Art Schooled

Making a comic about art school is like making a movie about selling a screenplay. It can be done well, sure, but you've already got a lot working against you right out of the gate. Upon graduating from Central Saint Martins arts university in London, Jamie Coe opted to write%E2%80%94and draw%E2%80%94what he knew. This, his first full-length graphic novel lampoons various archetypes and offers up the hopes and dreams of fellow students in a talking head interview fashion, much like the method frequently employed by cartoonist Seth. In those respects, the book owes plenty to the highwater mark of the sub genre, Daniel Clowes' classic Eightball one-off Art School Confidential. As with the movie adaptation of that strip, however, Coe no doubt recognizes that poking fun wasn't enough to sustain an audience beyond a few pages. As such, the book focuses on Coe's stand-in, Daniel, who is navigating the strange and plentiful quirks of a fine arts university, while pursuing love and a burgeoning career in comics (he's also drawing a comic about those experiences, much to the chagrin of his fellow students). The story never rises too far beyond its simple premise, but the text is happily buoyed by Coe's stunning artwork, which is brilliantly colored and paced%E2%80%94evidently, he learned a lot in school. (Nov.)