Link: http://davidmorgen.org/comic1/comic-final-project/

As my group and I worked alongside each other to finish this project, my main role as contributor was to make sure everyone’s finalized pages flowed well together. Because we decided to each take an equal part in drawing this comic, there was a concern that the plot line would become too ragged. Regardless of our different drawing styles, we decided to draw the characters as simple cats and pasting the same image for each example, so that the whole comic would be more cohesive. My biggest contribution to this group project was coordination and organization. After everyone sent me their individual pages, I made sure the right images were pasted on certain panels, and the timeline made sense. Also, I served as a vocal backboard, bouncing off ideas and organizing them in our Google Doc. I chose the last page of the comic as the featured image because it represents how all the different styles, dialogues, and examples are tied together. The most difficult part as the central organizer was dually making sure the entire piece was smoothly transitioning and creating a conclusion that was simple, entertaining, and to the point.

“The OverProtected Kid” was created with the intent to make an impact with its colors. Attention to font, colors, and the juxtaposition of the panels was not unnoticed. To make it more relevant, the group used real images as a base for their comic. Instead of a hand-written comic, this style of approach elevates the seriousness of the argument made. The different types of font used were also parallel to the different significances of each panel. The next-to-last panel was almost completely colored, but the “reality” side was more vivid, implicating its contrast. I learned the importance of details, and they make a big impact when handled efficiently.

As a final project, I had to simultaneously do a close reading and distant reading, which is similar to the “Maus” and “Mapping Fun Home” projects. For Maus, tracing the individual panels helped me understand the details of a comic’s impact. After analyzing the general trends of Fun Home, I also understood the importance of overlaying themes and how the story flows, and I translated that experience into this project because our comic had multiple pages, and those pages had individual scenarios: it was essential for all the panels to flow effortlessly. My most recent project, Vietnamerica, digested the entire comic as a whole. In other words, writing an essay about the graphic novel presented a valid argument in text alone and helped me understand how the comic was presented; this learning experience helped my group create a certain approach to creating our comic.

For the project, I took up the role of looking up pictures and coming up with ideas for the text that was going to be inserted to the panels. For the most part, I found myself looking up pictures that tied in to our project’s main argument, which turned out to be challenging because of the difficulty in finding appropriate pictures. The skills that I brought to the project, I think, were to make it easier to go through the project as a group and ensure that all the pages were connected by suggesting ways to go about reviewing the pages together. For the project, I also tried to make the photos on the page match to what the text was saying by using different filters  to convey senses of time and emotions. The way I approached this project was to come up with an agreement with all my group members to make a comic story line that we all agreed on. This was a challenge at first because we saw ourselves running out of ideas early in the book and sometimes our storyline wasn’t cohesive and seemed contradictory.

Another group’s project “The Almighty Google” used bitstrips, which allowed them to freely change the expressions of the characters and also their body movements, which provided for a more fluid comic. To overcome the monotony of using the same characters and background, the group used zooming in and specially-shaped speech bubbles to create different emphases on their topic. By looking at the group’s project, I saw that btistrips was a pretty effective tool at making the comic more fluid, instead of more jumpy between pictures. Using bitstrips is very useful, it seems, to create comics where consistency in characters is important.

I find that this project combines the ideas that we saw in Understanding Comics, about panels, colors and text boxes, since we were forced to incorporate these ideas to make a comic ourselves, which made us look for different ways of expressing an idea on a particular page. This project combined the idea behind close reading in Maus, visually representing an argument in Fun Home and tying them all together like we did with in Vietnamerica. From making the comic, I learned that making a comic requires a lot of effort artistically and also requires a lot of organization to fit words in with your panels that make sense. I also learned that there are many aspects of a comic that can be changed; there’s plenty of freedom to express your style and ideas.

Follow this –> link<– to see the project!

Link: The Safety Delusion

My main role in the project was to do the logistical work of creating the comic in Comic Life 3. I have worked with a variety of creative software, such as the GIMP, so I felt that I was well-suited to figuring out the workings of Comic Life 3. I also played an integral role in drafting the storyline of the comic. It was my idea to gradually flesh out a panel-by-panel draft of our comic in GoogleDocs. Once we had a concrete plan laid out, we cooperatively searched the internet for Creative Commons licensed photos that matched our draft. Additionally, I came up with the ideas to incorporate a reality vs. expectations segment, and the sci-fi esque “danger free” world. These two elements made critical points central to the argument of the article. These elements also both make claims in a stylish, artistic form. I consider myself an artsy person with a penchant for aesthetics, a skill that proved useful for our project.

