The Center for Cartoon Studies, the premiere institution of higher learning for aspiring literary cartoonists and graphic novelists in the US, is housed in a charming brick building in the former railway town of White River Junction, Vermont, a short train ride from New York City. Each fall the Center invites 20 of the world’s most promising aspiring cartoonists and graphic novelists to come visit for a no-holds-barred education in comics. If they stay two years and complete the program, they earn a Master of Fine Arts degree and are ready to face the uncertainty of a career in one of the world’s most labour-intensive, drudgery-inducing art forms. Along the way, though, they get to meet and learn from some of the most famous names in independent comics and the exploding world of graphic novels, including Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, Jason Lutes, James Sturm, Kim Deitch, Scott McCloud, Françoise Mouly, R. Sikoryak and Art Spiegelman, all of whom are interviewed in Josh Melrod and Tara Wray’s charming documentary. Bittersweet, too, because at this school the stakes are high and spilled ink and tears are often the only rewards…

Jason Zumpano wrote the beautiful original score and others featured on the soundtrack include Beulah, Portastatic, Tortoise, Tokyo Police Club, Quinn Marston, The Hot IQs and the Fire Tapes. This might be the coolest documentary at VIFF this year…