99 More Potential Exercises in Style

When I finished making my 99 Exercises in Style I decided I would not revisit the project again. Drawing a variation of the same comic 99 times seemed like a perfectly legitimate proof of concept and by the time I was done I was eager to move on to new projects. However, Raymond Queneau, whose Exercises in Style (which contains exactly 99 short texts) was my inspiration and model, continued to amuse himself with more exercises in the years following the initial 1947 publication of his Exercises in Style (some of these appear in the recent 65th anniversary edition of Barbara Wright’s translation for New Directions).

When I finished my book in 2004 (!), I had a short list of exercises that I had wanted to do but which either proved too difficult, impractical, or which simply didn’t make the final cut. Over the years I had occasional “woulda shoulda” moments where I thought of some obvious exercise that would have been appropriate for the book (such as re-telling the story using 99 panels). I would also occasionally think of exercises which would be near impossible to execute (a tableau vivant, a telepathic version…). I started a list which gradually approached that magic number, 99.

And so, without further ado, here’s a list, with some explanatory links, of possible further exercises in style that I have no intention of ever drawing:

1. abstract comic
2. ratty line (Gary Panter homage)
3. geometric
4. ink wash
5. stipple
6. watercolors
7. paper cutouts (after Matisse)
8. only vertical lines of varying thickness
9. only horizontal lines of varying thickness
10. infinite canvas
11. motion comic
12. braille or shapereader
13. drawn with right hand
14. drawn blindfolded
15. drawn with left foot
16. redrawn from memory, ten years later
17. single-line drawing
18. Hire a professional illustrator to draw, send text description panel by panel
19. Hire a police sketch artist to draw, send text description panel by panel
20. commission a writer to make a prose version, then have illustrator turn back into comic.
21. fold-in
22. airplane safety card
23. IKEA assembly instructions
24. Choking safety poster
25. exploded diagram
26. advent calendar
27. collage: Max Ernst/Une Semaine de Bonté homage
28. frottage
29. wordless comic
30. painted comic
31. goth
32. steampunk
33. J-horror
34. ero-guro (erotic-grotesque)
35. porno
36. Tijuana Bible
37. self-indulgent, mopey autobio comic
38. 99 panels
39. abecedary
40. no curves
41. no straight lines
42. Chris Ware-style diagram
43. haiku
44. pantoum
45. installation art
46. performance art
47. choreography
48. fly on the wall
49. dream
50. musical theater
51. courtroom drama
52. corrected and improved drawing
53. ten years later
54. pop-up
55. acrostic
56. random order
57. music score
58. connect-the-dots
59. color by numbers
60. invisible ink
61. children’s drawing style
62. visual rhymes
63. a penguin in every panel
64. boustrophedon
65. hologram
66. telepathic
67. emoji
68. gifs
69. tableau vivant
70. floor plan
71. mural
72. cave painting
73. land art
74. sky writing (sky cartooning)
75. burma shave signs
76. wrought iron
77. mosaic
78. stream of consciousness
79. surveillance footage
80. double entrendres
81. sitcom
82. tragedy
83. comedy
84. Shakespearean
85. gekiga
86. kabuki
87. Noh
88. shadow puppets
89. shuojo
90. magic lantern show
91. flip book
92. scrimshaw
93. quilt
94. the Marvel way
95. Persian miniature
96. Chinese scroll
97. Joseph Cornell boxes
98. Henry Darger panorama
99. Möbius strip