Kick Your Comics Practice Into Gear

Transform Your Practice, Grow Your Skills, Wisdom and Confidence

Don’t know what to do with those characters and ideas?

Want some help figuring out next steps?

Want to learn the amazing medium of comics in a fun, expert-led environment?

Do you want feedback, tricks, and guidance?


So much happens in ...

Our Mighty Network!

You can choose to post and share. in the vibrant broader network or in the exclusive community, where our fabulous students and rotating mentors including Jess Ruliffson and Tom and Karlo all build practice together.

Permission. Guidance. Focus.

Welcome to our Comics Flow Intensive Working Group!

If you want to tone and stretch your imagination, this is the place to be.

We're here to help you find your material, find your voice, with an audience of like-minded readers/creators.

I’m a #1  NY Times bestselling graphic novelist and I love to teach comics. I love to play comics games, I love to encourage and see what you come up with.

This ongoing group is the main place to get lots of resources to stay unstuck, and friends and peers to help you keep going.

I've curated the material, and the mentors and peers to help you have a terrific time.

There's plenty of room for you!

We publish anthologies two times a year!

You're invited!

Our new anthology In the News, Again is out now!

You're invited to be in our next one, on WHERE YOU LIVE.

In Flow + Publish, you get a chance to submit an idea to the editors Emma and Karlo, and work with them to craft into your final submission, which we will print in the our anthology.

Here's our  2022 and 2023 anthologies which can be found in our shop, and on Amazon


Work in FLOW to make your contribution to our next collection.

You also get access to our

Monthly Pro Calls!

Each month during June-December a professional cartoonist joins us, showing their work, discussing their career and art, and taking questions from the exclusive SAW community. You're invited! All you have to do is be a part of one of our exclusive groups.

Free Access to these Four Jumpstart Courses

“Permission to daydream for a minute or two every day, energizing that storytelling, daydreaming, creative brain. Each day for 30 days, I'll send a short new creative narrative prompt straight to your inbox. You can draw them on paper or visualize them in your mind. Either way, they'll get you energized for the day. ”

“Get your work seen, and make it better as you go. This little course will shower you with love and ideas, and we will do it as you do it... Getting good is about producing producing producing and getting better as you go. In public. Damn the torpedoes and damn the naysayers and give yourself a garden to grow. Don't plan. Invent. Don't script, initiate. Don't wait. No dawdling, and no fear - who is it serving? Only those that want to keep you down. In this course, we will rise.”

“Making our work deeper means asking the right questions... Let's go deep. In this short 18 video course, we'll look at more than 50 examples of beautiful and holy graphic works that have answered the questions that holy books have asked throughout time. Namely --> Who are the People? What is revered? Who are the others? What is reviled? and 14 more...”

“Your inner critic is killing you. Exercises and mindset changes to help you tame it to become an ally in your creativity.”

You'll join the exclusive Comics FLOW Group in our Mighty Network

What is Included

  • 18 Videos

  • 16 Texts

  • 67 PDFs

  • 1 Audio

  • 1 Download

  • 2 Presentations

  • 50 Hours

A Masterclass of Material

Every week is a little different. Potential topics and exercises are all bundled in the curriculum below, and it's always growing! We'll pull from these materials as needed during class time, but you're always welcome to dive in and look around.

This is a process course. Lots of playing, lots of trying new things, lots of seeing what’s developing. Some types of techniques and ideas we’ll play with:

  • new characters
  • personal material gathering
  • general structure
  • different tones of voice
  • visual metaphor
  • in-depth ways we can be compelling on the page
  • playful combinations
  • new visual languages
  • in-depth emotional content
  • and much much much more (I'm always surprised myself!)
I’ll be listening to your feedback and will provide different exercises and discussions depending on what themes or issues surface.

Past students of mine know that I’m quick to tailor exercises and discussions according to the needs of the group or even individuals.

It may be that some people need guided exercises and others want discussions and feedback. Both are always accommodated.

Want to see what real people are like? Want to see real people telling their stories? Want to tell your own? 

Want to make your comics come alive? 

This group will free and inspire you. Let's make your story happen!


Sliding Scale: Paying what you can afford helps others pay what they can afford...

Like a lot of our classes, we offer it sliding scale. Paying what you can afford helps others pay what they can afford, thanks!

Testimonials

“Tom brings everything I could have wanted to his role as mentor and impresario in the SAW graphic memoir group—enthusiasm, a sharp and critical eye, an intuitive grasp of visual and linear storytelling, and perhaps the world’s most exhaustive and affectionate knowledge of comics history. He loves what he does, and he exudes a genuine desire to help his students become the best comics artists possible.”

“I loved Tom Hart's course and being able to share with other members and ask for & give feedback about the work on a daily basis. Everyone is super willing to share and is generous with their time and ideas and helps to move your story along or call out things that may not work, or need to be clarified. Tom gives great insight as well, and he gives a plethora of great materials from pdf of comics and readings of everything form starting to visual style and storytelling through comics. Highly recommended!”

“This course helped me to clarify my concept for my graphic memoir, to get valuable feedback from Tom and classmates about my plan, and to workshop various ideas through the excellent exercises Tom provided. There was TONNES of material provided, more than I could actually sift through, but what I looked at was so helpful in so many ways. I loved the camaraderie and creative exchange in our group. I now feel more confident and knowledgeable about the graphic memoir genre, drawing the face and body, page composition, and voice, and ready to really start my memoir in earnest. Great to know also that the new course will allow me to come back in to get support when I need it. Thanks Tom!”

