ISMA 305: INT. Narrative: Graphic Novel

This course emphasizes visual storytelling in all its complexities, exploring the infinite possibilities of how to produce meaning by the sequence of images and words. Focusing on the creation of these stories for an online audience, students will investigate how comics uniquely manipulate the viewer's sense of time and space, smell and feeling, narrative and place, through the use of transitions and juxtapositions. Projects examine narrative structures, material and technical strategies, visual research, self-publishing, and the fusion of text and image. Over the decades, cartooning has matured even further, and now the exemplar of the form is the graphic novel, which tells highly complex, literate stories, often taking on politically sensitive topics. Discussion will include a concise history of the medium and the rise of manga and the graphic novel. Students will be encouraged, however, to construct stories in whatever genre, style and medium they like, and to critically engage in the process.