On 24 November 2025, the Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Studies Journal Club held an end-of-term comic making workshop in the IKBLC Peña Room with Cloudscape Comics president and local cartoonist Jeffrey Ellis. Jeff tells us that when Comics Studies members and UBC students completed the workshop with comics of their own, they too earned the title of cartoonist. Today we will be highlighting both the past workshop and the work produced therein, the art of a new generation of cartoonists at the University of British Columbia.
Using examples of his own work, Ellis shows the impact of time and experience over 15 years.
The workshop began with a 90-minute-long lecture from Jeff. He discussed his personal history with art and comics. Jeff has created comics, illustrations, and other forms of visual storytelling since childhood. He is a graduate of Capilano University’s IDEA program, earning a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication in 2020. Some of his most notable works include Love in the Time of Covid (2023), Crossroads (2014), and collaborative webcomic with Jonathon Dalto Teach English in Japan (2009–present). Jeff also spoke on Cloudscape Comics, a non-profit graphic novel publisher and artist collective based in Vancouver that he founded in 2008. Cartoonists, and cartoonists to be, are welcome to attend their weekly drawing meet up at the Roundhouse Mews every Wednesday at 7pm.
Ellis uses Lynda Barry’s ‘Making Comics‘ as the model for creating one’s own comic diary.
Jeff taught attendees how to create their own diary comics, and that began with making a cartoon of yourself. Attendees became bubbly – a big circle for the head, a hook for the nose, and strings for the arms and legs. After asking attendees to recount their days as a source of storytelling inspiration, Jeff moved onto the comic making process. You begin with a script, sketch some thumbnails, rush some roughs, and carefully ink in the finished product before applying colour if so desired. What I found most interesting was Jeff’s next discussion of panels – ideas of flow, paneling, transitions, and Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work were so useful in understanding how comics tell stories. A great compliment to the discussions of comics literacy that fueled Understanding Through Comic’s bi-monthly discussions in Winter Term I 2025.
The term-end workshop had a great turnout, both in person and virtually.
Now let us return to why you’re really here… to read comics! After chowing down on some pizza and doughnuts, attendees spent the rest of the workshop making their own comics about their days of now and days of past. Time to enjoy their amazing creations!
Want to read comics and make your own too? Join Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Journal Club for Winter Term II! Our bi-annual welcome luncheon will be held on 13 January 2026 (Tuesday) from 12:30pm to 1:30pm. We’ll be bringing art supplies and graphic novels and invite you to bring examples of your own work and your favourite artists.
We wish to express our gratitude towards the StEAR Enhancement Fund, UBC iSchool, UBC Department of Asian Studies, and the Pop Culture Cluster as well as the Comics Studies Cluster for supporting Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Studies Journal Club.