Comics Go to College: Learn From Artist, Creator with New Series

(October 4, 2021 3:49 PM) Jackson College announced a set of events focused on the world of creating comics today,  Comics Go to College, a series of nine lectures with speaker Stephen R. Bissette, noted comics artist known for the “Swamp Thing” series from D.C. Comics. The series will be presented by Jackson College, Jackson District Library and Nostalgia Ink, and each session includes question and answer time with Bissette. Sessions will be offered free via Zoom to the community.

Illustrating Regional Cryptozoological Lore, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m.

Explore an illustrated overview of various approaches to depicting cryptids (i.e. Big Foot, Yeti, Loch Ness Monster, etc.) via illustration. It will feature examples from the author’s own work with New England regional folklorist Joseph A. Citro (The Vermont Monster Guide).

Lecture Registration Link

Pages, Panels, Ghosts, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m.

This lecture focuses on approaches to storytelling in the comics and graphic novel medium. Using the author’s own original short-form comics ghost stories as examples, Bissette dissects and discusses the basics of comics storytelling, including elements of page and panel composition and flow, and more.

Lecture Registration Link

Dinosaurs in Pop Culture: A Paleo Pop™ Primer (Part 1), Wednesday, Nov. 10, 7 p.m.  

This two-part illustrated lecture presents a chronological overview of prehistoric life (primarily dinosaurs) in the pop culture, from science-based paleontological reconstructions of prehistoric life forms (artists from Charles Knight to William Stout) to the wildest excesses of prehistoric-themed comics strips, comic books, science-fiction literature, and more.

Lecture Registration Link

Dinosaurs in Pop Culture: A Paleo Pop™ Primer (Part 2), Wednesday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m.

This two-part illustrated lecture presents a chronological overview of prehistoric life (primarily dinosaurs) in the pop culture, from science-based paleontological reconstructions of prehistoric life forms (artists from Charles Knight to William Stout) to the wildest excesses of prehistoric-themed comics strips, comic books, science-fiction literature, and more.

Lecture Registration Link

Manga before Tezuka, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 7 p.m.

This lecture provides an illustrated overview of the earliest forms of manga and their evolution, up to WWII and the rise of Osamu Tezuka’s revolutionary work which completely revolutionized and codified manga in new directions.

Lecture Registration Link

Pencil Me In (Graphic Medicine), Wednesday, Jan. 12, 7 p.m.

In this lecture, we’ll explore Graphic Medicine as an autobiographical tool for self-analysis and healing, offering specific examples of various young graphic novelists using comics to discuss their own health issues.

Lecture Registration Link

Comics Prehistory, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 7 p.m.

Where did the comics form come from? In this lecture, we’ll journey from prehistory to the late 19th century in an illustrated overview of the evolution of the art form, all prior to the rise of the popular comic book format.

Lecture Registration Link

Comics Technology 101, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 7 p.m.

In this illustrated overview of the various printing technologies that comics have relied upon for mass publication and distribution, we will explore the changes that arose from the beginning of print as an industry to the 21st century.

Lecture Registration Link

Early Afrofuturism & Comics, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 7 p.m.

This lecture provides a historical overview of the formative concepts & creators of Afrofuturism in American pop culture, culminating in the first Afrofuturist comics of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Lecture Registration Link

About Stephen Bissette

Bissette is a cartoonist, writer and editor. He is renowned for his work on Swamp Thing, Taboo (launching From Hell and Lost Girls), ‘1963,’ S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant®, co-creating John Constantine, and creating the world’s second ’24-Hour Comic’ (invented by Scott McCloud for Bissette).  Comics creator (recently in Spongebob Comics, Paleo, Awesome ‘Possum), illustrator (Vermont Ghost Guide, Vermont Monster Guide), author (Teen Angels & New Mutants, short fiction in Hellboy: Odd Jobs, The New Dead, Mister October), co-author (Comic Book Rebels, Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman, The Monster Book: Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Bissette’s latest includes Cryptid Cinema™, the ‘Midnight Movie Monograph’ David Cronenberg’s The Brood, the sketchbooks Thoughtful Creatures and Brooding Creatures, and co-authoring Studio of Screams.