MoCCA's May Comics and Cartoon Classes Starts May 2nd!

NEW YORK (April 5, 2011) - The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art - MoCCA - is proud to announce the May offerings from its Adult Education Department, organized and headed by Senior Vice-President of Education, Danny Fingeroth:

The classes:

HOW TO WRITE COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS
Instructor: DANNY FINGEROTH

ADVANCED VISUAL STORYTELLING: EXPANDING YOUR COMICS VISION
Instructor: PETER KUPER

MASTER CLASS SERIES:
LARRY HAMA (May 11)
J.M. DeMATTEIS (May 17)

About the classes:

HOW TO WRITE COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS
Instructor: DANNY FINGEROTH
4 sessions, MONDAYS May 2, 9, 16, 23
6:30-9:00 pm
$245 tuition | $225 for MoCCA members

DANNY FINGEROTH will lead a hands-on workshop in writing comics and graphic novels, suitable for novices as well as experienced writers. Combining lectures, assignments in class and at home, and roundtable critiquing, the class will cover writing for all kinds of comics, including autobiographical, historical, “indy” and superheroes.

Note: Please come to the first session with three “springboards” (short ideas for stories). We will choose one to be your project for the course.

DANNY FINGEROTH was the longtime group editor of Marvel's Spider-Man line and the writer of comics including Darkhawk and Deadly Foes of Spider-Man. He has taught comics writing at NYU, The New School, and Media Bistro. Danny created and edited Write Now magazine, the only how-to publication dedicated to comics writing and writers. He is the author of The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels and co-author (with artist Mike Manley) of How to Create Comics from Script to Print. He's also written the books Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent. His book, The Stan Lee Universe, co-edited with Roy Thomas, will be on sale in the summer of 2011. Danny serves on MoCCA's board of advisors and on the board of directors of the Institute for Comics Studies.


ADVANCED VISUAL STORYTELLING: EXPANDING YOUR COMICS VISION
Instructor: PETER KUPER
3 sessions: TUESDAYS May 3, 10, 24 [no class May 17]
6:30-9:00 pm
$185 tuition / $165 for MoCCA members

Join visionary comics artist PETER KUPER and explore the medium of sequential art and learn how to find outlets for publishing your own self-generated comics and illustration projects. There will be weekly assignments with in-class crit sessions along with visual presentations and demonstrations by the instructor that will expand your familiarity with the history and vast potential of sequential art. Students should have some experience creating comics and should bring one example of their comics work to the first class. [No art supplies will be necessary in class.]

PETER KUPER is the co-founder of World War 3 Illustrated and has remained on its editorial board for over 30 years. His illustrations and comics have appeared in Time, The New York Times and MAD, where he has written and illustrated SPY vs. SPY every month since 1997. He has produced over twenty books and graphic novels including The System, Sticks and Stones, Speechless and Stop Forgetting To Remember. Peter has also adapted Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and many of Franz Kafka's works into comics. His adaptation of The Metamorphosis has been translated around the world and is in high school and college curriculums nation-wide. He won the 2010 Society of Illustrators gold medal for sequential art and appears in 2010's Best American Comics anthology. Peter lived in Oaxaca, Mexico from 2006-2008 during a major teachers' strike and his work about that time can be seen in his latest book, Diario de Oaxaca. More of his work can be found at: www.peterkuper.com



MoCCA MASTER CLASS SERIES:
These extraordinarily accomplished creators each brings a distinct and strong point of view to the work they do. This is a rare opportunity to hear these top names in their respective fields speak about what makes for great work.

Individual sessions: $40 | $35 for MoCCA members

MASTER CLASS: PRINCIPLES OF GRAPHIC STORYTELLNG FOR COMICS
Instructor: LARRY HAMA
Wednesday May 11 (rescheduled from March)
7:00-9:00 PM
Admission $40 | $35 for MoCCA Members

Explores the process of getting the narrative onto the page clearly in a self-evident sequence of pictures. Main visual points of reference will be “Wally Wood's 22 Panels” and GI Joe: A Real American Hero #21, “Silent Interlude.” There will be a frame-by-frame deconstruction and analysis of “Silent Interlude,” an exploration of techniques, and a Q & A.

