As I spoke about a few days ago, 2011 was a huge year for Comics Experience. It was also a huge year for me and my family. Most noteworthy for me was the addition of Oliver Nicholas Schmidt to our family on January 28th of 2011. He was born in San Diego and knows more about making comics than any of his peers the same age in the area.Of course, we also moved across the country this year to Rhode Island. Why Rhode Island? The weather! It was much too nice in San Diego. I like dramatic weather!
The big news for Comics Experience was that this year we offered more courses than any previous year and also had more students than any previous year. This thing seems to really be catching on!
We offered our perennials -- Introduction to Comic Book Writing, Introduction to Comic Book Art, Introduction to Comic Book Coloring, and Lettering and Production. All done online, live and with your course instructor right there with you (digitally). Being able to interact so directly with the instructors is key to the success of these courses. We added a new course this year: Comic Book Editing and Project Management which ran the second half of the year and was a big hit. I have to admit, I had been resistant to doing this course because I felt like it was too close to home for me. I wasn't sure I'd have enough distance from it to really do it justice. Probably in part because of that nervousness, I think it was a success. I was determined to make it really stand apart from any other class, not overlapping any of the material covered in the other courses and it went over very well. What a relief!
Another interesting thing that we found was that between the Creators Workshop growing, and more courses filling up -- EVERY CLASS but one sold out this year. We had more people taking multiple courses this year than ever before. They just kept feeding into one another. We also had our first two people complete taking every introductory course offered. Congratulations, Amy and Joe!It's been a very heartening thing to see the way people keep coming back and soaking up all the information and the fun in comics. And it's great to see that word of mouth still has a lot of power.
We're all very grateful to everyone who has taken a course, joined the Creators Workshop, retweeted our tweets, liked the Facebook page, and attended a convention panel. Thanks for your support.
And if it's the right time for you to start making comics, this month is the perfect time to jump in, with three courses beginning soon. There are only a handful of seats left for each of these courses, so act quickly!
Introduction to Comic Book WritingWe'd love to see you in a course or joining the Creators Workshop this year! Join us and start making your dreams come true!
with Andy Schmidt
Begins January 16, 2012!
Intro to Comic Book Coloring
with Chris "Soto" Sotomayor
Begins January 9, 2012!
Advanced Comic Book Art
with Robert Atkins
Begins January 12, 2012!
Happy New Year!
Andy Schmidt
Comics Experience Founder
January 4, 2012
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Now I see how the on-line classes work! Similar to a webinar. **Lightbulb over head** lol
ReplyDeleteRhode Island! When I was about to be processed out of the Navy an old salt said to me, "Request to be pocessed out in Rhode Island so you can avoid months and months of delays." (Because it was a much smaller base etc) It was a cheeky thing to do... but I made the request anyway. My skipper agreed!! And so I spent a lovely month in Rhode Island working in the Navy Justice School's law library. (Fascinating place.) I nearly froze to death though: October in Little Rhodey after four years in Sicily and the Middle East. EEEEEK!!