My final digital comic collage.

Creatively, I was motivated to create an accurate representation of the stereotypical college student in today’s society.  I hope that viewers will find my work as accurate as well as aesthetically pleasing to look at.   As McCloud’s definition outlines, my comic is “juxtaposed pictorials and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (McCloud, 9).

When I began this class I was only familiar with the most common form of comics like those in the Sunday paper or Marvel comics.  However, after learning about Lynda Barry’s career, my thought process relating to comics changed drastically.  I’ve taken a previous DTC class and art composition/history classes in the past so I was pretty knowledgeable in regards to the elements and principles of design.  That being said, Lovett’s Design Overview was a really nice refresher.  His overview mostly impacted my work via size and emphasis.

The materials that I scanned and photographed were all very deliberate for one reason or another.  I used the notebook paper background to display two things: light/day and school.  I wanted to keep the school week clean and tidy to acknowledge the tedious upkeep that college students need to maintain in order to receive sufficient grades.  I created the black boxes in the collage digitally, but I wanted them to be uniform to further reinforce the repetitive schedule of the school week.  The materials I scanned and placed within said black boxes were also chosen in order to display the orderliness of the week as a whole.  I purposefully placed only one item in each box because I believe that in order to be a successful student, one must have strong prioritization skills.  I decided to include Sunday in the school week because I think that most students use Sunday to recuperate and get homework done.  I used the fabric from one of my skirts as a background for Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday.  I wanted it to represent the night and the mysterious nature of the dark.  I decided to create the white frames digitally as well, however, I took a messier approach in order to convey chaos.  To preserve that aesthetic, I decided to place multiple items in each box and have them fall outside of the lines that enclose the school week materials.  The materials I scanned from the weekend are supposed to represent events like parties, football games, and going out/getting ready.

I tried to use as few physical words as possible in my comic.  However, the words I did include were supposed to come off as handwritten.  I decided to use size again to create emphasis on some text rather than others.

This was not my first time using Photoshop because I’ve taken a previous DTC class, but I did learn some useful information from the tutorials.  The most helpful tools I gained were definitely in regards to the selection-making process.  In this comic collage, I used the quick selection on my original scans.  I also used brightness/contrast and hue/saturation pretty extensively in order to get the aesthetic I wanted.  Personally, I enjoy composing in a digital environment much more than in a physical environment.  I like that you always have the ability to redo steps which you can’t do in fine arts such as painting.