ABCs of Appropriation
with Josh Bayer
Course Overview
In this 4 week class, Josh Bayer (Unended, Utzy and Dusty, Theth) will help students make personal work emerge from out of a web of influences and reference points that precede them. So much of the work that excites us has structural DNA in preexisting properties whether it's Rick and Morty appropriating *Back to the Future*, a film like *Star Wars* or *Taxi Driver* basing themselves on *The Searchers*, Francis Bacon aping Velázquez and Van Gogh, or Alan. Moore using Charlton Comics as a leaping off point for *Watchmen*.
Price: $249
What to Expect
Weekly 2-Hour Live Sessions from 6PM -8 PM ET Mondays from November 2 - November 30, 2026
The key is to borrow elements in a tasteful, sensitive way that honors the original source. Bayer invites you to structure new narratives from older works and combine them with your own obsessions, insights and personal history, creating a blend of fiction, non fiction and preexisting fiction to create something new. This class is designed for artists wanting to help shape new books or restructure old ones, and like all of Josh Bayer's SAW classes, will help students with drawing and composing better comics on a fundamental level.
Calls will include live instruction, time to work on exercises, and feedback on work.
Class videos, audios, chats, and transcripts will be saved and archived for the duration of the course.
There is a small Mighty Networks component for this course. Sharing in the Mighty Networks, which is our host site for community interaction and sharing work, will be encouraged. However, most instructor feedback will be in the live classes.
About the Instructor
Josh Bayer
Josh Bayer (Unended, Utzy and Dusty, Theth) has worked as a graphic novelist, fine artist, and illustrator for over 20 years. He has served as an editor for the anthology “Suspect Device” and for “The All Time Comics” imprint from Floating Wold Comics and Fantagraphics.
Josh earned an MFA in Illustration and Cartooning in 2009, and has been teaching professionally since 2007.