Design Student Lili Briem Shares Her Experience as Co-Creator of “The Urban Legends of Camp Foster: A Comic Anthology”
In fall 2022, illustration students Marcus Harding and Sharlene Swan started a graphic novel club,The Sequential Storytelling Society, with the goal to learn more about the craft and hone their skills. What started as a desire for community resulted in two comic anthologies, one now complete and another in the early creation stages. The first anthology, “The Urban Legends of Camp Foster: A Comic Anthology,” tells the story of a supernatural summer camp. Each of the eight short stories takes place at a different time period but all happen at the magical Camp Foster. The anthology features different art styles for each story, each unique to the artist who wrote and designed that story.
Because there are few classes focused exclusively on comic book design, Lili Briem, one of the eight students who created “The Urban Legends of Camp Foster: A Comic Anthology,” said that the club was the perfect place for students to learn from each other, recommend books and resources on the subject and receive feedback on their work.
Working on Camp Foster brought together a whole host of different skills that the illustrations students have been learning. “You have to know how to write. You have to know how to draw. You have to know how to paste. You’re taking information from animation, creative writing, illustration, and you have to be able to do it all essentially,” Harding said.
Briem said that the narrative illustration and typography classes required for the illustration major prepared her for a project of this scale. “The narrative illustration classes are about how to tell a story through your illustrations,” she said. “Those classes helped me get a better sense of what aspects are important to show rather than to just tell. The classes helped me hone my storytelling skills.”
The Sequential Storytelling Society hosted a booth at Story Con in Salt Lake City in February. Members of the club were able to display printed copies of “The Urban Tales of Camp Foster” along with other comics and illustrations. Sharing and selling copies of their work with the wider community was just another benefit of coming together as a club. The Sequential Storytelling Society plans to host another booth at Fan-X pop culture and comic convention in Salt Lake City in September.
Briem wrote and illustrated a portion of the anthology, as well as designed the layout of the book. “The typography class was helpful,” she said. “It taught me shortcuts in the Adobe program I like to use and it made me more cognizant of the things I need to think about when laying out an anthology.”
The most important way the Department of Design prepared Briem for this project was by surrounding her with fellow creatives who are willing to share feedback. “In the Department of Design, we are around other creatives all the time. It really helps my creative process to have faculty and students to talk with, bounce ideas off of and get feedback from,” Briem said.
The community Briem has found at BYU is very important to her. “It is really fortunate that I have found this community that is so collaborative and supportive,” she said. “I hope everyone can find a community that can uplift and inspire them.”
The most rewarding moment of the anthology process for Briem was opening the box containing the first printed copies of the book. “It made me realize that all the work we’ve been doing actually ended in something cool,” she said. “There is something about seeing our work printed out that fills me with joy every time.”
