EXTRA
CREDIT WORK
Extra
Credit work, though not as important as fulfilling the core
requirements of our
course, is available if you are interested. Or, rather, it may
be
available, provided you meet the following three conditions:
1. That you maintain at least
a “B”
average in Class Participation.
This
means participating faithfully in
class, that is, being consistently present
and
actively engaged. You do not have to be especially talkative or
attention-getting
to maintain a “B,” but you do have to make it clear that you are aware
of and
interested in what is going on in class.
2. That you fulfill the core
requirements of the course.
This
means staying current with our
work and making a good-faith effort to complete and hand in every major
assignment.
3. That you confer with me
about the Extra Credit work beforehand.
This
means meeting with me during
office hours (or, if necessary, at another appointed time outside of
class) and
discussing your plans and hopes for the Extra Credit work. This way we
can
touch base regarding your ideas, I can give feedback and
recommendations as
needed, and we can settle on the scope and potential point value of the
work.
Also, this will allow me to anticipate your paper and set aside some
extra time
for grading it.
Due
to time constraints, each student may do only one
Extra Credit project. (Again,
fulfilling the
core requirements is more important.)
An
Extra Credit project is good for a maximum of 40 points (remember
that your semester grade will
be based on a 400-point scale). The amount of points offered
for
the project – i.e., the maximum number of points the project can earn –
will be
based on the scope of what you propose to do, but will typically be
between 20 and
40 points. The amount of points finally awarded will be
determined by the quality of the finished work (for example, 34 out of
40
points). Extra Credit work that does not meet the passing standard for
ENGL
396CO will be returned without credit or penalty.
HERE ARE
SOME SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR EXTRA CREDIT PROJECTS WORTH A
FULL 40 POINTS:
(1) One of the
key genres in alternative comics is autobiography. This
trend can be traced back to the pioneering underground comix
work of Justin Green, R. Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and others, out of which works
like Spiegelman’s Maus
ultimately
developed. In our course we will be reading Maus
and Marjane Satrapi’s
(2) Nonfiction
genres such as history, biography, and journalism have
recently become a major part of the comics
landscape.
Consider for example history-based projects such as Larry Gonick’s
epic Cartoon History of the Universe or Ilan
Stavans & Lalo
Alcaraz’s Latino USA: A Cartoon History;
biographical comics such as Jack Jackson’s Comanche Moon (about
Comanche
leader Quanah Parker), Chester Brown’s Louis Riel (about a
still-controversial Canadian revolutionary), or Ho Che
Anderson’s King (a newly released biography of Dr. Martin
Luther King,
Jr.); and Joe Sacco’s journalistic comics Palestine,
Safe Area Goražde, and The
Fixer. Ideas:
(A)
Read and review a work of comics nonfiction in light of another source
or
sources on the same subject, with special attention to how the comics
presents
or omits information (a 3 to 5-page paper); (B) Examine the critical
reception
of a work of comics nonfiction, looking at how reviewers comment on the
work’s
representation of facts and historical/cultural context (3-5 page
paper).
(3) Analyze
a comic based on (or responding to) a literary
work, in comparison with the literary “original” (3 to 5-page paper). Consider for
example:
Posy Simmonds’ Gemma
Bovery as a response to Flaubert’s Madame
Bovary; Paul Karasik & David Mazzucchelli’s adaptation of Paul Auster’s
City of Glass; Peter Kuper’s take
on Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle; P. Craig Russell’s various adaptations
of Wilde,
Kipling, de Bergerac, etc.; R. Crumb’s riffs on Boswell, Sartre,
or
Kafka; or R. Sikoryak’s ironic rendition
of
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment as an old Batman comic (!).
Note how
the comic responds to or sidesteps challenges implicit in the original
work –
in other words, how the comic rises, or attempts to rise, to the
difficulties
of adapting the original.
(4) Read another major comics anthology, such as Drawn & Quarterly Vol. 3, 4, or 5 (D&Q Publications), Kramer’s Ergot 5 (Gingko Press), or Rosetta (Alternative Comics), and compare / contrast its design sensibility and editorial principles to those of the anthology we are studying in class, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #13 (3 to 5-page paper).
(5) Some of the
most intriguing comics are without words: so-called
"mute" or "pantomime" comics, which constitute a
long-lived, diverse, and international tradition. Past masters of
wordless
comics include Caran d'Ache,
Frans Masereel,
Lynd Ward, Milt Gross, and Otto Soglow;
on the contemporary scene, notable wordless cartoonists include Eric Drooker, Anna Sommer,
Hendrik Dorgathen,
Lewis Trondheim, Peter Kuper, Jason,
and many others. Using as a point of reference David A. Berona's
essay, "Pictures Speak in Comics without Words" (in The Language
of Comics: Word and Image, ed. Varnum
and
Gibbons, 2001), discuss
in depth the visual narrative strategies of one or more
wordless comic books or graphic novels (3 to 5-page paper). (For a good
online
bibliography of wordless comics, click here; for
a
sampling of Berona's important work on
wordless
comics, click here.)
(7) Write
a review essay (minimum 4 to 5 pages) in which you
review three or four graphic novels not covered in class. Be sure to
give ample
attention to each book, but also strive to make your essay coherent and
well-focused, that is, united by some larger topic or question. Provide
copies
of the essay to everyone in class for their future reference.
(8) Give
an in-class presentation (circa 10 minutes) demonstrating
and discussing a substantial online comics
project,
i.e., a Webcomic. Be
sure to provide
context, URL and complete information about access (e.g., do readers
have to
pay?). Above all, show us how this Webcomic
differs
from what a comic on paper can do. Suggestion: read Scott McCloud’s
book Reinventing
Comics, visit scottmccloud.com,
and do some Web-searching to gain an informed sense of the larger Webcomics scene. (Note: Powerpoint
can be made available for this presentation, and hopefully in-class Net
access
as well, though download time may be slow.)
Feel
free to propose
refinements / changes to the above topics, or to pitch other ideas for
Extra
Credit work!
This page
maintained by Charles
Hatfield
Last updated 1 Feb 2005