Aline the Alien collection for SPX

I remade this page for the new collection. I think it works much better than the first version. 

I'll be at SPX this weekend, at the Cartozia Tales table, L1-2A, and I'm bringing a small number of copies of this new collection of Aline the Alien Miscadventures. Catch 'em before they're gone.

Continuing Continuing Ed Continued

Rik Sansone's tribute to Gene Wilder

I teach in a lot of settings: undergraduate programs, elementary schools, community centers, ... and my clear favorite is always the Continuing Education market. There you meet adults with interests, careers, & life experiences that give immeasurable richness to the work they do in class. They arrive with varying levels of artistic ability, but the skills they have and acquire are put to great use. Moreover, they're people you're simply glad to have met.

Last spring, I was treated to the best Father's Day ever when my kids and I saw Noah Diamond's astonishingly hilarious, copiously researched resurrection of the lost Marx Brothers play, "I'll Say She Is." I was overjoyed to see that they had a comic book there about the history of the play and that it was by a former student of mine, Rik Sansone.



Rik publishes Spaz Comics. The Marx Brothers comic is available there for free download.



Nicolas Douillet's day job is with the United Nations. He's currently in Istanbul, hard at work on a graphic memoir about his time fighting ebola in Africa.

(c) Nico Douillet 2016

Illustrator Charles Truett is also busy, creating marvelous digital images.

(c) Charles Truett 2016

(c) Charles Truett 2016

Paul Centrone has been moving from cartoons to portraits. In my classes Paul created lovely comics about his character, Detlef:

(c) Paul Centrone 2016

Here are some caricature inflected portrait sketches Paul made at a recent performance of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Since I last checked in on Jeremy Fuscaldo, he's been moving in the direction of Cartoon Modernism:

And Earl Barrett-Holloway is blazing away at The Squid #4. Here's a teaser and a recent promotional design.

(c) Earl Barrett-Holloway 2016

It's supremely satisfying watching artists I've helped continue to develop their craft and get their stories out into the world. 

Time's running out to register for fall classes at SVA. Figure Drawing for Cartoonists begins Wednesday 9/21, Cartooning Basics begins Thursday 9/22, and Inking Comics begins Friday 9/23.

Continuing Continuing Ed is...              ...to be continued!

Life Drawing in Cartooning Class

Inking from the model

SVA employs such outstanding models, I can I hope be forgiven for stealing a little time to sketch while my students are working. Trying the assignments myself helps me tune in and give better advice.

Gesture drawing in ink

We work from models on 4 evenings in the Inking Comics course and 6 evenings-- every other week-- in Figure Drawing for Cartoonists. Each course involves different challenges, though some activities are common to both. Near the end of each course we do "pose requests": students take turns showing the model difficult poses from their comic projects for her to approximate. While we do that, in the Figure class, we also practice penciling for ink-- moving from construction lines in blue to tight pencils in black.

Moving from pencil to ink and lettering.

And in the Inking class, we practice drawing in ink wash.






And, as I'm fond of sharing, we do a popular challenge on Figure Drawing week 8 of 12, improvising comics from a costumed model. Mine turned out a bit wiggy this time (and pardon my language), but don't miss this earlier post of the marvelous comic student Daniel Schaffer came up with that evening.

Classes start soon! Figure Drawing for Cartoonists begins Wednesday Sept 21. Cartooning Basics begins Thursday Sept 22. Inking Comics begins Friday Sept 23. Come join us!

Continuing Continuing Education

Projects students undertake in my SVA classes often extend well beyond the conclusion of a course. Some recent examples:

Peter Shevenell's exploration of cartooning styles from the Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course is appearing in SVA's ads running this month in The Comics Journal.

Also from the Figure class, Daniel Schaffer's final project, a 3 page comic called "Hitler's Nightmare," is online this month in The Brooklyn Rail.

Last June, 5 former students-- Van Hong, Katie Surrence, Kevin Cooney, Kyle Rose, and the incomparable Kenly Dillard-- displayed their artwork in the halls at SVA's main building.












(Sorry about the blurry cell phone photos. Follow the links to see more from these artists.)

We're planning to do that again soon, there are so many amazing students I hope to feature.


I'm always happy to stay in touch. I count many former students among my friends and colleagues. Though it's been years since he first took one of my courses, Earl Barrett-Holloway and I still meet for coffee on occasion and go over pages of his kickass action/sci-fi/horror comic, The Squid.

That's the tip of the iceberg. Look for more student updates soon.
Classes are enrolling right now. Figure Drawing for Cartoonists starts Sept. 21. Cartooning Basics starts Sept. 22. Inking Comics starts Sept. 23.

Student Spotlight: Anne's Dream by Daniel Schaffer

I've blogged before about an exercise in my Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course where I have students improvise comics from a costumed model. Check out this outstanding piece of visual poetry from A+ student, Daniel Schaffer, combining his drawings with quotes from the Diary of Anne Frank:

Classes begin September 21. Figure Drawing for Cartoonists, Wednesdays, Cartooning Basics, Thursdays, and Inking Comics, Fridays. Come see me at the Info Session tomorrow, or email me with your questions: teemotley@gmail.com

From the Archive: Throwaway Ideas

I get so many of these that the challenge becomes finding fun ways to throw them away. Here's a set from the 1990s,...

...and allow me to repost this one from the same year...

...which was mostly highlights from this project from the 1980s,...

Acme Comics #9 wraparound cover by George Doro from a thumbnail I provided (if memory serves).

...when I got my friends making fake comic book covers which we crammed into our anthology. Editor Dennis Pimple appended an Acme Checklist with summaries of our fake comics. It was fun. Here are more of mine:

Any of these might have been a hit comic, right? Or not. It's probably more fun to imagine for yourself what each comic would've been like. Or not. Either way, I'm sitting on a bunch more of 'em and might toss them out someday. Or not.

SVA Summer Courses begin June 7!

This is the last week to enroll in my 2016 summer courses at SVA.

Here are more examples from one of the more popular exercises in the Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course, the one where we improvise comics from the costumed model.

I'm usually busy going around the room and hectoring, er, I mean teaching, the students as they work. But now and then I steal some time to play the game too, however slapdashedly. These examples don't quite gel into stories, but boy were they fun to do. More of mine are posted here, and here.

Come try this yourself.
Inking Comics is on Tuesdays during the summer session, Figure Drawing on Wednesdays, and Basics on Thursdays.