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What are the most important art universities?

What are the best universities for comic art/illustration?

  • I'm sixteen years old and my main thing is art--to be more specific, comic art. I've been doing a lot of research lately to find out what schools are best for my area of study, and I'm pretty confused! I've come across some good ones so far, but they lay half way across the globe. I reside in the Los Angeles county area, and plan on staying around here during college. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

  • Answer:

    Comic Art is commercial art. Neal Adams is one example of one great cartoonist with nothing more than a high school education. Any curriculum which emphasizes drawing, such as Painting, illustration or Art Education will be helpful. I would actually recommend against illustration, because it generally encourages you to "adopt" a recognizable style, while painting and art education encourage you to draw well -- several cartoonists have become more successful after they left strips where they drew one way and went onto strips where they drew another -- Howard Nostrand, Dick Briefer, George Tuska. Also do NOT limit yourself to cartooning. Current Prince Valiant artist Gary Gianni has done several beautiful volumes of Robert E. Howard stories in the recent past. Go to the bookstore and buy or order one. It's worth it. When I was growing up in the sixties I was an avid SF reader and I knew Gray Morrow more for his SF book covers (like for Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers books or Henry Kuttner's the Dark World) than for his comics. He later went on and did both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. A lot of artists, Adams, Jim Aparo, Sam Kweskin did advertising -- Kweskin reportedly owned his own agency in the midwest. People will hire you based on your portfolio, not on your degrees. The flip side of that is except for a very few lucky people, there isn't much of a career path in comics. Most of the cartoonists I knew who were most successful have ended up teaching at this or that art school.

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joe kubert school for comic art. its worth the plane trip. taught by pros in the same area as the 2 big companies. just google the name. i dont have the link. ---chris

chrisdealartist

Comic art is a lot different than illustration... comic has to do with story, and words AND pictures... why don't you go to the library first, see what you can learn there... Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and you're set... I don't think comics is a very popular subject for college (it's not "classical")... but you shouldn't have to travel so far just to take that sort of class... you don't even know if it'll be in depth. In contrast, looking up some books on the subject, especially the ones I endorsed, will teach you what you want to know, and by your own selection, too... Learning about comics, is not just taking a class with that name. There's a lot else that could go with it. Maybe, acting! Y'know aniimators, they're actors, they even have a book titled Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks... he was one of the first to teach classes on acting. But, before that, the big influence on Disney animators (at least), was Charlie Chaplin, and he even continues to be to this day... has somethin to do with empathy. I hear he used as influence of Wall-E... So I mean, if you just take a class on Comics, if it's just a generalized sort of thing, then it'll probably be broad... Oh, I don't know, never been to college anyway... You probably don't necessarily have to go to college to learn about art... I guess they just make you work hard, get projects out, and it's the experience too... But, I would advise you to just go to a college that has a program that you like, perhaps if it's very respected or specific... You can learn to be a comic artist on your own... It as a school is just a recent thing... Just learn from Neil Gaiman's graphic novels, the Sandman... he's an exceptional writer. Learn to write as good as him! Well I guess no one can. Yyou can just be creative, learning comics. You might have to worry about things, such as not being mainstream or something, but probably it'll work out... Why not learn figure-drawing, or writing, or color theory... Color theory... http://aperturequiet.blogspot.com/2007/01/john-ks-animation-school-revisited.html Sketch a lot, you won't have to take figure-drawing classes... I'm tired. Let me know how it turns out, what is tought in a Comics Art class?? Oh, this book called Film Art is also good. Talks about different angles, lighting, parallelism, methods for story-telling, good stuff...

Mary

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