I like to get my nerd on. One of the really cool things about the internet – aside from funny animal .gifs on Buzzfeed – is the bottomless pit of nerdery. This year, I’ve spent countless hours getting lost on various subjects in iTunes U, Open Culture and Coursera.
This summer, I enrolled in a writing class on Coursera. It wasn’t on craft, but the basic mechanics of grammar, along with paragraph and sentence structure. It was a nice review on the basics, but also a nice intro to a MOOC (massive open online course), which I’d been curious about.
I got into it. I enrolled in a few more courses. One of which was Comic Books and Graphic Novels, from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
I fucking loved this class. Come on… a class where I get to watch PowerPoint lectures about Batman and study Alan Moore and Art Spiegelman? For free? HELL. YES.
In all seriousness, though, this was an interesting and entertaining class from an artistic and literary standpoint as well.
And I had to work. I wrote essays about Superman, Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb. I made a short mini-comic. Now that the class has ended, I’m posting that absurd, horribly drawn comic here for your amusement. It’s not a great comic, but I had fun making it, I learned stuff and I think it’s funny in all its ridiculousness.
However, keep in mind… while I may be somewhat capable of writing things, saying things, or doing things, I CANNOT DRAW THINGS. Like arms. I cannot draw arms.
Now quit dicking around and use the internet to learn something.