About SAW

A Space for Comics to Grow

The Sequential Artists Workshop is a 501 (c)3 non-profit grassroots comics school and creative community. We teach people how to tell visual stories and make comics in Gainesville, Florida, USA… and around the world via our online courses and resources.

In 2011, acclaimed indie cartoonist, Tom Hart, founded SAW to help aspiring cartoonists from all backgrounds, identities, and walks of life to make great comics. SAW’s Year-Long Comics Intensive is a high-quality, affordable alternative to expensive art schools. Over 1000 students have studied in our low-cost programs, whether at weeklong workshops, in evening classes, in our full-year comics intensive, or through our online offerings.  

At SAW, we help budding cartoonists discover their own path in visual storytelling. Students learn core comics techniques like storytelling, character creation, panel design, storyboarding, inking, and lettering.

In addition to an enthusiastic, supportive community of artists, resources at SAW’s headquarters in Gainesville, FL, include studio space, a well-stocked comics reference library, printing materials, access to exhibition spaces, and first-rate instructors armed with knowledge, talent, experience, and generosity of spirit.

Begun in Gainesville, FL, continued online.

After a profound personal loss, Tom turned to drawing and storytelling as a way to process grief. The resulting work resonated with many others, revealing something essential: creative practice can help us face what is difficult, and share it in a way that connects us to others.

Today, SAW online is a place where people come together to do that work.

Some students arrive with years of experience; others are just beginning. Some are pursuing professional paths; others are trying to understand something in their lives. What they share is a desire to make work that matters — to themselves and to others.

Tom says, “We use our art training to bring ourselves into existence. “

The story of SAW founder’s Tom Hart

I created SAW to be an alternative or supplement to art school, one with a small institutional foot-print to keep things intensive and affordable for the student.

I created SAW to be the school I could never find. When I was a young artist in the late 80s, I wanted structure, schooling, and mentorship, but couldn’t find it in the higher education art schools. Those felt like factories for a different kind of person than I was. What I wanted was a little weird. Who goes to school to tell personal stories in comics in 1987?

For 20 years I studied what it meant to be a cartoonist. I read the best work I could, and wrote, drew, and published the best work I could, I met as many people in the art form and industry as I could, and ultimately wound up teaching at the same art school I dropped out of 15 years earlier. I taught there for 10 years. During some of that time that I was nominated for numerous awards, had a high-paying job at a NYC advertising firm, and even helped relaunch the US 20-dollar bill.

In 2011, I moved to Gainesville and founded this little school. I left New York because I didn’t like the commercial nature of it. I wanted to go deeper into my art practice. I wanted to help others become artists.

When you come to SAW, you get an experience living among artists, in a supportive town, among other students who have come to SAW and haven’t left, and among teachers who are working every day,

Our board members include educators, past students, an activist for the Florida Springs, and many others who see SAW as a way of making the world a better place.

My belief had been and continues to be that art school should train us to be the people we want to be. We use our art training to bring ourselves into existence. A good art teacher teaches us to access our power and also to raise our expectations of what we can see and do. A good community keeps us accountable. A community is where we thrive.