Comics from the University of Michigan - Flint

Yesterday I went down to Vault of Midnight comics in Ann Arbor to attend the in-store signing by Ryan Claytor's comics studio class at the University of Michigan - Flint. I always enjoy student work in a variety of fields because it's a chance to see people trying something new and different. And I especially appreciate when people are willing to put their work out there for other people to see.

By the time I got down to Ann Arbor, there were seven creators with seven books left. I put a good dent in my comics budget for the next couple of weeks by making a clean sweep at three bucks a pop. Here's a panel or two from each:

From Ew by Garrett Blondin

From A Small Collection of Comics by Chelsea Case

From Stars Beneath Stars: 3 Short Comics by James Barclay

From Tales of Marvinism by Marvin J. Dabideen

From Art in Sequence by Brian Hunt

From The Tales of T. by Travis Larkin

From The Extraordinarily Ordinary by Elizabeth Sevick

Each of the books contained three parts: an artistic statement a wordless comic, and another short comic. I saw a lot of Ryan's influence on the artistic statement sections in each. (Though that could also just be that Ryan's the only comics artist I know who has dedicated multiple books to exploring a theory of autobiography, so any comic statement of artistic self-examination is likely to remind me of his work.)

Not surprisingly, they were all a bit uneven, but all of them contained interesting images and cool bits. There were a few things that particularly struck me: Elizabeth Sevick's feel for facial expressions, Travis Larkin's storytelling in The Tales of T., James Barclay's "A Night in Amsterdam", and Chelsea Case's amazing anthropomorphic sponge, Gary the Loofah. I've read a lot of comics, but I've never see one that featured a loofah sponge as the protagonist.

Ryan also taught a class at MSU this semester, and he has both another MSU class and three UM-Flint classes in the Spring. If you get a chance to attend one of their signings next Summer, stop by and pick up a few. You'll see something entirely different, and the students can probably use your three beans more than the corporate overlords of DC and Marvel.