Comics and graphic novels marry words and images to tell a story that leaps off the page unlike any other art form.

These illustrated narratives range from strips like Calvin and Hobbes, to traditional comic series like Watchmen and Wonder Woman, to book-length novels and memoirs like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s This One Summer, and John Lewis’s March. Yes, they embrace silliness and superheroes and serious literature—anything you can imagine is fair game.

Here you’ll explore how these stories work, focusing on the fundamentals of visual storytelling, as well as the way these images merge with words. Though you’ll be experimenting with illustration in class, no artistic background is required.