"Graphic Narrative/Comic Book Storytelling is much more than a series of pictures. With a career as writer, artist, and editor in every storytelling medium, there is none better qualified to provide both the novice and the professional with the successful basics and applications of both the art and the craft than Larry Hama.”-Michael Golden.

LARRY HAMA is a writer/cartoonist/illustrator/actor/musician who has worked in comics, TV, and film. He is best known as the writer of Marvel's GI Joe comics in the '80s, and as the writer of Marvel's Wolverine in the '90s. He is currently writing Barack the Barbarian for Devil's Due Comics and GI Joe: Origins for IDW as well as various animation and video game projects.
He has written, edited or drawn for such comics titles as Avengers, Blaze, Nth Man, The Nam, Conan, Batman, Wonder Woman, Bizarre Adventures, X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, and dozens more. His illustrations and cartoons have appeared in National Lampoon, Esquire, New York, Rolling Stone and various Children's Television Workshop publications.
He has worked in TV development on mini-series for David L. Wolper (Project X), and in animation and Internet gaming for Curious Pictures (Out of Your Mind, Jacabee Code). He has written episodes of Robot Boy (TV animation) for Alphanim, interstitials for PBS Kids, and direct-to-DVD material for Flickerlab (Aaron & Emily). He created the Marvel Comic Mort the Dead Teenager that was optioned and developed by DreamWorks. (He co-wrote the screenplay with director John Payson.) He co-wrote All Ages Night, a feature film about teens in a rock band, which will be seen on STARZ.


MASTER CLASS: OH, THE HUMANITY: WRITING SUCCESSFULLY ACROSS GENRES AND MEDIA
Instructor: J.M. DeMATTEIS
Tuesday May 17
7:00-9:00 PM
Admission $40 | $35 for MoCCA Members

While it's not unusual to see comics writers also work on animation or prose in similar genres to their comics work, relatively few work in different genres and media at the same time. J.M. DeMATTEIS is one of the handful of authors who have worked simultaneously and successfully on popular corporate franchise characters, surreal tales of fantasy, hilariously funny satire, and intensely personal dramatic material, in comics, and also in animation, novels (the non-graphic kind), and screenplays. In this rare teaching appearance, DeMatteis (with kibitzing and inappropriate comments by his longtime editor, DANNY FINGEROTH), explains what stories in all genres and media have in common: universal human characters and situations (also known as “heart”), and how you can use that fact to be more than a “one-trick-pony” writer.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, J. M. DeMATTEIS was a professional musician and rock music journalist before entering the comic book field. Although he's written almost all of the major DC and Marvel icons-including memorable runs on Spider-Man and Justice League-DeMatteis's greatest acclaim has come for his more personal work. The autobiographical Brooklyn Dreams was picked by the American Library Association as one of the Ten Best Graphic Novels, and Booklist, in a starred review, called it “as graphically distinguished and creatively novelistic a graphic novel as has ever been...a classic of the form.” It was also selected as one of the Top Ten Graphic Novels in Danny Fingeroth's Rough Guide to Graphic Novels. The groundbreaking Moonshadow was chosen (along with Brooklyn Dreams, the children's fantasy, Abadazad, and other DeMatteis works) for inclusion in Gene Kannenberg, Jr's 2008 book 500 Essential Graphic Novels, where it was hailed as one of the finest examples of the fantasy genre in comics. DeMatteis's latest projects include the fantasy novel Imaginalis, published in July 2010 by HarperCollins, and a variety of television and comic book projects. DeMatteis and his family live in upstate New York.

Unless otherwise indicated, all classes will be held at:
MoCCA
594 Broadway (between Houston and Prince Streets)
Suite 401
New York, NY 10012

For more information and to register, call 212-254-3511 or go to www.moccany.org.

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art - MoCCA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts education organization dedicated to the preservation, study and display of all forms of comic and cartoon art. The museum promotes greater understanding and appreciation of the artistic, cultural and historical significance of comic and cartoon art through a variety of events, exhibitions, and educational programs. The museum is located at 594 Broadway (between Houston and Prince Streets) in New York City. MoCCA is open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays from 12:00-5:00 pm. Suggested donation to the museum is $5 but free for MoCCA Members as well as for children 12 and under (when accompanied by a paying adult). For more information about the museum and MoCCA events, exhibitions and programs, visit the museum's Website (www.moccany.org).