It’s been a while since we last checked in with everyone’s favorite underground comics instructor, Professor Ivan Brunetti, who, when he’s not attempting to squeeze tenure out of The Daily Cross Hatch staff, is teaching our readers the way of the comix world, one syllabus entry at a time.

Since the visiting professor first started his course here, we’ve broached the subjects of terminology, sketchbook, and genre. This time out, it’s photography. In a word, don’t. in 191 words—well, you just have to click through the jump to find out.

–Brian Heater 

PHOTOGRAPHY

I suppose I should say something about photography; namely, please do not use it in the assignments. If, on your free time, you want to take photographs as a way to strengthen your compositional rigor, that is of course a wonderful idea. Snap away!

Unfortunately, in a comics class, the use of photography tends to be borne of laziness. It opens up a quagmire of theoretical questions about “what is comics” and turns attention away from the actual content of the story or from someone’s inability or unwillingness to “push the pencil” (which is probably wholly intentional on the student’s part).

We need not concern ourselves with these theoretical conundrums at these early stages of developing our cartooning ability, and photography just confuses matters. Besides, in the context of comics, photographs usually have a lurid, oily (one might say pornographic) verisimilitude that feels incongruous and wrong, like when you see an 11-year old girl walking down the street wearing leather pants.

I am perfectly willing to admit that someday a cartoonist may come along and prove me entirely wrong, and I would invite—welcome, in fact—him or her to do so.