Course overview
This course will introduce students to the particular narrative strengths of the still-image, sequenced, visual format used in comic books and provide perspectives on the directions of comic books in Australia. The course will discuss the developing distinction between comics, graphic novels, graphic narratives and cartoons. In doing so it will trace the history of cartoons as the basis for the first comics to appear in Europe and North America, will examine the first popularisation of comic books into serialised format in the USA and the later split between fictional and non-fictional comics. In addition, this course will briefly trace the recent proliferation of comic books into cross-media forms such as the Super-Hero franchise films and the burgeoning genre of animated documentary films. This course will provide a basis for students to produce and interpret their own comic books, scripts and story boards for films and computer games.