Comics

Comics is a sequential art form with a history stretching back to the nineteenth century and a contemporary vitality that encompasses superhero epics, literary graphic novels, manga, webcomics, non-fiction comics journalism, and a huge range of independent and alternative work. It is a medium that combines words and images in ways that neither could achieve separately, creating meaning through panel composition, pacing, visual rhythm, and the interplay of drawn image and written text. Comics have produced some of the most ambitious and critically acclaimed works in twentieth and twenty-first century visual culture, and studying them seriously means engaging with both the craft of making them and the theory and history of the form.

At Wrexham University, this three-year full-time programme includes a foundation year, providing a structured entry point into degree-level arts study for students coming from a variety of educational backgrounds. The foundation year develops core drawing and visual communication skills alongside critical and contextual knowledge that prepares you for the demands of the degree. Throughout the programme you will develop your drawing and storytelling abilities, working across different styles and genres, and you will study the history of comics and graphic narrative, the theory of visual storytelling, and the contemporary publishing and distribution landscape for comics.

Script writing, character design, page layout, lettering, colour, and inking are all skills you will develop alongside the critical and analytical frameworks that contextualise your practice. The ability to complete substantial sequential narrative projects is central to your development as a comics maker, and the degree is built around producing work as much as talking about it.

Graduates in comics work as illustrators, graphic novelists, comic book artists, concept artists, storyboard artists, character designers, and art directors in publishing, animation, games, and film. The sequential art and visual narrative skills the degree develops are valued in any creative context where story and image are combined. Postgraduate study in illustration, sequential art, or creative practice is available for those who want to develop their work at a higher research level.