FREE #FridayNightComics Workshop about EXPLORING IDEAS for Comics with Lawrence Lindell!

Lawrence Lindell is an artist and educator from California that works in many artistic disciplines, including comics, music, illustration, and mixed media. Over the years Lindell’s work has focused on Queerness, Mental Health, and Blackness where the themes often overlap.

What does finished look like to you? Try to create and FINISH something, a panel, a page, a full-mini comic. When does it look FINISHED? How do you know? What does "finished" look like?

Did you know SAW is the NEW HOST of Believer Magazine's Friday Night Comics Workshops? Our first workshop is kicking off this Friday, October 22, with Cara Bean! This is a FREE event happening EVERY FRIDAY!

Work LIVE with Cartoonist and Adventure Time and The Midnight Gospel Storyboard Artist Derek Ballard to challenge your imagination and skills to develop new ideas and stories.

Weeklong workshop: October 18-22, 2021 with Emma Jensen!

Come to SAW's weeklong workshop to get creative focus! Jumpstart a new comics project, or get a wayward project back on track.

In the last few weeks, SAW student Donna Druchunas began hosting tutorial videos for Procreate in SAW’s main online community! Read on to see more!

This week, we’re sharing some words, thoughts, and work from SAW student, Jeff Eggleston, as he posted in the SAW Online Community!

See how Jeff spent his Labor Day last week.

Recent post excerpt from SAW Instructor Jess Ruliffson in our Six-Month Graphic Novel Intensive on process and creating “timeless and honest work that that sits on the waves of the shifting currents.”

Recent post excerpt from SAW Founder and Instructor, Tom Hart, in our Six-Month Graphic Novel Intensive on keeping characters consistent… or not. A discussion about the two extremes and the in-between. Read more.

Taking the chance to celebrate SAW in-person Alum, Miranda Harmon! The middle grade book she drew, 'Mayor Good Boy', came out this week with Penguin Random House! Woo! Don't forget to let us know about your comics wins in the big, bad world outside the network! We want to hear about it!

You Know You're a Graphic Memoirist When... What do you have to say? Check out this exclusive post from one of our ongoing Online Intensive programs: SAW’s Graphic Memoir Intensive (led by Instructors Tom Hart and Beth Trembley)!

An article Tom Hart shared recently in our Graphic Memoir Intensive on GRIEF and how it affects us physically, mentally, and who we are. Check it out here.

Planning in InDesign! (Tom's Thoughts)

We DO belong somewhere, but the "market" is cruel place. Very few belong there. I wouldn't recommend anyone try it, without a lot of research and planning, like wearing SCUBA gear… So, what should you focus on so you can sell your work?

PRE-ORDER! On What Matters represents some of the ambitious works developed during the online Year-Long Comics Certificate Program at the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) from Sept 2020 to May 2021. From responses to course exercises to deliberations on life and death and haircuts in isolation, it brings together the far reaching work of 26 different artists from around the United States and beyond.

I'm in Tom's Inner Critic course and tried my hand (and mind) at my Inner Critic interviewing me.

Have any of you tried it yet?

It was strange, but also very relieving. My inner critic is actually very easy to talk to!

I feel like thinking about these questions as if someone was actually asking me them and then answering them instead of just going straight into anxious mode helped me feel lighter. It was almost like self-therapy and it helped me detach myself from my inner critic.

Imposter syndrome, trouble drawing from my imagination, what do I have to offer, and time… does everyone deal with this?

Explore different types of narration in your comics, which styles do you tend to write in?

The Critic Asks:

“...Who do you think you are to try that, to do that, to attempt that, to show that...?

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” But the critic has no idea who you are. The critic only knows who you're not.

Our 2021 6 Month Graphic Novel Development Intensive is in its infancy but students are already diving into the material full blast and sharing themselves and their work with the SAW community. Here are just two of the talented artists in the 2021 Graphic Novel Intensive showcasing work they already contribute to the comics world.