Begin your graphic novel on the right foot
SAW’s star instructors will help you and your cohort get your graphic novel project started right.
Three months.
February 16 - May 11
What’s your story? How do you make it into a longform project?
If you’re ready to say yes to your story, then the SAW Begin Your Graphic Novel Program is what you need.
Our mission is to keep you from waffling, get pages done, and have 6-8 completed “sample pages” for yourself, or publishers, by June 2026.
Through access to unique learning resources, a vibrant community and regular special events with comics professionals, you will gain insights into what it takes to start your story.
Weekly calls combined with targeted exercises surrounding your story, and the process of making comics, will bring you closer than you’ve ever been before to seeing the final product come to light.
Here we bring together the combined wisdom and expertise of SAW instructors to provide you with inspiration, advice, critique, motivation and structured plan to begin.
Take a look below to take a peek at the schedule!
“SAW was pivotal in transforming me from an aspiring cartoonist to the real deal, and I could not have pursued comics professionally without the things I learned, feedback I received and community I built in the Graphic Novel Intensive.”
— Cheyenne Smith
2023 Graphic Novel Intensive Student
No more waffling.
Get started!
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No more waffling. Get started! *
Starts: Feb 16, 2026
We’ll do it together
Month 1: Explore image-text relationships, materials, storytelling basics, clarity, and experimentation.
Month 2: Discover your characters, story structure, and layers and confront “stuck-ness.”
Month 3: Discover the magic in your work, hone in on maintainting said magic, and dive into production and peer support.
Quick Course Overview
The SAW Begin Your Graphic Novel course is a 3-month guided exploration of the graphic novel-making process lead by Carly Shooster with the help of Hyena Hell.
Through live weekly calls, curated small peer groups, week-to-week course materials, dedicated online community and access to extra resources and events, students come out the other side with new skills to tell their story.
This course is great to take before the 6-month Graphic Novel Intensive or after for extra assistance with one’s project.
At a Glance
When: Feb 16, 2026 - April 15, 2026
24/7 Online in our activity community
with weekly live calls scheduled in the group
The calls will take place Fridays at 12 PM ET / 9 PT
Where: Online via Zoom and Mighty Network community forum (link sent upon sign-up)
Who: For anyone interested in working on a single, longform-ish comics project
Goal: A six-page series of sample pages for your upcoming graphic novel.
Cost: $649
Materials: There are no required materials in this course although instructors and students will make recommendations based on their own practice
Level: Beginner!
This course entails:
9 mini-assignments
13 calls
1 robust online peer community to share work
2 instructors
6-8 pages of finished, polished work
Countless resources
What’s Included
Weekly live calls with group and instructors
Curated feedback from instructors each week
Structured course materials
Dedicated online learning forum
Extensive package of archived calls, PDFs etc curated over 12 years at SAW
Peer community
Monthly Pro-Calls
Access to wider SAW community and resources
Discount for the 6 month intensive program starting in June
Together we'll work through the steps of BEGINNING YOUR graphic novel
The What of your story
The Who and Where of your story
The Why of your story
The Tools to begin
The Patience to start small
The Community of readers and learners to help you make it through
Pay in Full
Single payment of $649
Pay in 3 Monthly Installments
3 Payments of $229
Institutional Pricing
Do you have additional resources? An institution behind you, or wealth you can share. We ask that you pay our institutional pricing: $1399
Pricing Options
Payment Assistance
SAW is committed to ensuring everyone has access to quality comics education. If you require payment assistance, please follow THIS LINK.
Meet the Instructors and Mentors with a combined 100+ Years of Experience and 1000s of Pages of Art Between Them
Instructors + Mentors
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Carly Shooster
Carly Shooster (she/her) is a Jewish-American cartoonist based in Gainesville, Florida. She graduated from the California College of Arts (CCA) with an MFA in Comics in 2022 and has since been working on her debut Graphic Novel, Mamita, to be published by Fieldmouse Press in Fall 2027. Carly teaches kids and adult comics programs online and in the SAW studio and around Alachua County.
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Hyena Hell
Hyena is a cartoonist, illustrator and sometimes-printmaker. Her comics have been published by Silver Sprocket, Tinto Press, Birdcage Bottom Books, and her own imprint, Horror Vacui Press.
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Tom Hart
Tomis a champion of comics education who founded SAW in 2011 to be the comics school he never had. He has since released half a dozen graphic novels, instructional manuals and short comics, including his NY Times best selling graphic memoir, Rosalie Lightning.
Don’t just take our word for it
Testimonials from Past Students
Past Student Work
FAQs
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This program is focused on a single project, in an effort to gain steam and continue working on this single project after this course is over.
When you have some tools and a sense of your voice and project, then you are ready or this!
1. Do you want significantly more skills to be able to do comics "right"?*
2. Or do you just want to make your graphic novel happen?
*We put "right" in quotes because we believe everyone can make something stunning with what they have if they have the will and a support system.
The Year Long Certificate Program: When you really really want to up your skills to something more akin to what you see in the graphic novel aisle of the bookstore or library you go to. We teach an amalgam of skills including anatomy, landscape drawing, composition, color/value placement, character design, etc.
This will help you find your voice to create your own comics from start to finish.
After that, we often recommend the Graphic Novel Intensive for: Wisdom, project management, working skills, and mentorship- that's what the Graphic Novel program is about.
Of course your path may be different. We've had people do only one of them. We've had people do them in reverse order.
We're here to help you get YOUR comics made! -
No! We understand (boy, do we!) how hard it is to START.
But you should have some idea of what the project is, and be eager to start. We will hold you accountable, but YOU have to do the work. Accountability, group discussion and critique is a lot of what this program is about.
We will ask you to show up, again and again and again. -
The time commitment is entirely up to you. As with most programs of this kind, the people that get the most out of it put the most in. You have to find a rhythm that works for you. As for interacting in the group, you can get away with as little or as much as you like as well. There is at least one zoom call each week that generally runs for 2 hours and functions as an informal check in with instructors and peers. As the course progresses there can be additional one on one check ins.
We recommend spending 3 to 5 additional hours each week actually working on your project in order to make significant progress by the end of the 3 months.
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Asynchronous: The online community is open 24/7 and the instructors will be in it daily.
Live: We meet weekly via Zoom. At least one instructor, sometimes two, will be on each of these, with one call per month featuring a professional cartoonist, editor or creator.
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Calls will take place Fridays at 12 PM EST.
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There is no materials list. This course is for people working on something in a medium they are comfortable with. For people who are looking to change their practice, we can help them figure out the best materials to help them reach their goals.
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One of the instructors will be in the discussion group at least every other day. The online community works best with investment from the cohort of students all working on similar problems and challenges together. Discussions range from issues of practice to direct feedback on work. We are excited to guide the discussions in important and valuable ways.
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That is a discussion we are happy to have in this course, but we recommend signing up for the 6-Month Intensive for all of our resources regarding pitch packages!
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Yes! Absolutely! We want to make sure this course is the right fit for you and for us. If we aren't already in touch with you, please email us, or use the MESSAGE US tab below, if you want to share what you want to be working on so we can make sure we can serve you.
Pricing Options
Pay in Full
Single payment of $649
Pay in 3 Monthly Installments
6 Payments of $249
Institutional Pricing
Do you have additional resources? An institution behind you, or wealth you can share. We ask that you pay our institutional pricing: $1399
Payment Assistance
SAW is committed to ensuring everyone has access to quality comics education. If you require payment assistance, please follow THIS LINK.