Price range: $150.00 through $300.00
Do you have a story you want to tell but aren’t sure how to get started?
This seven-session memoir comics class will focus on telling real-life stories about your life, identity, and family. We will aim to write and draw a 20-panel personal story, and participants will also create shorter comics to practice different techniques and find their visual voice.
It’s okay if you feel like you don’t know how to draw. Enthusiasm and a willingness to be brave are the only requirements for this class. This is not a drawing skills class, but a workshop on reading, writing, and telling nonfiction stories in comics. Students will read a diversity of comics and graphic novels to learn how comics work, from pacing to page design. Each week, students will work on writing and drawing assignments that help spur their creativity and confidence. Students of all skill-levels are welcome, from current comics-creators to complete newbies.
2026 class dates:
This class runs for seven weeks, from February 10 – March 24th, on Tuesdays from 5pm-7pmPST/8pm-10pm EST. This class meets online, via Zoom, and is capped at 25 participants. The class will be recorded and emailed to all participants weekly, if you need to miss a session.
What you need:
• Writing and drawing supplies. Students can work in whatever medium they prefer—on paper or digital. If you are hungry for guidance, here’s Shay’s personal drawing supplies list.
Class values
Age restriction
Some of the comics we read will have graphic content, such as nudity and depictions of violence, and discuss the traumas of being alive. Shay recommends this class for people ages 15+.
About the teacher:
Shay Mirk (they/she) is a graphic journalist, editor, and teacher. Shay is the publisher at Crucial Comix. Shay’s newest book, Making Nonfiction Comics: A Field Guide to Graphic Journalism, debuted from Abrams ComicsArts in November 2025. For six years, Shay was a contributing editor at comics publication The Nib, where projects she worked on won both Eisner and Ignatz awards. They are the author of six books, including Guantanamo Voices, an illustrated oral history of Guantanamo Bay prison. Shay was the 2023-2024 Applied Cartooning Fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Shay has won a lot of awards but honestly are most proud of any time someone says Shay’s work inspires their own.
Questions about this class?
Email Crucial’s publisher at smirk@crucialcomix.com
To make them affordable, all of our classes and workshops are offered at a sliding scale cost.
Supporter - This payment level pitches in a little extra toward the teacher’s income and helps pay artists to create new comics at Crucial. Thanks for your support!
Standard - This is the basic rate for the class, which covers our costs.
Discount - We want people of all income levels in our classes, so choose this rate if you paying the standard rate is a stretch for you.
We set aside three spots in each class to be offered for free to people who would find it a hardship to pay the discount rate for any reason. These free spots are first-come, first-serve. If you would like to take a class for free, please send us a short email about yourself, what class you would like to take, and why. If a free spot is still available, we’ll send you a discount code to register for free! Email: editors@crucialcomix.com
