A "Far Side" connected zine illustration lesson.
This lesson can be used anytime, but when I begin a new semester I need something simple, engaging, fun, and still maintains the depth I require in my lessons. The best thing about this exploration is that it keeps students on task, and there's always work for early finishers.
Exploring cartoons is always a hit, our Anime-loving students nearly cheer with excitement, but when I have done it in the past, the results were generally **blah** or boring. As a child of the 80s though, I was a huge fan of Gary Larson's Far Side series. I dug a bit I found THIS video below (bit.ly/FurtherSide) about his work, and it inspired this lesson. As students watched the video they wrote 5 facts about what they saw. I even leveraged Chat GPT to create a 400-word essay about Gary Larson which students read, underlined important facts, and wrote on the main points of the article. This is how I incorporate literacy into some of my lessons.
Exploring cartoons is always a hit, our Anime-loving students nearly cheer with excitement, but when I have done it in the past, the results were generally **blah** or boring. As a child of the 80s though, I was a huge fan of Gary Larson's Far Side series. I dug a bit I found THIS video below (bit.ly/FurtherSide) about his work, and it inspired this lesson. As students watched the video they wrote 5 facts about what they saw. I even leveraged Chat GPT to create a 400-word essay about Gary Larson which students read, underlined important facts, and wrote on the main points of the article. This is how I incorporate literacy into some of my lessons.
We explored the techniques Gary employs like including cross-hatching and stipple. We examined his use of space with foreground, middle-ground, background, and overlap. I created an illustration as a reference for students and pulled several samples from his website. Though his work looks fairly simple, it is actually rather sophisticated.
This was our overall workflow:
B&W Cartoons --> Crosshatching/Stipple --> Zines --> Publish --> Color
To start we looked at his work and analyzed what the "jokes" were about. We noted that some of his jokes were a bit "dark" and students thought that was "cool." For example, Larson has a cartoon* where a cow is cooking steaks to the horror of his nearby cow friends. As we reviewed his work, these were some themes students observed in Gary's work.
We used these themes to create our jokes by remixing them (easy to do), using parallel themes (not too hard), or applying his point of view to our own lives and experiences (more challenging). My school is an early college magnet school. Juniors and seniors begin taking classes to earn certifications in careers like nursing, cosmetology, HVAC, welding, bio-pharmacology, and game design. I offered a few extra credit points to students who could tap into those themes knowing we could create a zine the school might use for recruitment. (Promoting your own art program is important when you can.)
I reminded them about Gary's use of spatial techniques, and shading. I let them know my advanced class would publish their work using the copy machines on 11x17-inch tabloid paper. The series would be called "The Further Side," to avoid copyright issues with Gary’s series, and parody is covered by free speech. Because the copiers could only print in black and white, we could not use pencil gradients to shade. That technique did not print well. However, crosshatching and stippling worked great! With 50 students working on this project, we were able to create 8 zines. (500 zines, or 1 ream of paper)
We did 2 days of sketching on copy paper and then had a round of critiques, "punching up" the text, checking for shading, and the use of spatial cues. After peer edits were complete, I distributed better quality drawing paper that I cut to 8.5 x 11 inches. I also gave students access to a Google Document to upload their text to be printed, cut out, and glued into their illustrations.
The reason we worked on paper the same size as copy paper is that you can run a whole batch through a copier at 50% (48% is better if you can, on text setting, not "photo") then cut and layout work to be published as a zine on standard tabloid paper which also can be run through a copier; usually through the bypass tray (side bin). THIS is my tutorial on zines and shading techniques. I even created a digital download with directions HERE. I used Chat GPT to make our cover images, though that could have been assigned to early finishers to keep them on task.
As students finished their images and I ran them through our copier at 50% (48%) size for the zine, I copied them again on index paper or card stock at full size. This would eliminate white-out and pasted text strip edges, making images "cleaner." These were the papers my students colored with colored pencils, markers, or watercolors. Some students finished their cartoons quickly and had more time to explore color, while others lagged behind and only added some spots of color into their work. This flexibility helped keep students on task.
