Creating Your Graphic Memoir

In this video series, I'll show you loads about creating a graphic memoir. You'll see more than 20 master examples and complete more than 20 exercises to get us better and deeper into your own story. 

With these steps, you can go step by step from idea to completion and gather lots of tools and inspirations on the way.

I share my experiences in creating my recent full-length memoir, Rosalie Lightning ( http://www.tomhart.net/rosalie.html ), by showing detailed notes, sketches and drafts. That book was excerpted in Best American Comics 2015 by Houghton Mifflin and debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

The course is divided into 8 steps:

1. What Can Comics Do? Works cited: Smile, Raina Telgemeier; Theth, Josh Bayer; Epileptic, David B.; Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
2. Gathering Material. Works cited: King-Cat, John Porcellino; Silly Daddy, Joe Chiappetta; 100 Demons, Lynda Barry
3. Organizing the Story. Works cited: Kampung Boy, Lat; Nononba, Shigeru Mizuki; We Can Fix It, Jess Fink
4. Finding a Visual Style. Works cited: Graffiti Kitchen, Eddie Campbell; David Chelsea in Love, David Chelsea; Dance by the Light of the Moon, Judith Vanistendael
5. Choosing Storytelling Styles. Works cited: To the Heart of the Storm, Will Eisner; Fun Home, Alison Bechdel, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
6. Visual Language, Visual Experience. Works cited: Epileptic, David B.; Monsters, Ken Dahl, You'll Never Know, Carol Tyler;
7. Starting and Working. Works cited: How To Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, Sarah Glidden; Make Me a Woman, Vanessa Davis; July Diary, The Voyeurs, Gabrielle Bell
8. Working and Finishing. Works cited: Calling Dr. Laura, Nicole Georges; Maus, MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman; The Photographer, Dieder Lefevre, Emmanuel Guibert, Frederic Lemercier

In each step you'll take a quick look at three great graphic memoirs that exemplify the topic we’re looking at, and then you'll see an in-depth look at my approach to that step.

And then in PDF form, we’ll complete at least three exercises related to each step, drawing from those master memoirs to get us further along. The PDFs will also include an even more in-depth look into the process of creating my book.

So grab a pencil, call up those stories you’ve always wanted to tell, or that you’ve told but never drawn, and let’s get started.

Thanks for attending!

Tom