Our Programs
Every year we offer a diverse range of programs that create affordable new learning opportunities for young, emerging, established, and professional comics enthusiasts alike.
Below you will find a breakdown of our most popular recurring programs with links to further information. All of our programs are offered at a sliding scale. Everyone, regardless of knowledge and skill, is welcome!
Start Making Comics
〰️
Start Making Comics 〰️
Online Year-Long Certificate Program
The SAW Certificate Program has been the premier program for affordable, personalized comics instruction for over 10 years. Enrolling every fall, this is an intensive nine-month course that offers instruction in Drawing for Comics, Comics Storytelling, Comics History, and much more.
Certificate program alumni have gone on to work in various storytelling and visual realms from Graphic Design and Art Direction to Teaching and Tattooing. This could be you!
Online Graphic Novel Development Intensive
A collection of new and ongoing work from students in the SAW 2023 Graphic Novel Intensive program.
Featuring Bruce McKay, Michaela Pohl, Jennifer Shiman, J. Autumn Needles, Cathy Stonehouse, John Bavaro, Lindsey Sheehan, Justus Humphrey, Matthew Courtney, Uli Brauns, Rob Stephens, Tim Ballard, Andi Spark, Kathleen Miller, Leonie Sharrock, Carolina Nadel, Frankie D., Shay Barnett, Sally Carson Redwood, Jen Hernandez, Elizabeth Spear, Limor Farber, Isabel Garcia-Gonzales, Wanda Wunderbaum, Cowboy Rocky (Richie King), David Kausch, Veverly Edwards, Heidi Breuer, Don Unger, Elizabeth Blake, & Judith Margolis.
Please Note: Because SAW has a small fulfillment team, processing time may take 1-2 weeks before you receive your shipping information. For any questions regarding your order, please contact us.
Every six months ambitious artists and writers are invited to join our Graphic Novel Development Intensive. Here we bring together the combined wisdom and experience of SAW instructors Tom Hart, Jess Ruliffson, Hyena Hell, and more to provide you with inspiration, advice, critique, motivation, and a structured plan forward.
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 realize your vision.
Preview work by students from our 2023 Graphic Novel Intense by clicking on the anthology product to the right.
In-person Artist Residencies and Fellowships
Visiting Artist in Residence, Mel Gillman, teaches SAW Certificate students in the outdoor courtyard in Gainesville (February 2022).
SAW has a long history of opening its doors to visiting artists and local cartoonists for short- and long-term stays. Our current Emerging Artist in Residence provides access to artmaking space and professional development opportunities for up to 8 artists each calendar year.
The residency program includes access to a shared studio, library and workshop space, SAW in-person and virtual workshops, artistic mentorship, and publication opportunities. In exchange, participants will create a workshop series, artists talk, or community activation event in Alachua County.
In-person and Online Short Courses
Throughout the school year, we offer one-day and evening classes in the SAW space that explore a variety of knowledge and skills related to visual storytelling. Courses are offered at a variety of levels and formats for anyone—new or veteran—to feel they have the support to explore their creative practice anew. Find our most recent schedule of courses here.
And if you’re not in Gainesville, Florida, we bring programs to you wherever you are in the world through our online programs. Explore our upcoming courses and ongoing programs, including monthly community subscriptions over at learn.sawcomics.org.
In-person Week-long Comics Retreats and Workshops
Looking to immerse yourself in comics? Join us in the SAW space for an intensive week of learning, exploration, and play. We offer a handful of retreats and workshops throughout the year in February, May, July, and October. Workshops information is available through Eventbrite. Class size is limited to 16 people per workshop, so register early here.
In-person Teen Summer and Afterschool Workshops
If you are a young person between 11 and 17 who loves comics, we’ve got specific programs suited for you. Each summer the SAW space is taken over by the 2-week Teen Summer Workshop, a fun-filled exploration of comics storytelling and production.
During the semester we offer afterschool workshops that slow down the comics-making process and work towards an anthology of work produced during the 10-week session.
Free Weekly Online Workshops
Draw with us every Friday night with our We Believe in Comics free community workshops. Each week we invite a different artist or writer to host a 40-minute workshop via Zoom. Past hosts have included Mel Gillman, Ashanti Fortson, Dave Ortega, Robyn Smith, Emma Hunsinger, Jett Allen, and many more. Register ahead of time here. And you can watch every Friday Night comics workshop we’ve ever hosted for FREE on our Youtube channel.
Free Events
Whether you’re joining us in person or online, we offer a bunch of free events from exhibitions and draw jams to comics reading parties and open studios. Stay connected in our online community or follow us on social media for regular updates.
Consultations
Our programs are built in the spirit of peer-to-peer mentorship: we all have experiences that lend themselves to cooperative learning. We also offer 1-on-1 consultations with members of our core teaching staff, all of them professional comics creators.
Community Workshops
SAW will come to you. Are you a school or college looking to deepen your art-making and storytelling offerings? Are you a business interested in telling better stories?
We offer a range of different workshops that can travel to you. Contact us and let us know where you are, what you’re interested in, and your budget.
We love comics! And we’re excited to bring together people who share our passion. Come explore with us!
