Students drawn to comics courses as respect grows

By The Associated Press

Published: December 23, 2007

CINCINNATI — As a fine arts graduate student in the early 1980s, Carol Tyler felt she had to hide her interest in cartoon drawing from teachers. An art form associated with comic books and comic strips wasn't considered college material.

Now a professional cartoonist and graphic novelist, Tyler began teaching the University of Cincinnati's first comics art class last year.

Other colleges also have started such classes as critical and academic respect for comics has grown. Courses that began in 2005 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are starting to draw professional artists and public schoolteachers. Monroe Community College in Rochester, N.Y., will start its first course this spring.

Applications have increased by at least 50 percent at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vt., which was founded two years ago and won state approval this year for a master in fine arts degree.

"Schools are now recognizing the creative and commercial value of comics,” Tyler said as she watched students outline their pencil drawings in ink, filling in sections with black or gray tones.

Some students hope to learn skills useful for advertising, film, video game or illustration careers. Some just enjoy comics; others want to produce comics or graphic novels.

Tyler's students learn graphic design, composition, lettering, layout and how to draw figures that convey emotion. She also tries to show them how to organize their thoughts to deliver clear and concise ideas.

Ben Towle, the director of the National Association of Comic Art Educators, said it's too soon to have hard data on numbers or where new classes are being taught, but the association is fielding many more inquiries about starting classes.

"There are a lot of scattershot courses as opposed to dedicated programs, but you wouldn't even have seen that five years ago,” he said.

Demand also is growing for established courses, and some schools have waiting lists to take classes.

The number of freshmen in the cartooning major at the School of Visual Arts in New York more than doubled from 2002 to last year.

Much of the credit goes to the emergence in the 1980s of graphic novels offering more complex and complete story lines for more mature audiences.

More schools also are studying comics as literature or creative writing in English departments. And although art educators and students say academic prejudice still exists, there are more academic conferences on comics, and libraries are increasingly carrying comic works.

"With schools beginning to realize that comics aren't just for juveniles and more students wanting this, I believe we'll see comics art classes opening up like wildfire in the next five years or so,” Lowe said.

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