B&W Cartoons --> Crosshatching/Stipple --> Zines --> Publish --> Color
To start we looked at his work and analyzed what the "jokes" were about. We noted that some of his jokes were a bit "dark" and students thought that was "cool." For example, Larson has a cartoon* where a cow is cooking steaks to the horror of his nearby cow friends. As we reviewed his work, these were some themes students observed in Gary's work.
- Animals doing something they can't (*or shouldn't)
- Role reversal
- Distracted characters missing the point
- Puns and double entendre
- Unrecognized danger
- Asking "what if" (like; What if Picasso's faces were real to him?)
- What if "things" had personality
- Taking themes to the extreme or literally
- Characters forgetting something important
- Characters unable to do something they should
- Putting characters where they shouldn’t be
- Misunderstandings
We used these themes to create our jokes by remixing them (easy to do), using parallel themes (not too hard), or applying his point of view to our own lives and experiences (more challenging). My school is an early college magnet school. Juniors and seniors begin taking classes to earn certifications in careers like nursing, cosmetology, HVAC, welding, bio-pharmacology, and game design. I offered a few extra credit points to students who could tap into those themes knowing we could create a zine the school might use for recruitment. (Promoting your own art program is important when you can.)
I reminded them about Gary's use of spatial techniques, and shading. I let them know my advanced class would publish their work using the copy machines on 11x17-inch tabloid paper. The series would be called "The Further Side," to avoid copyright issues with Gary’s series, and parody is covered by free speech. Because the copiers could only print in black and white, we could not use pencil gradients to shade. That technique did not print well. However, crosshatching and stippling worked great! With 50 students working on this project, we were able to create 8 zines. (500 zines, or 1 ream of paper)
We did 2 days of sketching on copy paper and then had a round of critiques, "punching up" the text, checking for shading, and the use of spatial cues. After peer edits were complete, I distributed better quality drawing paper that I cut to 8.5 x 11 inches. I also gave students access to a Google Document to upload their text to be printed, cut out, and glued into their illustrations.
The reason we worked on paper the same size as copy paper is that you can run a whole batch through a copier at 50% (48% is better if you can, on text setting, not "photo") then cut and layout work to be published as a zine on standard tabloid paper which also can be run through a copier; usually through the bypass tray (side bin). THIS is my tutorial on zines and shading techniques. I even created a digital download with directions HERE. I used Chat GPT to make our cover images, though that could have been assigned to early finishers to keep them on task.
As students finished their images and I ran them through our copier at 50% (48%) size for the zine, I copied them again on index paper or card stock at full size. This would eliminate white-out and pasted text strip edges, making images "cleaner." These were the papers my students colored with colored pencils, markers, or watercolors. Some students finished their cartoons quickly and had more time to explore color, while others lagged behind and only added some spots of color into their work. This flexibility helped keep students on task.
| Project Worksheet PDF |
One thing I found interesting is that though some of my student’s artwork certainly “shined” technically, there were always some that struggled with art techniques but had very good concepts for jokes. This helped illustrate the real-world situation of partner illustrators. One comes up with the ideas, and the other uses their strengths to illustrate.
We displayed our final images in our school atrium the same day we distributed our zines. Each student received 10 to give out to friends. There were 8 different editions, so it was fun for students to try and collect them all.
We did end up with enough program area cartoons to create a special zine the school will use to promote our programs and recruit students. I also collected, what I felt, were the best examples into one zine titled "The Best of The Further Side."
What I liked about this lesson was that when a student finished one step a bit early, there was always something for them to do to stay on task, from creating an extra cover artwork, coloring with more and more detail, to cutting and folding zines.
We displayed our final images in our school atrium the same day we distributed our zines. Each student received 10 to give out to friends. There were 8 different editions, so it was fun for students to try and collect them all.
We did end up with enough program area cartoons to create a special zine the school will use to promote our programs and recruit students. I also collected, what I felt, were the best examples into one zine titled "The Best of The Further Side."
What I liked about this lesson was that when a student finished one step a bit early, there was always something for them to do to stay on task, from creating an extra cover artwork, coloring with more and more detail, to cutting and folding zines.
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