Welcome! Thank you for your interest in Furry Cartooning for Amateurs!The class is now full, but the form is still open if you'd like to join the waitlist!
Supplies List
Updated Jan 5, 2026A composition notebook. Must be non-recycled paper! This works best with our supplies. College ruled.A pack of 4” by 6” notecards. Lined or not lined is fine - we are only using the non-lined sides.At least 2 black Uniball Vision pens, Fine Point. These are waterproof!Your choice of either at least 2 black PaperMate Flair pens or at least 2 black Tombow Fudenosuke pens, hard tipped. Both of these pens have variable line thickness! The Tombows are more archival.Watercolors, a cheap set of 8 works fine for what we are doing.A small brush for watercolors.Colored pencils, at least 8.Some printer paper, 8.5 × 11”, about 20 sheets.Some mixed media paper/notebook, about 10 sheets are needed. 7 × 10” is preferred, for our final comics!Access to discord.Access to a camera (phone is fine) and good lighting for photographing your work.Access to a color scanner, just once, at the end of the class.A ruler.EDIT:A pencil!An eraser! The one on the pencil might be enough. You will be erasing about 3 pages of pencils.
Furry Cartooning For Amateurs Winter 2026 Syllabus
Posted Jan 17, 2026
Subject to change
Session 1: Building Blocks
Jan 13, 20261) Welcome!
2) Drawing with our eyes closed
3) Ivan Brunetti Style
4) Attendance Cards
5) Faster, Faster Ivan Brunetti
6) Introduction to Compbooks
7) X Diary
8) Looking at furry art for 30 seconds each.
9) Review class rules. Goodbye for now!
10) Homework: daily attendance card? Or maybe, daily X-Page diary?
11) In recap video: Professor Espresso AKA GabuMatt’s experience in making comics
Session 2: Our Innate Storytelling Ability and the Four Panel Beat
Jan 20, 20261) Hello again! Supplies we’ll need
2) Attendance Card
3) Looking at drawings/art. 1 minute each?
4) Sharing time. Drawings, experience with the homework.
5) Doodle Monsters (doodle furries)
6) Furry, This Is Your Life
7) Four Box Diary
8) Sharing time
9) Optional homework: nightly Four Box Diary
Session 3: Introducing Color and Characters!
Jan 27, 2026
1) Welcome, supplies we’ll need
2) Attendance card with color
a) Introduce watercolors, do red yellow and blue
3) Looking at drawings/art
4) Sharing homework with class
5) Create a reference sheet
a) First one in the compbook
6) OuBaPo or possibly time to color the ref sheet and listen to a reading
7) Optional homework: is Art Fight Battle Royale
8) Also optional homework: remake the ref sheet on the mixed media paper
9) Also optional homework: find some comic panels or other lineart to copy next week in class
Session 4: Copying, Memes, and Fanart
Feb 3, 2026
1) Welcome, supplies we’ll need
2) Attendance Card
3) Looking at drawings/art
4) Sharing homework ref sheets, drawings from Art Fight Battle Royale
5) Copying panels, drawings from other people’s comics, art
6) 6 Different Species meme
7) Coloring and listening to Furry Studies Conference, Lynda Barry, Two Old Furry Fans, or Ines Estrada
8) Optional omework: an experiment in posting fanart
Session 5: OUTSIDEWOLVES GUEST LECTURE + YCH Boss
Feb 10, 2026
1) Attendance Cards
2) Optional homework sharing time.
3) Outsidewolves’s AKA Redacteur’s guest lecture!!!
4) YCH Boss, a drawing game
5) Short introduction to the 2-page comic format
6) Optional homework: go to a cafe and draw for at least an hour
7) Optional homework: bring little figurines/trinkets and/or trading cards to next week, at least 2, no more than 20. 6 or 7 is good.
Session 6: Two Page Comics: Fiction and Non-Fiction
Feb 17, 2026
1) Attendance cards
2) Review Frame (non fiction)
3) Characters + Constraints + Chaos = Comics (fiction)
4) Setting up a 2 page comic
5) Begin penciling the 2 page comic
6) Looking at drawings/art
7) Explain the class zine
8) Optional homework: Finish inking and coloring your first 2 page comic (a lot of work!)
Session 7: Work Session and Democratic Class Zine Creation
Feb 24, 2026
1) Attendance cards
2) Sharing homework with class
3) Formal discussion and vote on final details of class zine
4) Work session for the zine
5) Sharing time
6) Reminder of how to submit comics, drawings, and writings to be published in the class zine (optional)
7) Looking at drawings/art
8) Homework: finish 2 page comics
Session 8: A Comics Reading + A Furry Rave
Mar 3, 2026
1) Attendance card
2) Live comics reading: students read their comics to the class (optional)
3) Zine editing progress report, submission deadline
4) Dance Floor (furry rave) activity
5) Sharing time
6) Goodbye!
