This fall, he'll share hard-won wisdom with about 30 students as Mohawk College launches Canada's first and only program in Comic Design and Scripting.

The one-year postgraduate program for art and design majors fills an industry need for artists who can draw in an era of mouse-driven computer animation, says program co-ordinator Daniel MacQueen.

The program covers areas such as art history, figure drawing, narrative, character design and self-publishing, and aims to fill more than your local comic store. Graduates may also do TV storyboarding, court drawing, editorial cartooning or even design worlds for video games.

"It's about using this art form, pictures, to tell a story," MacQueen said. He plans to lure local artists who draw for Marvel and DC comics to be teachers. So the realm of heroes in spandex will play a big role in the program. It will be based at Mohawk's graphics centre in Brantford. Comely is designing a comic-style brochure for it.