Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

My comic this week shows the plan of a riding a wave between two brothers. Although you can not see the two brothers, it is clear that they speaking to each other through the text bubbles. One of the things you may notice throughout the comic is how the red and purple text bubbles rotate each time. The purpose of this was to broadcast how they focusing on everything else except for the main wave. It is shown as in the end, the moon is out and the other brother says, “We done enough today.” Another thing that I wanted to broadcast is the squiggly lines on the bottom. They crossed the line to show how the bottom half can represent the waves dying out. The brother with the red text was eager to ride the huge wave even though the waves would die out quickly.

For this comic, I wanted to focus on the drawing, but also on the storytelling. The drawing of the waves are too great, but you can tell there are waves because of the squiggly lines which are supposed to represent the water and the brother’s conversation which mainly talks about the waves. For my storytelling, I decided to focus on the end when the brother said that they done enough. This might cause readers to raise the question on why they didn’t ride the wave even though it was there the whole time.

I also thought of Scott McCloud’s idea of interdependent. All on page 155 shows conversation between people, but the people talking may not be featured or they talk about another topic that may be in front of them. For example, on page 155, shows a man who looks raggedy and dirty while another person asks, “I ask you, does this guy look like a C.E.O. to you??” I decided to use that same idea but rather it is about two brothers and the topic is about the wave that is in front of them.

This week’s comic was made in adobe illustrator, with the idea that the words and pictures used in the comic are interdependent on each other. I chose to write my comic about how a lazy quarantine has made me in comparison to the life of my cat. I chose this idea based on real life events of how lazy I have become and how bad my cat wants me to leave the house again. 

The words and images are interdependent on each other in the aspect that if you did not see the cat speaking or licking its paw in one of the panels you would think there is a very gross and lazy human not just a normal feline. The only panels that are mostly word dependent are the last two because it refers to the cat and there is no action occurring not being described by the words. 

In illustrator the main tools that I used were the shape tool to create the larger colored images and the curvature tool to make the shapes more unique and less uniform. The pen tool was used to create the detailed lines in my character’s face, as well as the cat’s whiskers, claws, and teeth. Every time I use the tools in illustrator I get more familiar with them and learn something new so it becomes easier to use. This time I learned more of the keyboard commands so I could select all my shapes and duplicate them without having to frequently click around the tool bar. 

The time frame that this comic works in is fairly short, Where there is a quick back and forth between the human and the cat and in the gutter at one point my human character takes a shower so in the last panel there is no stink lines and messy hair from just waking up.

My Comic is interdependent because if you were to separate the words from the picture you would not be able to come to the same conclusion. The image depicts a star in the sky, and unfortunately my painting skills are not amazing so the reader could believe that a child has painted a canvas and stuck a star in the middle. If you read the wording you know that the star aids in navigation however, because you do not know if the star is in the sky, the star could be some kind of item. I would categorize my comic as Duo-Specific. I do not believe that either the picture or words weigh more than the other, both depict the same idea. 

I used the text tool to express the verbiage. That said, I believe that changing the font helped to give the feeling of magic. If the text had stayed original the effect would not push through. I used the star tool while holding the shift key to make the star not deform while resizing. I also changed the opacity so that the star would not stick out like a sore thumb. I used the line and square tools to create the outer box and separation between word and pictures. The most exciting tool I used was the painting tool, I played around with different texture strokes and decided on one that had a soft edge to show a mixture of colors while trying to recreate the sky, this stroke is called feather. After painting I rearranged the strokes so that no feathered color would pass over the border. I also added an extra border as the top layer so that it would look crisp and clean.

In this comic I did not utilize the idea of closure, you can see no actions or difference in time.

For this weeks blog I made a comic with a much different theme than last week. Previously, I created a comic that made use of time frames. This week I decided to make a murder comic. I wanted to leave a lot of the interpretation of the comic to the reader. The parts of the comic that cannot be debated is that the two characters have a love conflict. It begins with the man giving his lover a rose. She’s sniffling with a very serious look in her face. We can tell she doesn’t appreciate the gesture by the man. Are they married? Is this the last straw? What is their past? Once again, this comic was created so YOU will create your own interpretation. Regardless, the woman pulls out a pistol and opens fire. In a moment of reconciliation she wipes off a tear and fires another shot. I wanted to create an action-to-action scene in these panels. The gunshots are interdependent on the “BANG” words that I drew. I would consider this comic duo-specific as Scott McCloud had explained to us this week. Much of the text goes hand-in-hand with the actions and illustrations.

The comic ends with the woman repeating the phrase “I never loved you..,” for a third time. I wanted to express the insanity it takes for a person to kill one they once loved. The relationship drove this girl insane, which is why I ended it with her giving an eerie smile in a mirror as she repeats herself. I was inspired by the ending of the award-winning movie Sunset Boulevard when Norma Desmond greets the press with a smile after murdering her boyfriend. I used markers instead of colored pencils this week. The actual art I believe improved a lot. Much of the imagery takes on the style of great pop culture artist Roy Lichtenstein. I wanted create a 1950’s setting.

Hello friends! I hope that everyone is managing their work load okay with TWO WEEKS left in the semester. Remember to take breaks, drink some water and call a loved one or two.

For this week’s blog, I decided to continue with the nature theme in Oregon that I posted about last week, and do something related to a quarantine guide, because that’s all I seem to be writing about for The Daily Evergreen. So, without further ado, here is a breakdown of my “Show and Tell” comic.

Scott McCloud’s definition of interdependent word-picture combinations is as follows: “…where words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea that neither could do alone” (pg. 155). I believe my comic is an example of this because I chose to incorporate pictures from my personal life that have meaning to me. Other people who didn’t grow up in Oregon, or even in Eastern Oregon for that matter, might not have any idea what a mud pit is, or why it’s so gosh-darn fun to play in as a child. Other people might not have experienced fishing or farmland adventures like I have, so looking at these pictures out of context with no idea of where they were taken or who is in them doesn’t get the full effect across to my audience that I would hope. With these captions, however, I think (and hope) that it becomes more clear. Hence why my comic is interdependent – one cannot be without the other.

Quarantine Survival Guide. Created by Haydyn Wallender, Spring 2020.

I also feel that I leaned more towards McCloud’s definition of “duo-specific” (“…in which both words and pictures send essentially the same message” (on pg. 153)) and “additive” (“…where words amplify or elaborate on an image or vice versa” (on pg. 154)). The pictures that I chose convey the suggestions I have in the “quarantine guide”, however, the words also elaborate on more than what is shown in the picture, falling under both categories of these definitions.

As with last week’s blog post, I chose to use the “insert shape” tool for my stick figure girl to represent myself, as well as for the speech bubbles. Twice I used the “pencil tool”, and that was for the arms of my girl at the end of the comic. (I LOVE THAT TOOL). The color panel was also incorporated, but this time for more solid, basic colors rather than multiple colors for different things like last week. This comic to me had a more aesthetic vibe – the colors are similar and the text, like a typewriter, pairs well with the timeline of when these pictures were taken (in the early 2000’s). By using these basic shapes, it gave the comic a more childish appeal, which was what I was going for with parents, and the pictures gave a sense of truth to what I had written. Overall, I was much more pleased with how this one turned out in regards to layout and color than I was with the previous one.

The only observations that I really have about these tools and how I created this comic digitally is that it’s been a lot harder than I thought learning new skills on software. I am not a techy person in general, but I think I finally am starting to get the hang of some of these skills that are no doubt important in the future.