FAQWho's teaching?Hi I'm GabuMatt, he/him! I'm a 29-year-old blue border collie from Cleveland, Ohio! By day I'm an electrical engineer, but my passion has been making comics ever since I took a free class at my local library in fourth grade.I have taught comics making classes for youth through the non-profit Lake Erie Ink; I've co-organized and led cartooning activities for the Cleveland-based comics making group for adults, Comics in the Circle, for 5 years; and I've led similar activities for my fellow furs at local fur meets and conventions including Furrest City and WPAFW.I officially joined the furry fandom in 2023, but I was furry-adjacent long before that. Discovering Lynda Barry's comics making methods in 2018 changed my life, and now my mode of art-making is creating drawing and cartooning situations. My passion for organizing comes from my experience with the Democratic Socialists of America. <3This video is a great example of me leading fellow furries in a drawing game!What will I be learning?Activities will center around using a composition notebook to get into Images. You and your classmates will learn quick processes done with cheap materials to get your hands moving. We’ll start with simple drawing exercises, move to starting a diary comics practice, learn techniques with watercolors, use fast-paced prompts and constraints to write and draw, and finally make two-page full-color comics for optional participation in a class zine. Furry themes and tropes will be mixed in! I plan to include a ref-sheet activity, an optional Art-Fight-style homework assignment, and a game called YCH Boss.Why “for amateurs?”My teacher Juan Jose Fernandez once taught an online class called Cartooning for the Rest of Us. It was a non-careerist approach to cartooning with many methods to make strange and lovely comics that weren't necessarily marketable commodities. I chose the word “amateurs” because this class will focus on drawing for the love of it and will not focus on making drawings and comics using skills that will help them sell (not that those two are mutually exclusive).If I'm a professional artist, can I take this class?Yes! I'm confident you'll enjoy the exercises, homework, and community. The methods we practice might help you in your professional work too.Who is this “Lynda Barry” you keep talking about? OwOLynda Barry is a cartoonist who teaches at UW Madison. Her work is centered around the question, “what is an Image?” and she defines images saying, “anything we call ‘the arts’ is a container for Images, also any object that kids are attached to.” She teaches college students but also works with kindergartners. A great introduction to her work is her 12 page comic, “Two Questions".How will class work?Class will be every Tuesday at 7:30 PM to about 9:30 PM Eastern from January 13th to March 3rd over Discord. You will not be required to turn your camera or microphone on, but some activities you will be recommended to share your work!I am trying to replicate the effect of Lynda Barry's classroom at UW Madison on discord. Everyone will get their own channel to share their work, but no one will be allowed to talk about the quality of other people's work there, good or bad. Even emoji reactions will be turned off! There will be no critiques in this class. You will also all be picking new names before the first day.This is all to serve the purpose of helping you write and draw. Lynda Barry uses similar rules to get college students who gave up on drawing in middle school to draw again. Something precious, lovely, and uncomfortable shows up. We are trying to get there together!!!The Discord will be exclusive with access only given to students in this class sessions, plus me and outsidewolves. If I run this class again, I will start a new Discord.This is my first time teaching a class like this! I'm very excited to try different things out - thanks for your patience!Can I attend in fursuit?? Can I attend using a VTuber model or using VRChat?YES! Let's try to make our class as magical as possible! uwu However, you will be need to be able to write, draw, etc. during some parts of class, so prepare for that.Will there be homework?Yes but this will be optional.When is the outsidewolves guest lecture?Probably February 10th!Do I need to buy any textbooks?No! But I recommend purchasing or checking out Making Comics by Lynda Barry.What do you mean by first come first served? What do you mean by free tuition for 15 people?I will let people into the class based on when they filled out the Google from. Free tuition means you'll just answer on the Google form that you want that cost waived, and I'll allow it, no questions asked! Everyone past the 30 person mark will be added to a waitlist.If there are 15 paying people and 15 non-paying people signed up, then another paying person signs up, they go to the waitlist; no non-paying people get kicked off onto the waitlist. It's truly first come first served.I think this class will be worth much more than $30, but y'all will be my guinea pigs with this new format and structure! I appreciate your patience as I work out the kinks!What's the deadline to sign up by?January 6th is when I'll start asking for payment.Thanks for reading!
Updated Jan. 6th 2025