The Almighty Google made use of bitstrips. I thought this was interesting because it resulted in the comic strip being uniform in style with a consistent set of characters, something our comic seriously lacked. Admittedly, this makes the comic more aesthetically appealing and easier to follow. Obviously using a fixed set of visual elements, however, has limitations. However, this group effectively overcame those limitations through photo editing and creative use of the tools provided by bistrips.

I learned a lot about the interplay between visual elements and text from making this comic. At first, when the first few pages lacked text, a friend pointed out to me that the story made little sense. Looking back at it, I realized she was right. After adding the text, I realized that together, the text and the visuals were able to clearly convey an argument while having a certain aesthetic appeal that text alone lacks. This project combined skills we developed from all of the other assignments. We had to engage in a close-reading of the article to pick up on the nuances of the argument, a skill we learned from the Maus assignment. We had to visually represent an argument about a text, as we did with Fun Home. Finally, we analyzed and explained an argument made by a text using specific references from the text, as we required to do in the Vietnamerica assignment.

Before reading this reflection, take a look at this article: America’s Real Criminal Element: Lead

Click the image below to view “The Life I Lead”

In the process of creating “The Life I Lead,” I took on the task of developing and expanding the storyline. The bulk of our story revolved around a real situation and a real setting–Pitcher, Oklahoma. As a native Oklahoman, I was the only person in my group who had even heard of Pitcher, so I had to participate in the development of the storyline. My main job was taking a reality and turning it into a fictional representation of an argument. Expanding and altering a dark storyline into somewhat of a political argument wasn’t easy, but my group’s geographical detachment from Pitcher made my job easier. My group’s unique perspectives provided somewhat of a “foreign” view of Pitcher and its situation, which allowed me to change details galore and differentiate our comic from the past of Pitcher, Oklahoma.

This project was unassumingly challenging. I originally thought that creating a comic would be simple, but incorporating an unknown argument was extremely difficult. Regardless of the difficulty, this assignment combined several “take-aways” from this class, and turned them into a cohesive assignment. I found myself repeating processes I used in both the Maus project and in the Fun Home project. My group and I discussed color, texture, shading, panel organization, and text placement. We took aspects from each graphic novel we read and incorporated them into our project. We built a simple storyline, intertwined with depth and meaning. This assignment was indeed difficult, but by utilizing the practices we used in the past, my group and I managed to turn it in to an enjoyable, creative experience. The small nuggets of knowledge I found while working on this project only serve to underline the knowledge I gained by taking this class as a whole. I learned the importance that illustration can have in a novel, and the depth in which it forms. I learned that words can’t tell the whole story and that a picture is sometimes worth 1000 words.

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“The Safety Delusion” was a well thought-out, well illustrated comic. However, the reason I enjoyed it was because it sparked a quality discussion in the classroom. To me, the whole purpose of this project was to ignite a conversation–to reveal an argument. In addition to revealing a solid argument, “The Safety Delusion” also revealed the impact an illustration can have on the reader, and the depth a simple choice in color can add to a graphic novel. Through their attention to panel-detail and color, “The Safety Delusion” successfully sparked a conversation about children’s safety and parental risk.

“Should we let children assume risk?”

“Should parents protect their children from the risk of harm?”

These two questions sat in the back of my mind as this comic was presented, and I still can’t tell you the answers. “The Safety Delusion” captured the heart of a purposeful argument, and left a lasting impact on the reader. It successfully combined the strategies we used throughout the year, and highlighted what I want to take away from this course as a whole.

Click the image below to view “The Safety Delusion”

It took a while but we finally did it. Check out the comic that Wyatt, Chuck, David, and I created here. 

Check out our team’s comic on the little known negative effects of lead exposure.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LwlygsjQIiuWS_mNNsjBKMUhHRCfmD1VFT2EfETYeV4/edit