Week Three: The Comic Strip

Over the next few weeks we will look at work representing various changes in the format of comics covering the last 125 years of the medium. Among our topics will be how sequential art has been shaped by the technology of its reproduction and its means of distribution. We will also consider how comics change and don't change when the format changes. We will begin by looking at the comic strip and its linkage to the history of the newspaper.

Google does Little Nemo, Oct. 15, 2012

This week you will need to read a sampling of comic strips from the course resource page.  As a general overview please read The Smithsonian Book of Comic Strips or the library. Please read at least some of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo, George Herriman's Krazy Kat,  Charles Schultz's Peanuts and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes is also highly recommended. You can consult the syllabus for recommendations as to comics strip artists to read. 

For your blog post this week you can write about any aspect of what you have read, as is the case every week.  If you are looking for a prompt for this week's writing you can discuss the defining characteristics of the comic strips you read for this week.

Also in class we will look at Winsor McCay as an animator.  Please watch some of his animations linked to the Activity Page. 

Here is a link to the Activity Page for this week.

The Following Week we will consider the history of the Comic Book. We will be reading work by Carl Barks and Herge as well as selected comic books in the Course Resources area.

If you haven't sent me a link to the URL of your blog, please do so right a way.