230583 Graphic Storytelling (S) (SoSe 2009)

Comics have been a major genre in American popular culture since the end of the 19th century. Unlike films, comics do not aim to give an illusion of reality; they are a medium which selects, distorts, segments, exaggerates, and satirizes, offering revealing perspectives on society. In addition to examining comics as cultural phenomena though, this course will also be concerned with comic theory – and comic practice.
Today comics and cartoons are omnipresent in digital and print media. Graphics not only augment but indeed replace text. Some of the biggest American corporations (e.g. Google) routinely communicate with their customers through text-picture combinations. Indeed, the ability to create and comprehend combinations of graphic and verbal texts is a vital facet of contemporary literacy. Grasping how “sequential art” is produced is a necessary prerequisite to understanding how graphics enhance text, interact with it, and serve as essential carriers of information in their own right. For this reason, a major component of the seminar will be a practical course in comic-illustration, with which the theoretical and cultural components will be interwoven.

Professional illustrator Klaus Scherwinski (www.klausscherwinski.de) works for a wide spectrum of comic and game companies in the USA, Germany and England and is an experienced teacher of illustration and comic art.