[See all my activities & syllabi on the education landing page here]

In my Introductory Making Comics course CMX304, I do a middle of the term project I call the Visual Metaphor Comic. For this assignment, I have students try and create a comic where words and images co-generate one another. First, have a look at “This is Information” by Moore and Gebbie that we’ve looked at, then look at the following comics or pages by me: (see below for a PDF of these things)

• • Show of Hands http://spinweaveandcut.com/show-of-hands/
  • The Rabbit Page: http://spinweaveandcut.com/rocky-mt-comics-conference-and-rabbits-at-glc/
  • Maxine Says: http://spinweaveandcut.com/in-print-maxine-says/
  • Seeing Red/Feeling Blue http://spinweaveandcut.com/on-view-seeing-red-feeling-blue/and
  • the Rose page from Unflattening: http://spinweaveandcut.com/rscon5-visualizing-references-and-behind-the-scenes-sketches/
  • Moore & Gebbie This Is Information . One of the comics that most inspired my particular way of working – a six-page comic created as part of a 9/11 tribute book.
  • A quick overview in slides PDF

You are to make a one-page multi-panel comic where you select a single thematic element (along the lines of what I’ve done in the examples) to use literally/metaphorically throughout as a way of linking the piece together. A short way to think about is to talk about one thing in terms of another (i.e. talk about games by talking about rabbits, talk about democracy by talking about hands, comics as roses, etc.) Keep your metaphor running in some way for each beat of your narrative. Take this in whatever direction you need to – and have fun with it!

Metaphor Project (PDF): A quick slideset of some of my work to give you ideas to create your own visual-verbal metaphor comics! Download here.

Examples from my work (See in full at the links above).