Extra Credit - Jordan Posey

I didn't actually think of a title, so how about... "Teenage Closet Story on a School Bus" ???

As far as style goes, Bechdel and Waldman mostly influenced the art for this. I wanted to work with a text from literature in the same way that Bechdel did because I liked that dynamic between text and picture in Fun Home. I also attempted the technique used by Waldman that involved changing the art style for a different narrative function. I am slightly worried the difference is not clear enough, but in the panels that are illustrations of the book I was working with, Maurice by E. M. Forster, I tried to use a wispier, looser style with more pencil and less pen. I originally planned to do a lot more and actually use this as just a template/sketch for a more elaborate digital draft, but I underestimated the time commitment. I planned the panels on a separate paper and then drew all of them before filling them. My initial ideas did change from the original plan to this draft, though. I originally picked different passages from Maurice but I changed them to be more relevant to the pictures I wanted to draw. In general I found words/text falling second to art, although I think it would have been more practical to do it the other way.

The story and the concept were two things that were much more difficult for me to come up with. I wanted to either focus on race or sexuality, or both, but I ended up choosing only sexuality because of the book I wanted to work with, Maurice, which is a book about sexuality and class. This is not autobiographical, but instead I wanted to convey feelings I have felt before. Reading a book about homosexuality on a school bus is something that would have caused me great anxiety in high school, and even now. I wanted my character to be so enthralled with the book that they would read it in public, and I wanted it to be sort of ambiguous as to whether he was embarrassed or not. The passages I chose are actually out of order by a few pages, but it made more sense the way I did it. The first is Maurice finally telling his former lover, a man who chose to live a heterosexual life, he is done with him. The second is Maurice embracing his new lover. I wanted the second scene paralleled with the current narrative, of my character shyly telling someone (possibly a romantic interest, who knows), that he is reading a book about homosexuality. This is essentially a story about being in the closet, or not being in the closet. Maurice and his lovers are certainly in the closet so I wanted that contrast, and I wanted it to be ambiguous as to whether my characters were in the closet or not. Whether he is or not, my point was that its always hard to put yourself out there, especially with sexuality.

If anything, I wish I could have differentiated the two styles more so that effect could have been more impactful. I really enjoyed making this though.

Lets talk about stitches

I'm not in charge of this discussion but I figure why not get something up here for anyone who wants to talk about it.  Stitches is an interesting memoir about a boy growing up in an abusive household, patterns of neglect and angst abound.  A few things that have stood out to me as interesting topics are as follows.

1. It is a very quick read in my opinion, in what ways did framing play into that? Does navigation seem easier than in some of our prior texts? Why?

2.  Up to the point of page 150 (for those of you that haven't read ahead), how much of this just seems like over reactive sensitivity to regular every day events in childhood?  I remember myself being yelled at as a child and holding a grudge against that adult for a year and a half, which seems absurd now.

3. In what ways does Davids opinion of characters show through in the style in which they are drawn?  The grandma being an obvious one, but check out the drunk drivers on pg. 71. The book certainly shares emotions through style. What stood out to you?

4. This novel is entirely in black and white, are there any scenes that you would consider adding color?

5. What did you think of the style of this memoir? Was it more effective than the priors? Why?

A normal Day in the life of a College Mom-Jillian's Extra credit

So, my apologies for the progressively deteriorating artwork, but I'm more of a landscape drawer than a people drawer. I chose to describe a somewhat normal day in my life because it wouldn't take an entire book to fill. Some questions that need to be answered: I am an insulin dependent Type 1 Diabetic, that's why there text like "blood sugar" and "test." My daughter Autumn is more important than being overwhelmed about getting into grad school or finding a job, but I do work diligently so that she gets everything she needs and wants. Oh, and yes, some days its seems like I've been awake about 15 minutes before someone tells me to leave for the shuttle.
I'm more influenced by text and story rather than the artwork. I think my influences had very little effect on what I was trying to get at in the scene. Lynda Barry's collage and sort of jumbled text style certainly had an influence as I was making this, but I think if I had more time, and energy, it would certainly have other influences. I used an old Manga drawing book to come up with my first page. There is something stylistically pleasing about Manga. I like it, this is my best attempt at drawing it.
As a form, I like how its easy to hide away superfluous details with panels skipping time periods, like its 6:45am and then its 7:00am.

