Website Link: https://dawson120.wixsite.com/finalwebcomic

For this project, I decided to only use illustrator to create my web comic. I really enjoyed creating the poster comic, plus I felt like I was able to execute a much better project than the first one. I chose to use wix as a platform to display my work because it’s a well reliable and easy to use interface. Although wix did limit my ability to format images, it was a great way to make a good looking website for a beginner like me. The story like my last project is fictional, however I chose to make it old western and cowboy themed. Unlike my last two projects, I didn’t use any words in this one; however, I think there is a very clear plot involving a bandit and a protagonist who wants to do the right thing. 

This is a desert sunset I made in Illustrator. It’s one of the first panels in my comic.

Overall, I was able to embrace the possibilities of web viewing by designing my web comic to be read by scrolling down with a mouse or by hand on smartphone platforms. The design and layout of my comic was very social media/ blog inspired. Most of the panels are squares and are placed very symmetrically almost like Instagram. I think my story does a good job of guiding the viewer through the story. It’s very simple and easy to follow from left to right then downwards by scrolling through the page. After I published the site, I viewed it on my phone. I was doubtful about it at first but I was very surprised about how smoothly it ran on my I phone. The setup is a lot different because of the smaller screen. It’s formatted so that the reader can only see one panel at a time which I thought was really cool. I think Scott McCloud would approve of my project as a comic because it is a juxtaposed series of images intended to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer. I also tried my best to create closure and time frames.

these are the two main characters in the story. I made it to show the tension between them.

Like I said earlier, I only used Illustrator for the entirety of the project. Each panel is its own file that I created individually, because I found that the easiest way to do it. I used Wix because I don’t have any experience with coding which made the whole process a lot easier on me. All I had to do was drag and drop my jpg files into wix and from there on it was pretty straight forward. One drawback to using a website creating service vs making your own I would have to say is the freedom that you have. Although there are a lot of options, you can’t fully customize your page to the fullest. Also, I definitely feel like the formatting in Wix reduced the quality of some of my images. A few of them look a lot grainier than they are supposed to.

Overall, I learned a lot during this project. I’d say I learned a lot more about illustrator which has enabled me to not be as limited in terms of what I can create now. I learned a lot from just making a website. I didn’t realize how much work it can take to create a website using html. I definitely had a lot of fun making this project and there’s a lot I can take away from it.