CCC: Group Narrative and Christian Southgate

Tyler Landry brings us an update from the Comics Workbook “satellite school” in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He shares one of the projects the Charlottetown Comics Club (CCC) has completed and introduces cartoonist Christian Southgate. (Learn more about the CCC HERE.)

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The Charlottetown Comics Club got together (5 attending members, to be exact) to do a group narrative project. The goal of this was to get each participating member familiar with using story cards as a method for churning out ideas, then editing that soft material into a good narrative.

All 5 members agreed on a general idea and each produced their own material. We then piled it all up and mixed and matched each others ideas into one solid 2-page spread. Emphasis was on creating clear connections between events – showing the necessities and trimming the fat. Then we did a pass on visual clarity, tweaking the layout, redrawing to better convey motion, etc.

After all was said and done, each member snapped a photo of “our” story, and took it home to draw the pages as homework. Yeah, I gave homework.

Our process:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Christian Southgate

Christian Southgate is a programmer by trade, but really, he’s a Jack of a thousand trades, and a master of most of them too. He’s been making comics since the dawn of time, for realz. In recent months he’s been drawing the epic tale of Reheat Raccoon at the Charlottetown Comics Club. Christian comes at you hard with gags and clever onomatopoeia, dressing up funny animal comics with a dark, squelching undercurrent. He also likes to eat cheese.

The tale of Reheat Raccoon has humble beginnings (below), but as Christian has been working with story cards over the last few months, it has grown into a sprawling misadventure.

 

See some of his process below:

 

Early days development (above) of a sequence in which RR thiefs a juicy steak, and gets caught in the act – VS – Later (below) concise edit penciled, complete with full-page roof-tumbling action. Notice the beats on the right page, even without the panel divisions, still respecting the same rhythm as the left page. Bold move, Southgate.

 

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We look forward to hearing more from the Charlottetown Comics Club! Tyler will continue to share work by members of the CCC, bios of these Prince Edward Island cartoonists, and details about more of the projects that the CCC complete. If you are interested in joining the club please email santoroschoolATgmail and we will put you in touch with Tyler.

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Tyler Landry is a graduate of the Santoro Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. His recent comics includes Vile 1: Cowards Hole, Vile 2: Lonesome, and Hermit Crab Real Estate. Get copies of his work HERE. Check out work in progress and other cool stuff by Tyler HERE. Keep up with the Charlottetown Comics Club via Tyler’s Instagram – @clavcity.

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