Upcoming IN-PERSON events for September 2023! Kicking off September, SAW alums host a FREE in-person Draw Jam on Sept. 2 in the SAW Studio (and on the first Saturday of every month)! Mid-September we have an in-person course with M.S. Harkness, a FREE Live Comics Reading, and a FREE Drink + Draw Jam @drinkndrawgnv. And starting at the end of September, teens can join us in the SAW Studio for 10 weeks of intensive comics-making for our Fall Open Studio with Carly Shooster @hunger_eating_munch!

Taking the chance to celebrate SAW online Alum, Angeli Rafer! The middle grade book she drew, 'Ghosts Don’t Eat Potato Chips came out this week withScholastic! Woo! Don't forget to let us know about your comics wins in the big, bad world outside the network! We want to hear about it!

SAW's teamed up with Derek Ballard as he returns to the comics zine format with The Shape of Comics to Come, a 36-page lashing of American contemporary culture. As if fueled by destitution rather than maimed, Ballard erects a makeshift tabernacle of rare sincerity with idiosyncratic Sunday funnies style and extends a cadence call hymn of welcome. These comics are just the MREs you need to keep on the firing line.

We're so excited to announce that our next in-person Visiting Artist Workshop will be lead by award-winning cartoonist, Tommi Parrish (@tommi_pg). Join Tommi in the SAW space October 16 to 20. The class will be a combination of book making, playing with different DIY printing techniques, and painting with gouache based on writing exercises. Each part will draw on Tommi's own creative practice.

Find SAW at table A:3 at Short Run Seattle this weekend, November 5th!

Our Assistant Executive Director, Emma Jensen, will be running SAW's table! Come by to learn more about SAW or to just say hello.

Had a great time seeing some familiar faces around the network this past weekend at the Massachusetts Indie Comics Expo! Thanks again to everyone who stopped by to say hello, and welcome to anyone and everyone new to SAW who signed up after learning more about us!

This October, we have TWO Pro-Calls and we're inviting everyone to this one.

SAW Pro-Call with Wendy Pini! | Monday October 17, 2022 @ 2PM EASTERN TIME

We’ve started a podcast! We're doing a soft launch of our Friday Night Comics Video Podcasts on Spotify. This is a new way to catch up, rewatch, or listen to archived Friday Night Comics Workshops.

Check out Tom Hart's talk about Art and Artificial Intelligence on the Art for All podcast by Sketchbook Skool! Episode streams today.

Find us at SPX this weekend in Maryland! Table E14. We’re also sponsoring four workshops at SPX: 9/17 Making Diary Comics with Ellen O’Grady; Drawing Cuteness with Shauna J. Grant; Bodies, Birth and Death, a Comics Workshop With Tom Hart; and Make A Comics Love Letter to TV With Anna Sellheim.

Success from SAW Artist Resident Alumni, Mel Gillman (they/them)!

"Other Ever Afters" is a collection of QUEER FAIRY TALES and "Who Was a Daring Pioneer of the Skies?: Amelia Earhart" follows the story behind "aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart’s mysterious and fatal second trip around the world." Both published by Penguin Random House.

Recent success from SAW Artist Resident Alumni, Andi Santagata!

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S: FAZBEAR FRIGHTS Graphic Novel Collection #1 is #1 in hot New Releases for Teen and Young Adult Comics and Graphic Novels on Amazon and a Bookseller Favorite. Published by Graphix.

Get your copy wherever books are sold and keep making comics!

“Once, years ago, while walking her dogs in the woods, Elizabeth found a dead body. “ Library Journal review of Look Again, a recent Graphic Memoir by SAW Graphic Memoir Instructor, Elizabeth Trembley.

In this fall teen comics class, students will be developing their comics making skills, flexing their storytelling muscles and trying their hand at new image making techniques.

By the end of the 10 weeks, each student will walk away with multiple comics pages and a reproducible comics zine. They will also have an opportunity to exhibit their work in a Friday night artwork exhibition Friday November 25.

In this 6-week program you will be guided through the basic principles of figurative and landscape drawing with a view to developing an eye for composition and strengthening your artmaking confidence. Come prepared to draw from life and imagination. These are adult, in-person workshops.

This quote also highlights the non-work part of a life and how important it is to the whole (self-care, caretaking, health, car stuff, etc. can demand attention as soon as you commit to a weekly goal for your long-form, gorgeous creative pursuits.

Let Ourselves Shine! We are organizing ourselves into communities, and sharing our selves, the best we can. See more from this topic in our free online community full of thoughts about making art, why we make art, and more.

Values, Goals and Systems! A recent student in the graphic memoir group mentioned their "maladaptive systems", and how they're doing a memoir about them. And it got me thinking about the hierarchy --which I'm sure I heard somewhere, but I can't remember where-- of values, goals, and systems…

Our next Friday Night Comics Workshop is with Nicole J. Georges! Develop a daily practice of combining comics and self-care by charting your emotions and drawing yourself into joyful and soothing situations.

Friday Night Comics Workshop: The Bad Art Hour with Daryl Seitchik! This workshop will focus on how embracing mistakes in drawing and storytelling can free us up and lead to happy accidents we wouldn't have come to any other way. There will be some drawing warm ups, a short google slides talk, and then an exercise in improvised comics + time to share. It's the class *I* need right now, so I'm hoping other people will benefit too!