Explore Student Work and Instructional Zines
Your Graphic Memoir is a gift to the world. In this 24-page zine, Elizabeth A. Trembley presents graphic memoir as a unique form of expression and how to get started in making your own powerful story.
5.5”x8.5”, full color, saddle stitch. First printed November 2023.
Click here to buy a PDF download of How to Make Graphic Memoir.
About the creator:
Elizabeth A. Trembley PhD is a SAW senior instructor and author of the graphic memoir, Look Again (Street Noise, 2022). She has been shortlisted for the Graphic Medicine International Collective’s Award. She is also a Lambda Literary award-winning mystery novelist and storytelling teacher with more than three decades of experience. Elizabeth trained in literature, writing, innovation and creativity in places as diverse as the University of Chicago, Disney University and the Sequential Artists Workshop. She currently teaches online classes in graphic memoir, story structure and project management for SAW. She runs comics and zine-making workshops for groups of all ages. You can find out more at her website https://elizabethtrembley.com/
Please Note: Because SAW has a small fulfillment team, processing time may take 1-2 weeks before you receive your shipping information. For any questions regarding your order, please contact us.
Where You Live represents some of the ambitious works developed by students and members of the Sequential Artists Workshop Comics FLOW + PUBLISH Ongoing Group (a community storytelling network). It brings together the far reaching work of different artists from around the United States and beyond.
5.5” x 8.5", full color, perfect bound, paper back. First printed in March 2024.
Travel around the world with 22 writers and artists. Between the farms and legends of rural Vermont to the suburbs of Sydney, Australia as seen through the eyes of a little girl, find stories on navigating the streets of the sea; explore a town brimming with books and history; resonate with the feelings of change that come with settling into a strange new place; and experience life in bustling cities from the last six months of 2023.
Within these pages you will encounter thriving fields and honeybees residing next to oceans full of debris, quiet peaks outside of busy cities, and the history of a breathing house. Where You Live presents new work by students and members of the Sequential Artists Workshop's Comics FLOW + PUBLISH Membership in the form of graphic narrative nonfiction and speculative fiction.
Copyright belongs to the individual artists who have generously shared their work here. All rights reserved. No part of this book (except portions for review purposes) may be reproduced in any form without expressed written consent from the individual author. Featuring work by Maja Milkowska-Shibata, Emil WIlson, Walter Hudsick, Elizabeth A. Trembley, Justin M. Carroll, Cara Gormally, Darlene K Campbell, Priya Sridhar, Liz York, Donna Druchunas, Adrean Clark, Ken Harris, Jamie Scandal, Erin Fitzgerald, Amaia & Aman, Kayte Young, Don Unger, Adam R. Rosenblatt, Linda Watson, Mae Wilson, Carole McKee Armen and Oneita Parker.
Content Rating: Recommended for Adults (18+).
We have a small fulfillment team. It may take 1-2 weeks to receive shipping information. Thank you for your understanding and support!
The Creator’s Guide to Comics Devices is a digital library AND now also a sample zine of visual-narrative devices that are specific to the medium of comics, furnished with definitions and examples by contributors. It is a practical, accessible resource for creators, teachers, editors, scholars, critics, readers, the curious, the open-minded, and anyone with an interest in comics.
Curated and edited by cartoonist Reimena Yee, the library was developed to provide language for creators, readers and other colleagues in the ecosystem to speak about comics on its own terms.
This 12-page zine shares a sample of the devices and their definitions for the first time. Explore the online catalog at https://comicsdevices.com/.
6”x8.15”, full color, saddle stitched. Second Edition 2025. (First Edition Printed as part of the SAW 2023 Teaching Fellowship).
About the Creator:
Reimena Yee is a strange and fancy graphic novelist, illustrator, designer and comics outreach lead. Hailing from the dusty Malaysian metropolis of Kuala Lumpur, she is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She is greatly interested in the world, its histories and its cultures — a passion that once brought her down the road to a STEM career for half her life, before leaving to communicate her love of the world instead through art and story.
She is the author-illustrator of the gothic comics, The World in Deeper Inspection, the Eisner and Mcduffie-nominatedThe Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya, the bildungsroman Séance Tea Party, the whimsical adventure-comedy My Aunt is a Monster, and the latest retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great. She also writes The Makers Club series, co-created with Tintin Pantoja.
As illustrator and designer, she brings the whimsical and poppy for clients like Dropmix, Girls Make Games, Adventure Time, DFTBA’s Bizarre Beasts, and Penguin Workshop among many others.
Elsewhere, Reimena is dedicated to comics outreach, documenting her creative process, and creating resources for fellow comics creators. She is the co-founder of UNNAMED, a regional grassroots collective for the comics ecosystem in Southeast Asia, and the Cartoonist Coop, a society for cartoonists across the world. She is the curator and taxonomist behind The Creator’s Guide of Comics Devices, and author of many free resources on her blog. She works part-time as lead data admin and manager and executive admin at Hiveworks Comics.
Please Note: Because SAW has a small fulfillment team, processing time may take 1-2 weeks before you receive your shipping information. For any questions regarding your order, please contact us.