‘If you can draw it, you can do it’: fostering the next generation of comic book artists

Along with cosplaying, shopping for all things geeky and the chance to meet your favourite celebrities, Fan Expo also presents panels, workshops and other learning opportunities for attendees.

One of the creative activities you can try your hand at this year at the Toronto convention is drawing for comic books with The Kubert School from New Jersey.

“What we really specialize in is telling stories with artwork — narrative art,” explains school president Anthony Marques.

He points out that everyone’s favourite superhero stories seen on the big screen all trace their origins to drawings on a page.

“People see the movies and they forget this all started in a little comic book, a floppy periodical book that you pick up off the stands,” says Marques. “The beautiful thing about a comic book is that there’s no budget to an imagination. If you can draw it and you can think about it and you can write it, you can do it. A movie has a special effects budget, comic books don’t. If you want to have a character fly through the center of the sun and pick up the moon and throw it into another planet, they can do it.”

“You’re only limited by your own imagination and that’s what makes comic books the absolute best.”

Marques says they’re hoping to spark some of that imagination for Fan Expo attendees by holding skills labs for those interested in comic book art.

“The skills labs are a great opportunity for people to come by our booth … and sit down and talk with some of the instructors from the school and learn a little bit about how to improve their artwork, how to get better, how to take that next step to get closer to being a professional,” he says. “We look forward to helping people reach their goals, reach those dreams.”

They’re also hosting “creator catch ups” where industry professionals share how they developed their passion for drawing into a career.

“This way people that maybe want to get into the industry can learn a little bit of an inside way to get into it as well,” says Marques.

He adds that nurturing that next crop of comic book artists is a priority for The Kubert School, which offers both a full-time in-person program and online classes for people to learn at their own pace.

“The next generation of comic artists are really, really important. Our school is really built upon a legacy — when Joe Kubert founded the school back in 1976, it wasn’t just Joe — it was an incredible list of instructors and also those students that came in and paved the way for all these other artists to come forward and getting the industry going,” he says.

“And that’s what we’re still doing. We’re keeping that legacy moving forward and bringing up the next generation of artists, because those are the fresh storytellers. Those are the people that are going to expose everyone to great, great stories that we all want to read and be excited about.”