First things first: the comic for later is PoCom-UP-001, which was a group/collaborative comic of enormous propotions. It’s a pretty slick flash interface, too. Scott McCloud used this in his talk recently as an example of his concept of the “infinite canvas” possible for comics on the web.
Second, some of you, especially those of you who have witnessed my pooh-poohing of the role of “visual rhetoric” in teaching, may be wondering why I’m interested at all in this comic stuff. Two basic reasons. First, while I’m still not convinced that overt attention to “the visual” has that much of a role in introductory writing classes (at least the introductory classes we have here at EMU because of factors that involve both the students and the poor access to computer lab facilities), I am very convinced it’s important in the advanced undergraduate writing class I teach all the time.
And comics play a role there because for the last couple of semesters, I’ve been teaching a simple comic writing/analysis exercise. This has partly been the result of Linda AK’s influence (a HUGE comic fan), and also because of Scott McCloud’s campus visit. Anyway, I came up with a comic assignment– here’s a version of it— and I think it has been reasonably successful. I’m set to teach this course online again this spring/summer (alas, not next school year though), and I’m planning on switching things up a bit. And I want to include some other “wacky” examples of comics.
Which is why I’m linking now.