No, it’s not what you think!
In my courses at George Brown, a valuable part of the instructive process involved reproducing panels from existing cartoons, comic strips and graphic novels. It was a great way to learn the techniques of others, test one’s observation skills, and through the use of comparable media, broaden one’s range in terms of drawing and painting. In one case, reproducing a comic strip had us taking the last panel- which had been blanked out- and creating our own ending for it. Cheating by looking up the original strip was not encouraged. Tracing wasn’t an option either. These exercises were meant to give us something like an atelier experience, where students can spend years copying from plasters and the works of the old masters before venturing out to create their own pieces from scratch. It worked for us. I remember one of the most unusual things I had to sort out was a foot belonging to Dennis the Menace. Hank Ketchum’s rendering of it was stylized, to say the least. In among the other elements, it was unremarkable. Once you looked at it on its own, it became something otherworldly and very strange.
The reproduction of a Calvin & Hobbes strip with my own take on the final panel. 
The photocopy of the Dedini piece I chose, with sketches around the margins. 
The final version. 
My drawing of the Dennis the Menace panel. 
Completed with inking. 
A page reproduced from a manga. The only time I ever touched mange in the courses. 
Calvin & Hobbes anthology cover reproduction. 
The original scan of Milt Caniff’s Steve Canyon piece 
My drawing, using the placement of the engines on the DC-4 to scale the piece 
My reproduction, done with pen and ink and gouache. 