Comic Book Resources

SCAD Atlanta Comics Arts Forum Report

Murphy and Bernier

Back on October 23-25, the Sequential Art Department at the Atlanta campus of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD Atlanta) hosted a comics art forum with Sean Murphy (2003 SCAD Savannah graduate and artist on the upcoming Grant Morrison-written Joe the Barbarian for Vertigo) and Matthew Bernier (School of Visual Arts in Manhattan graduate and currently at work on a book for First Second). Since I'm a Georgia-based member of the Robot 6 crew, Chris Schweizer, a SCAD Atlanta professor and creator of Crogan's Vengeance, invited me to the forum.

According to Shawn Crystal, SCAD Professor (as well as one of the artists on last month's Deadpool 900 [Marvel]), SCAD's Comics Art Forum tradition started in Savannah years ago. Crystal selects the guests that are invited to the forum. "Every year, when I pick guests, I look to pick progressive/passionate artists. Artists who are doing new and exciting things, helping to move the medium forward," he said. "Our Atlanta Faculty throw names around until we settle on the best choice for that year."

Schweizer echoed Crystal's thinking. "When we arrange these events, we try hard to pick guests whose work (and approaches to their work) varies from ours, because it opens our eyes to new ideas, and it does the same for our students," he said.

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Talking Comics with Tim: Chris Schweizer

Crogan's Vengeance

Chris Schweizer is a creator that lives in my neck of the woods: Atlanta. I always enjoy the opportunity to support (albeit imported) local talent. I recently email interviewed him about Crogan's Vengeance (Oni Press), described by the publisher as  "the first in an ongoing series of adventure graphic novels spanning continents and centuries as cartoonist Chris Schweizer climbs through the various branches of the Crogan clan's family tree! Volume one of THE CROGAN ADVENTURES series introduces us to 'Catfoot' Crogan, an honest sailor who finds himself thrust into a life of piracy! Crogan never wanted to be a pirate and he never dreamed he'd wind up at odds with the most dangerous buccaneer ever to sail the Spanish Main! But there's more to this fight for 'Catfoot' than just staying alive, there's also CROGAN'S VENGEANCE!"

As noted at Schweizer's own site: "He received his BFA in Graphic Design from Murray State University in 2004, and did his post-graduate work in Sequential Art at the Atlanta branch of the Savannah College of Art and Design . . . he now teaches as a professor of Sequential Art and Animation at SCAD-Atlanta."

Thanks to Schweizer for an interview and thanks also to Oni's Cory Casoni for facilitating the interview.

Tim O'Shea: Your pirate tale really relies on strategy being conveyed in battle partially with dialogue and visually, how did you strike a balance that did not make it too detailed or not detailed enough, while still being entertaining?

Chris Schweizer: A lot of it was gut instinct and hope.  In some of the scenes where strategy came into play, I was very mindful of the potential to get bogged down in factual minutia.   I tried to combat this a couple of different ways - firstly, by giving the bare minimum amount of information needed to understand what was going on, making sure that once an idea had been put forth in dialogue that it wasn't repeated in subsequent dialogue.  The other was panel composition and subject focus.  Showing the different members of the crew in varying states of readiness rather than simply following the protagonist, Catfoot, around, bought me a little bit of extra reader attention during these expository battle preparations... at least, I hope it did.

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