After a lot of hard work is put into a project it’s always nice to take a big step back and admire what’s been created. The students in Camosun’s Comics and Graphic Novels program get to do this with their very own comics conference. The conference will feature the group of 15 students exhibiting their work as well as several experienced artists from the local community.
The program itself is relatively new and was developed over three years by artists and Camosun instructors Ken and Joan Steacy to set up a firm base for visual storytellers.
“Visual storytelling is the synergistic collision of words and pictures,” explains Ken Steacy. “We teach visual storytelling as a language in which the pictures and words are inextricable, so it’s different from an illustrated story where you could either look at the image or read the story to understand what’s going on. In comics and visual storytelling the two work together; if you took one out there’d be a lot of ambiguity.”
Ken Steacy says that this means students have to be on their toes with decision making when they’re making their comics.
“Our students are constantly making decisions about how they should narrate a sequence, if it is best done silently with just the actual character or if they need to have a character saying something or thinking something. There’s a lot of consideration on an ongoing basis when you’re telling stories.”
The event, which is the second annual conference held by the program, will feature a keynote speech from Scott Chantler, a Waterloo, Ontario-based cartoonist.
“It’s an excellent opportunity for the students to be mentored by working professionals in the community from both here and Vancouver,” says Ken Steacy. “We have 12 professionals who will be there on site.”
The program’s students have worked hard for the last six months taking courses on, to name just a few subjects, screenwriting, perspective drawing, and character design.
“We wanted to make the courses interesting, so we put ourselves in the students’ shoes,” says Joan Steacy. “We had to think about what we would have liked when we were their age in art school, what program and what stuff in it that would be really interesting to them.”
The students themselves say that they’re enjoying the program and that it’s pushing them… and they’re up for the challenge.
“I joined because I was using cartoons a lot of the time to explain myself and I was really enjoying that,” says Comics and Graphic Novels student Lisa Joe. “It’s a real challenge and it’s really shaking a lot of dust out of my grey matter.”
“The program’s been super fun and inspiring,” says another student, Erica Drake, who goes on to express her feelings about the upcoming conference. “I’m mostly excited. After, I think, there will be a time of relief and then there’ll be a time of satisfaction and accomplishment.”
Camosun College Comics Conference
Noon-5 pm Sunday, April 6
Third floor, Young Building, Lansdowne campus
camosun.ca/learn/programs/vist/conference.html