Whenever I teach the class  TWRT 333: Writing through Comics at UWT, we have a Viewers Choice Awards in which students vote on which comics do the best job of mastering the moves we practice throughout the quarter. These comics– along with essays and other types of creative projects–are showcased in the quarterly online magazine that I have put together called Visual Life.

To read some of these great comics, check out Visual Life or go directly to the Best in Show Autumn 2022 and the Best in Show Summer 2022.

In the comics course, students need to compose a mini-comic on any topic they want to write about. We spend the quarter building worlds full of engaging characters that we get to follow through the course of a rich storyline. We experiment with facial expression and body poses as well as strategies for conveying time and motion. We also look at the history and business of comics to learn about who has controlled and created the stories we see and who is represented in stories–and how.

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