AC Original Comic Submission

Hello folks. Just a fair warning that some of the images are graphic. If you'd rather not see that I wouldn't recommend reading on (many apologies!)

Canoed

HigherEd Anxiety

I'm not very artistic. I may be a writer but that doesn't make me an artist. My specialty is factual writing, not creative. The name of HigherEd Anxiety was inspired from one of my favorite movies that I recently watched (Mel Brook's High Anxiety). My comic focuses on what has been dominating my thoughts lately – graduation and my future. My humble artistic skills are brought to you by InDesign.

Lynda Barry's One!Hundred!Demons! was fresh in my memory when I started on this, and I let her inspire me. Though Barry's comic is much more detailed and colorful, I tried to mimic her message. Graduation is a rite of passage, and many of Barry's demons reflected issues that we face in childhood and during our rites of passage. My demons in this comic are self doubt and stress. They are represented by snapping teeth eating away at me. Barry struggles to overcome her demons in each chapter of her comic just as I struggle to overcome mine in the comic above. After I formally introduce my demons, the next frame shows me trying to beat them off with a newspaper. I primarily chose newspaper as my weapon of choice because it represents my career choice. But it also shows how I view these demons – beatable. You use newspaper to sway away an annoying bug that's buzzing around your head. My demons of self doubt and stress are just that, annoyances in my head that I need to just swat away.

I also channeled Art Spiegelman's Maus in my comic. I always found his use of masks as interesting. They represented the different races, but also provided a sort of anonymity. Spiegelman said in an interview with The Comics Journal that one reason he chose to represent the characters in animal masks is that it allows the readers to envision themselves in the story. Scott McCloud echos this sentiment in Understanding Comics, he said that humans will look for human characteristics in objects, so they will try to relate to those objects and will pay more attention to them. I chose to represent myself as a minimalistic stick figure in an attempt to employ McCloud and Spiegelman's theory. The figure is a blank slate that audience members can drop themselves into, it doesn't even have a face or any details that would point to a certain gender. I also think that the topic is a popular one that many soon-to-be graduates can relate to.

Austin Marck extra credit

I am not an artist. It is laughable when I try to draw something in any context.  I come from a family of skilled cartoonists. I have cousins with art in fine galleries living luxurious lifestyles on their passion. My father was exceptional, when I stumbled upon his artwork that he had kept hidden away for years I thought it was  an almanac of some of the great masters, but no it was his old doodles. The man was extremely talented. Those gifts and skills despite any efforts of my own do not exist.  Pictionary is harder than writing complicated software or doing a case study, "drawsomething" was uninstalled after 10 minutes of using it.  

Enough of that, onto what the comic is about.  My best friend has a cat, who has far too much personality for his own good.  He can not meow, but he can make a bit of a noise, something like a whisper. He's been spoiled, after being a stray for most of his adult life he knows how to push enough buttons to get what he wants. He will hold a lengthy conversation about his needs and your duties until his demands are met.  We've coined him the councilman.  Much to the same avail as the monkey kings son becomes human in "American Born Chinese" this cat or "The Councilman" takes on the personality of a person in the home.  Both have some strange vendetta towards people in some context certainly.  One being resolved over bubble tea, and the other more ruthless of the two only resolved over turkey.  The amount of thought I put into this was far and beyond what I had expected.

Before I wrote this I wanted to have a goal, something for the audience to take away, even if it is silly.  The hope is that the reader will be confused on what exactly reading in the first page and have some closure by the second. The dark space and poor framing was very much intended to make things ugly to contrast the last page. Since the goal of my comic was to be confusing, then after resolute, I think it turned out the way I wanted.A quick change in fonts here and there and color to show who's speaking.     I asked my friend if I could snap a photo of the drawing she did of the cat to share in my comic and she said absolutely.  So that seemed to me like the perfect way to finish off the paper, and getting a picture of the cat checking it out was an absolute bonus.


I've always thought about drawing comics with bad art and interesting ideas, this was a fun way to show myself that I should run the other way as fast as I can.  It was seriously fun and I'm glad I did, but I'll leave the art and structure to the artists. It certainly gave me an appreciation for what they do. I would be happy to write the dialog and maybe go so far as to storyboard a comic in the future assuming that someone could deal with my chicken scratch.
Thanks everyone!