I've been there a million times!

It's ok to have bad days, creaky joints, and "bad ideas" !

But this group is like going to the gym!

You’ll love working with prompts, exercises and encouragement. 

In this group, you'll play around, test ideas and create images and stories. You'll hear and read amazing stories, tell your own, work on storytelling, get lots of great group feedback as well as lots of input from me, along with guided exercises and examples and wisdom.

F.A.Q.

So where does this happen?

Everything is on our MIGHTY NETWORK Community You will be given a link to the private area when you enroll!



It looks like a ton of material there. How do we go through it?

Yes, there is lots! 

We'll excavate slowly!

You can browse at any time you feel like a particular topic is what you need. You can always ask about anything in the class, but more common is that I will point to particular materials there, and have some or all of you take a look and work on the topics therein.

And I will introduce a topic or idea each week to play around with. You can choose to play along, listen in or do your own thing.


Is there overlap with the Storytelling Flow course?

This course comes from the same principles, that your ideas and stories are lying there waiting for you. 

This group and course is a more spread out, playful, long-term examination of those stories and ideas!

Every week, we'll try something new, or something old, or look at something that works and try our own version. 


Is there overlap with How To Say Everything?

A little, yeah! But we'll try lots of stuff not in that book too!


What if we're all at different levels or stages of our practice? How does that work?

It works great! I find this is a lot like a dojo; the experienced students get to deepen their understanding by guiding and assisting others, and those in beginning stages learn from a lot of collective wisdom!


What will you have us be doing?

We will try to guide us in the way that makes the most sense to us as a group. I will sometimes be directing your attention to the enormous archive of information, examples and exercises in the archives. Other times I may try something completely new...


Is there a free trial?

Yep!


Is a copy of the Storytelling Flow PDF in there?

Yep!


What if I don't subscribe next month? 

You have access to the materials AND the MIGHTY NETWORK Community by continuing to be a subscriber. 

The price always be sliding scale. And  you can change what you pay any month.

You will be removed from the private community when you're not subscribed; but you can rejoin and still have all your old posts available...


Sliding Scale? What Does That Mean? 

It means you pay what you can afford. You have the same access as everyone else. Thanks for paying what you can afford! 


Does Tom Hart really post and comment in the group? 

Yes, this is me! And the Mighty Network is the main social media in my life. I love being in there and watching people hit new heights and have new revelations. 

As SAW has grown, I stay mostly in the live programs such as the Graphic Novel Intensive or the Year-Long Program, but I still post and comment in Flow + Publish as much as I can be...  I have no time for other social media!

Our other mentors are curated by me and are very excited to meet you!


Any more questions? 

Feel free to ask  [email protected] 

Instructor(s)

Instructor Bio:

STAY INSPIRED

Tom Hart is a cartoonist has been the Executive Director of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a school and arts organization in Gainesville, Florida since 2012.

His 2016 memoir, Rosalie Lightning, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and was featured on many Best-Of-2016 lists.

His Hutch Owen series of graphic novels and books, were nominated for all the major industry awards. His The Collected Hutch Owenwas nominated for best graphic novel in 2000. He was an early recipient of a Xeric Grant for self-publishing cartoonists, and has been on many best-of lists in the Comics Journal and other comix publications. He has been called “One of the great underrated cartoonists of our time” by Eddie Campbell and “One of my favorite cartoonists of the decade” by Scott McCloud. His daily Hutch Owen comic strip ran for 2 years in newspapers in New York and Boston, and his “Ali’s House”, co-created with Margo Dabaie was picked up by King Features Syndicate.

He was a core instructor at New York City’s School of Visual Arts for 10 years, teaching cartooning to undergraduates, working adults and teens alike. Among his students were Dash Shaw, Sarah Glidden Box Brown and other published cartoonists like Leslie Stein, Jessica Fink,Josh Bayer, Brendan Leachand many others. He has taught comix and sequential art at schools and institutions all around New York City for more than 10 years, and has conducted week-long workshops from Maine to Hawaii. He also teaches sequential art in the School of Art and Art History at UF.

His website is http://www.tomhart.net

Tom Hart

Executive Director of The Sequential Artists Workshop

Instructor(s)

Instructor Bio:

Karlo Antunes, or Karr, is a Visual Artist and Editor based in Brooklyn, NY. He has been creating comics, illustrations, and self-publishing zines for over 5 years. He received his Bachelors in Creative Writing/Film and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida in 2017. His love for cartoons and narrative images led him to a Comics course at his university taught by Tom Hart, which later led Karlo to further his education in comics, illustration, and animation at SAW and SVA. Karlo has experience in script editing, art/layout design editing and coloring, book compositing, and clean-up work for Julia Wertz on Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City and for Papercutz/NBM Graphic Novels on titles such as Nickelodeon’s The Loud House, Monica Adventures, The Smurfs, Geronimo Stilton, and more. He is the founder and editor of an off-beat literary-art anthology called Bird Brained Zine Anthology, which he hopes will urge unconventional and underdog creators to keep creating.

Karlo Antunes

Instructor

OMG Remember, these come FREE

For your monthly sub, we welcome you to the studio...

Sliding Scale: Paying what you can afford helps others pay what they can afford...

Like a lot of our classes, we offer it sliding scale. Paying what you can afford helps others pay what they can afford, thanks!