Divorce – A comic written and illustrated by Ana Maria Alaniz Mendoza.

Creative Plan: For starters, even though I did use a left-to-right and top-to-bottom layout, a viewer will not necessarily know that they should read the top half of the page first and the bottom half second unless they are actually looking at/reading the comic and analyzing the details of the imagery.

A couple tactics I implemented to guide viewers through this comic include the spatial relationship of each panel, the color scheme in each panel, and linguistic symbols. Each panel has the same distinct rounded corners and space in between so that a viewer will know automatically that they all work together to tell one story. The purple panels versus the yellow panels represent two different rooms in the same house and two sides of the story altogether.

In chapter 5 of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, he presses into the invisible worlds of senses and emotions that all aspects of comics show to some extent. In my comic, I pressed into sense and emotion with my character’s facial/body expressions, linguistic mode, and overall linguistic symbols. A few symbols, for example, include the steam coming from the pot on the stove in the top yellow panel, the sparkle on the high heeled shoe, or even the mouth shape each character has in each scene. Some of the words I added to this design are conversational, some are sound effects, and some are thoughts.

Most of the closure I see in my comic is subject to subject which stays within a scene or idea while still showing multiple parts. For example, every panel that has a box in the illustration shows different ways the little girl experienced and discovered new things while in her mom’s closet.

Experience using Illustrator: I’ve been gaining Illustrator experience over the last three years. This is only the second time I have utilized different layers in the layers panel on Ai and it was a great way to challenge myself/stay organized.

In chapter 5, p.132 of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, he says, “When a story hinges more on characterization than cold plot, there may not be a lot to show externally, but the landscape of the characters’ minds can be quite a sight!” My iconography is very simple and playful, however, the message in my comic is more personal and serious. I did this because I think many people may find this comic relatable in regards to the extreme ways divorce impacts kids without people realizing it.

Lastly, I also am a stick-figure type of person which is why Illustrator is so great. Illustrator allows me to think with lines and shapes in a more advanced setting. I found the shape builder tool and the expand text tool the most helpful for this project specifically. Using layers was confusing sometimes, but only because I am not used to it yet.