Comics are brand new for me, so up until a few weeks ago, I’d never experienced a comics workshop. I have, however, lived through many, many writing workshops, and I can’t say they thrill me. A few have been helpful; some have been deadly, filled with mean-spirited meanies; most have been meh.

When you’re sitting in a circle with ten or twelve writers who speak in turn about the story at hand, a few things can happen: 1. Repetition. Sometimes this can’t be helped because there’s only so much to say about a particular story, yet everyone wants to have their say. Even if their say was someone else’s say ten minutes ago. 2. Tangents. These are creative writers, remember? Staying on task isn’t necessarily a major skillset. 3. Smartypants comments. Often, though not always, someone in the room needs to prove how clever they are by referring to obscure literary theories or devices, or going off on a very dry intellectual tangent. 4. Anger or hurt feelings—often on the part of the writer whose work is being critiqued. (Full disclosure: I’ve been told at times I come off as a nonstop talking smartypants, but lately I’ve been trying really hard to contain that part of me!)

I was thrilled to learn Nicole (and presumably Jesse—we’ll see!) uses the basic tenets of The Amherst Method, a kinder, gentler workshop form. That is, we share positive feedback first; any “criticism” is presented in as positive a way as possible. (There’s more to it than that, of course. You should read about it!)

Still, I figured the issues listed above with fiction workshops might apply here. Repetition, for sure. (Our class has 11 students.) Tangents, probably. Maybe some hurt feelings or a smartypants. Who knew?

Our first-ever workshopping session took place in Week Three, so most of us had only known each other for a short time. Nicole introduced the Amherst Method and the process called “going into the box,” which essentially means the author/artist can preamble a bit about the work (not much), then must remain quiet and “invisible” as the others critique the work. At the end, the author/artist comes “out of the box” and can comment or ask questions.

Each person received a copy of the comic to be critiqued and had a few minutes to review it. One thing should have been obvious but only hit me during that first workshop…comics are easy to read and assimilate. If you handed out even a 400-word short-short, people would want time to read and reread, make notes, linger over phrasing. But you can read a one- or two-page comic in a few minutes. Plus, it’s much easier to refer back to as people make comments. (That’s not to say you wouldn’t notice more if given more time, of course.)

I can’t recall who went first that night, but I do remember this: Immediately and spontaneously, we simply began a conversation.

One person spoke up. Others jumped in with their comments, seconded what someone else said, asked for clarification from a speaker—pretty much without being prompted by Nicole. No one tried to outdo another speaker; no one scoffed at what anyone said. I’m not sure if Nicole had meant for us to go around the table and each take turns commenting (I think she did), but we kind of just took off and she didn’t seem to mind. We talked over each other a bit, as happens in groups, but always the floor was ceded and everyone got their say. Nicole guided, when necessary, but mainly it felt like she was a fellow participant. Meanwhile, each author/artist remained happily “in the box,” with no hint of throat clearing or foot stomping or anxiety.

That way of conversing and interacting has continued through three critique sessions, and each time I’m a little bit amazed yet also giddy. I don’t know if everyone else in the room understands how rare this is, and I hate to even speak it out loud for fear of jinxing it. But for whatever reason, this group of people in this time and place makes for a pretty kickass workshop. And that makes me very happy indeed.

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Ah! But this post’s title does double duty, because our second workshop assignment was a relationship comic. Our story could focus on a specific incident or be generally about love. I went for the latter, and made it kind of a gag comic. (Funny to me, at least!) I also did two different layouts. Personally I like the second, more jumbly one better, even though it’s a bit harder to read.

The initial character (yes that’s a jumbled-up woman) was inspired by the Picasso dogs exercise from Drawing Lab by Carla Sonheim. I was way too pleased with myself when it hit me to use a photo of George Clooney as my indicator of hunkiness. I giggled all week.

[ADDENDUM 11/11/11: I should note for the record that I actually created the jumbly layout first -- not sure why I posted its photo second? But then I was reading about layout, gutters, and margins in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures and figured I should attempt a more "proper" page layout.]