonists Kelly Froh and

Max Clodfelter, co-organizers of the Short Run comics convention in Seattle and Seattle-based art newspaper Intruder, came for a short residency.

Education (UF LCE) in producing a series for struggling readers with illustrations and comics for three books since 2016.

Collaboration with local community organisations marked a significant part of our year in 2016. Not only were we excited to work with other organisations, but also to address issues significant to the SAW ethos.

It was important to us to work with the University of Florida (UF) Student Council and STRIVE (Sexual Trauma Interpersonal Violence Education) to create a 4-page comic booklet to compliment a theatrical event about sexual abuse, trauma and the importance of sexual consent.

Our collaboration continued with the production of a coloring book about regional wildlife; a HIV-focused workshop and art show with the UF Arts in Medicine Program; an animated video about Asian elephant conservation; and a public booklet and map for the redevelopment of Depot Park.

We also collaborated with the UF Lazinger Center for

The well established tradition of artist exhibitions continued with a month-long show of the comic art of Leela Corman, a SAW faculty member; and five single-day shows as part of Gainesville’s “Art Walk,” a monthly evening of installations and events throughout the city.

2017 In 2017, our regular workshops continued, hosting visiting artists, organizing art shows, and partnering with community organizations to provide stories, comic illustrations, and narrative content.

Over the course of the year our classes included new and old workshops such as silkscreen printing, illustration, storytelling, and a new class for community writers, on top of our regular workshop programming. All were offered at a sliding scale in an effort to make community arts affordable and accessible.

An important innovation in 2017 was the launch of a variety of online courses. Many were first workshopped and piloted at our studio space in Gainesville, and the expansion of services helped shift our capacities to invite artists online and in-studio, and build on our existing infrastructure. These online courses have increased our web presence and our national and, more significantly, international standing in the sequential art world.

We hosted Laura Park for a week-long workshop. Her work has been prominently featured in a series of young adult novels written by bestselling author James Patterson. She also self-publishes her own work. Local media interviewed her when she presented her work in a single-day art show.

James Turek and Jess Ruliffson returned to teach semester-long workshops in story development and gouache painting, respectively. Ruliffson also taught a 6-week workshop on outdoor drawing.

Our low-residency guest artist was Sidney Davidson, a Gainesville-based artist who creates illustrations for many national clients; he returned later in the year to teach a semester-long class in technical drawing and has remained on staff teaching life drawing in the year-long workshop.

We were excited to host a number of international artists in 2017. Metaphrog, a Scotland-based writer/artist duo who creates children’s stories visited SAW and gave a talk to SAW students, followed by a public talk at the Alachua County Library. All the way from Tokyo, video game art illustrator, Mitsuhiro Arita, gave a threehour talk and life drawing session.

Our visiting artists also included a number of people a little closer to home. In May 2017, we hosted Thi Bui, the artist of the award-winning The Best We Could Do, who gave a free talk at a local community center, sponsored by SAW. Savannah (GA) artist Andre Frattino also gave a single-day workshop, co-sponsored by the Graphic Artists Guild of Gainesville.

During May, in conjunction with the University of Florida, we hosted a workshop on creating comics that draw

attention to HIV/AIDS and related public health issues.

It was followed by an art show in December, coinciding with World AIDS Day. Other outreach included,

• A sold-out comics program for local teens

over the summer.

• Workshops to theater camp students at the

Hippodrome Theater in downtown Gainesville.

• Collaboration with the Harn Art Museum to

produce a comic booklet for their show, “Show

Me The Mini”.

In November, faculty members Tom Hart and Leela Corman were featured guests at the Short Run Comics festival in Seattle; Corman gave a talk and Hart ran a workshop on Storytelling. During the year, SAW was represented by students and faculty at other conventions in Athens GA (FLUKE); Bethesda, MD (Small Press Expo); and Chicago IL (Chicago Alternative Komics Expo), while here in Gainesville we again opened our school’s doors for most downtown Art Walk events.

tion of existing creative organisations at the Tech Hub, opening our doors to our biggest space yet.The move has allowed one space to house all SAW’s facilities including the workshop space (with flexibility to modulate for perfomance and exhibition), the library, computer area, printing station, faculty space and additional studio space for students.

We offered classes in underwater drawing, farm animal drawing and offered a range of classes lead by local artists. Leela Corman taught “Drawing from the Depths” about achieving emotional depth in comics, running over the course of six weeks and returning for 12 in 2019; while Local artist Jessi Hamilton taught “Adventures in Drawing” over 12-weeks to a wide variety of students, ages, and walks of life.

