Center for Cartoon Studies provides guidance, space in creative process

The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) serves students committed to words and pictures, yet beyond that common bond, the end game varies.

Some pursue auteurship while others consider journalism and education. The school, in White River Junction, Vt., provides only the tools and an overseeing eye, leaving young cartoonists in command of what and why they draw.

Founded in 2004, CCS offers a two-year MFA program to art students interested in creating comic books. The school has received attention for its unorthodox focus — most recently in the documentary Cartoon College directed by Tara Wray and Josh Melrod. School co-founder James Sturm assures that past the catch, CCS is about dedication to a certain craft.

Logo for the Center for Cartoon Studies

He makes it clear that any creative pursuit comes with harsh expectations of hard work, rejection, financial burden and reflective questioning, but that it’s possible to work past these struggles and achieve a sense of satisfaction.

“You just have to produce,” Sturm says.

Eleri Harris, 29, recently completed her first year at CCS. She’s a journalist with five years’ professional experience. Accustomed to working “12- to 15-hour days” for a radio station, Harris says her first year at CCS hinged on ever-present deadlines and demanding assignments. It’s little theory and all practical.

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It could seem odd for a working journalist to move to Vermont and enroll in cartoon college, but Harris, with artists such as Matt Bors on the mind, has a strong interest in comics journalism. She sees the balance of text and image as a strong way to communicate issues and events, and ultimately comics will inform her work as a journalist.

Harris recently posted a piece online titled “Vote First or Die.” It’s a history of the New Hampshire primary, and it signals a direction she is keen to take.

Another student, Juan Fernandez, 23, sees comics as language. Back home in Pittsburgh for the summer, Fernandez works with the Computing Workshop, an organization that “provides educational opportunities for students and adults on the autistic spectrum.”

He’s found the visual grammar used in comics storytelling — including word balloons and panel gutters — cut away the sometimes-intimidating grammar rules associated with the written word. Comics make it easier for children with autism to share something, Fernandez says.

“They just have to show it,” he says.

Before CCS, he studied linguistics at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and Fernandez approaches comics in this context. He speaks of the medium with a tone of wonder and isn’t afraid to diverge into five different tangents when answering a question. But it’s all well-thought-out, and it’s clear that he sees comics as another language that hasn’t been entirely tapped.

Sturm says CCS is ready to enter “phase two” of its program. More and more students are coming to the school interested in “applied cartooning,” an area that strongly captivates him.

For Charles Forsman, a 2008 graduate of the school, CCS was a chance to find a calling. He dropped out of high school his junior year and worked odd jobs until finding the school in 2006. He always knew he wanted to pursue something creative, and CCS gave him both the focus and resources.

In 2012, he founded his own micro-publisher, Oily Comics, as well as began his own limited series, The End of The F***ing World, soon to be republished by Fantagraphics Books. Plenty of eyes are shifting toward Forsman, and he’s an active example of what CCS can offer. He says that if anything, the school taught him the importance of the decision.

“You really have to consider if this is something you want,” he says. “Because it all depends on how you perform, and if you don’t truly want it, no matter how great the school is, it won’t happen.”

Alec Berry is a Summer 2013 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about him here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.