In Scott McCloud’s, Understanding Comics (Chapter 5 Living in Line), I learned that many different emotions and movements could be conveyed through the use of simple lines. As he states, with this technique emotions could be made “visible”. He provides several examples utilizing lines in order to describe a certain emotion. Such as jagged lines to create tension or fear while curvy lines usually give off a joyous vibe.

With the comic I created for this week I tried to provide enough examples of how lines could be used in order to show emotion and movements. I also went the pencil and paper route because I feel for right now I am able to convey stronger emotions through this than digital. The storyline is pretty short and simple. This random character I created is going through his normal errands shopping when he suddenly feels like something’s missing. He realizes that he forgot the oven was running before he left! He rushes back home in order to find that he was too late. The oven had literally ran away from home. This was a simple ridiculous story I came up with quickly but I knew it had great potential for line use.

In the first panel I utilized a tornado-like line above the person’s head in order to show that he’s confused or questioning something. For the next panel I attempted to provide the emotion of shock with a jagged line going across the person’s face. I thought this was appropriate due to it literally looking like electric is going through him causing his shock. The next panel is my favorite and it was where I was able to utilize line to create motion. I did the basic cartoon clouds that follow a person as they run at full speed. I also tried to make it look like he’s running fast with lines that went from thick to thin. For in the second to last panel I added more thick and thin lines to give the effect that the door is slamming open quickly, as well as a subtle foot step. Finally in the last panel, I created a waterfall of tears coming from the person’s eyes in order to show great sadness after they found out their oven had actually ran away.