In 2018, we hosted Julia Gfrörer for a week; her work has been published by Fantagraphics, the premier alternative comics publisher; and Studygroup, a comics anthology.

During the week she shared her work and practice, and worked closely with our students.

2018

Artist Derek Ballard spoke to the SAW year-long workshop about working in animation for the TV show “Adventure Time”.

2018 was a year of change for SAW. While we continued to offer many of our standard workshops, we changed locations, consolidating the sprawl of two sites into one main warehouse space. In August, we joined a collec-

In November, celebrated graphic historian Jason Lutes brought his 600-page historical epic to Gainesville. SAW worked with UF departments of History, Jewish Studies

and Europeans Studies to host a presentation and book launch. on campus and at Gainesville’s local bookstore, Third House.

Our premier project culminated in an extremely well attended public exhibition of SAW-produced comic art beside African comic art and African-American youth-produced comic art. It was held in conjunction with UF African Studies and a conference devoted to the comic arts. African artist, Didier Viode, and award-winning African novelist, Fiston Mwanza, were guests.

This signal outreach event emerged from working closely with the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Gainesville and the University of Florida African Studies department. Together, we organized two workshops in Gainesville’s Eastside High School. Viode and Mwanza joined Tom Hart in giving presentations, and these comic workshops extended into matters of racism and artistic expression.

An exciting part of this program was the celebration of the comic art of Congolese comic artist, Papa Mfumu’eto, whose archives were recently acquired by UF. The public art show exhibited art work created by the high school youth, alongside his work.

This opportunity to collaborate with other organisations and schools offered insight into creating critical educational events for youth living in Gainesville. We were especially

excited to share the power of sequential art in promoting strong, self-determined, critical images of successful artists who identify as African and work transnationally.

2019 2019 is far from over and we’ve already achieved alot.

Our primary focus was the development of our new space, expanding the workable area by installing a loft space that has been designated for staff and faculty use.

Our 2019 graduating class exhibited material in April as part of the annual Art Walk, giving way to a new group of students who have travelled from all over the United States, including Seattle, New York, Utah and within Florida, as well as further afield from the United Kingdom.

Seeking to utilize our digital reach, we coordinated with internet sensation Jackie Davis (AKA Underpants and Overbites) to bring an online conversation between Jackie and SAW Executive Director, Tom Hart. Using our online platform, the Mighty Network, we filmed a conversation between New York and Gainesville, opening up the group chat for questions from followers. The live chat was recorded and has been made available to view online. Given the success of the event, Jackie will be coming to Gainesville in March 2020 for a week-long workshop.

The digital theme continued with Emily Flake, New

Yorker cartoonist, generously returning to teach gag-cartooning online over the course of six-weeks.

She developed course content provided to students each week and joined them online to give feedback, discuss ideas and answer questions.

Our visiting artists in 2019 have included New Yorkbased artist, Nick Bertozzi, who presented to the year-long workshop; Leslie Stein, celebrated graphic novelist, who lead our March visiting artist workshop; Mike Taylor dropped into our Low-Residency week to talk about his comics and process; and Australian artist, Campbell Whyte, stopped into the studio on his way to SPX to share his process with our year-long students.

The core year-long subjects were supplemented by Leela Corman’s 12-week “Drawing from the Depths” course, open to both year-long intensive students and the general public. She returned in the second half of the year to teach an illustration class, focused on visual storytellling.

Our additional programs have so far consisted of various one-day workshops, a new comics for beginners course to soon be made availabe online and a sold out Teen-Tween class over the summer. We’ll be returning in early 2020 with a short-course for teens and additional programs throughout the course of the year. And that’s just the beginning!

looking forward Holy cow! We’ve done so much! And we’re just getting started! In welcoming a new board of directors we’re seeking to work collaboratively with our community to secure grants and other modes of funding to ensure our programs remain affordable and accessible to all.

As a part of our regular programs, we’re committed to continuing to bring engaging speakers and teachers to Gainesville. In 2019 alone Emily Flake, Jen Sandwich and Mike Taylor will be joining us in the studio. In 2020, we’re excited to bring autobiographical cartoonist Jackie Davis to give a week-long workshop. That’s not to mention the long list of informal events planned over the year.

Online, we are always expanding to offer more insight and opportunities for our community, with a special focus on our growing Graphic Memoir Intensive Group and digital archive of “Free Resources”.

We love what we do because what we do is help people speak and be heard. What we do is about literacy and communication, but also about compassion and empathy.

We teach people to relate to each other. We look forward to 2020 and beyond as a chance to further make the world a friendlier, wiser, and more accepting place for everyone’s story and life.