MA Digital Comics
Why choose Herts?
- Excellent reputation: Best Creative School in the UK, Best 2D Animation School in Europe and number two in the world and Best Concept Art School in the UK (The Rookies Top Global Creative Schools, 2024).
- Course created by professionals: University of Hertfordshire sits at the forefront of digital comics research and practice, with the first ever digital comics research symposium held at the University in 2015.
- Collaboration: Staff and students at Herts were involved in the curation and restoration of digital comics for the Comics Unmasked exhibition at The British Library. The University also collaborated on The NESTA funded Electricomics project with renowned creators Leah & Alan Moore.
- Research: Most recently Herts has been leading research into Augmented and Virtual Reality comics and is currently engaged in a collaboration with the team behind the Fable digital comics app.
Professional Accreditations
University of Hertfordshire is a Rookies certified school as well as a Houdini certified school.
Being a member of industry professional bodies means Herts has the first sight of new developments in the field as well as opportunities to attend screenings and conferences.
About the course
The MA Digital Comics course will enable you to:
- explore the design skills needed to visualise engaging characters, worlds, panels and pages
- develop your storytelling skills and examine the new possibilities for comics offered by digital display
- investigate the commercial practices behind the publication of successful work
- write and illustrate comics with a particular focus on digital distribution and consumption
- study a modular structure that has produced professionals across the digital comics industry
- have the opportunity for unique collaboration with students on other pathways and work with animators, games artists, concept artists and digital comics illustrators.
Why choose this course?
You will complete the course having created a range of comics for different formats, audiences and contexts. You will gain an in-depth understanding of the processes of writing, designing, illustrating, distributing and promoting digital comics as well as organise and manage professional workflows and create digital and traditional comic outcomes to a high standard. You will also learn how to communicate and articulate your practice within a wide range of networks.
The specialist teaching approach will focus on exploiting the unique qualities of digital comics as well as developing a solid set of skills equally applicable to traditional print comic publication. The course will expose you to critical and media theories that you can connect to your emerging practice to grow your repertoire of skills and stand out in the marketplace, by creating new services or lead innovation in digital comic creation.
Talks and guest lectures by professional practitioners from across the creative industries take place regularly on campus. In semester B you will have the opportunity to engage in a live project that may involve working with a real-world client or exploring the application of an “applied comics” approach in a research or commercial setting. Opportunities for self-promotion through competition entry and interactions with comic publishers and collectives will also be explored throughout course.
What will I study?
In the first semester you’ll be challenged with a series of creative practical projects to stretch your imagination and skillset. This is paired with a module we call sources and significance - introducing you to some of the greatest media theorists and critical thinkers, helping you bring a new intellectual dimension to your emerging practice. Our aim is to get you thinking about innovation and working at the forefront of your field. The course starts by introducing a series of short projects to build up participant resilience and skills. You will look at a variety of popular formats of digital comic, building understanding of key concepts.
The second semester is about locating your practice in the creative business landscape and focusing on your chosen destination. You’ll prepare and research our showreel, portfolio or exhibition- whatever your career output is. You’ll engage with an interdisciplinary project, collaborating with students across the screen disciplines and hear from a range of industry and artistic experts to help you, as well as develop your ideas towards an achievable and attractive outcome, that you will work on it the third semester.
Armed with a strong self-initiated project, you’ll spend the whole of the summer semester working on the artefact that will be your signature piece to the world. You’ll have the opportunity to show your progress each week to your tutor and peers, and sometimes to industry too. You’ll learn to present progress and develop ideas incrementally through extensive collaboration, while also building essential team skills.
Further course information
| Course fact sheets | |
|---|---|
| MA Digital Comics | Download |
| Programme specifications | |
|---|---|
| MA Digital Comics | Download |
| Additional information | |
|---|---|
Sandwich placement or study abroad year |
n/a |
Applications open to international and EU students |
Yes |