Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

While working on the hand drawn comic It became apparent that art was not a skill I had yet refined. I was trying to express through my panels the topics that I associate with; such as being an RA, the first panel shows a bulletin board that we as RAs must make to express who we are to our residents. The first panel of the hand drawn comic was re designed/ drawn 15 times before I landed on a concept. The next panels are zoomed in sticky notes that describe a little bit about me such as that I am a double major in marketing and business management, following with the idea that I love the beach and ending with my favorite show “The Office”.

This struggle was not the case however, with the Digital Comic. Right when I began I had a story line ready to execute. The story was tweaked here and there as I continued but the concept still strongly resembled my original idea. Using Canva I created a four panel design that I enjoyed creating much more than the hand drawn comic. I think that I am a perfectionist and that was easier accomplished through already created designs that I implemented into the Digital design compared to the hand drawn comic where my artistic skills where flawed.

Although I prefer making my own comic in a digital layout, I enjoyed reading comics in class on paper: to me, it was easier to follow and the anticipation of flipping to the next page was thrilling. I have never been an avid comic reader and this class has really opened my eyes to the industry.

While reading through the first chapter of “understanding Comics” I really enjoyed the idea of sequence and how although you only need two panels to show a movement you can still get your story across. In my Digital Comic I use sequence to portray the sun setting so that the audience understands it is getting dark and then it snows. Although my comic looks and feels like an average comic I found it interesting how broad the definition of a comics could be and how little restrictions where there.

Making the comic by hand and digitally were very different. Over all I preferred the paper comic because I had more flexibility in what I was doing and wasn’t constrained to the parameters of the software I was using. The benefit of paper was how much freedom I had but the main benefit of using a computer software was how easily and quickly I could go back and change or edit something. The first reading didn’t give me an ideas but its broad definition of comics gave me a more open train of though regarding what I could do.

For me personally I don’t mind reading comics digitally or on paper. I read way more comics digitally as I read a ton of web comics on my phone and only read a little bit of print comics. The main difference is just formatting as on a web comic that is formatted for a phone the panels usually aren’t next to each other and instead are organized under each other to make it easier to follow and read on a small screen. When in print the organization has more variability which can be utilized more creatively and has more variability. I only prefer reading comics digitally due to the convenience of being able to read comics wherever and whenever I want.

I created two comics, one hand drawn and the other on Microsoft Word. My hand drawn comic includes six panels where I have drawn myself as a stick figure. In this comic, I introduce myself to the reader and share facts about myself. To create this comic, I drew in pencil, went over it in pen, and then highlighted some of the important areas in orange. I tried to keep a similar theme with my digital comic. For the digital comic, I included four panels. I followed the same pattern of having the figure introduce herself, but then I included different facts. I also included a variety of colors.

The benefit of being able to draw my cartoon by hand is that I had more freedom of expression with my comics. Once I thought of my idea, I was able to immediately translate that onto the page. I was also able to add some texture to the page. The biggest drawback of hand drawing this comic was my own lack of artistic skills. While I am creative, my ability to truly replicate what I see in my head is not super advanced. This frustrated me because I could not truly get to the vision I wanted to.

In my digital comic, I loved how clean I was able to make the illustrations. Being able to have the computer create straight lines and perfect circles made my comic easier to produce. The biggest drawback for me was that I wasn’t able to make small changes as easily and the precision it took to get the picture looking correct was a lot higher. Since the lines are a lot cleaner, and since I could not erase small mistakes, the digital comic actually took me a lot longer than the hand drawn comic.

Since my comics had a similar layout, the biggest difference in reading on the screen versus on a piece of paper is actually being able to see the textural differences. Because a pen and a marker were used in creating my hand drawn comic, it is easy to see that texture. In Word I was not able to really create the same feeling of depth that I could on paper. Other than that, I did not really see a difference in reading a comic on the screen or a paper.

After reading the first chapter of Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics,” I adjusted my plan for my digital comic. McCloud’s idea that comics are in a “deliberate sequence” stood out to me. To ensure that my comic was in a deliberate order, I went from past to present. I started by explaining my favorite color, which I have loved for a long time. Then, I added that I did cheer in high school. Finally, I added that I am now an RA in Regents. While this sequence may not be immediately obvious to the reader, I think that it helps with the complexity of the comic.

The two comics I created digital versus hand drawn are very similar yet very different. To begin with my digital drawing was a story about my dog hunter. In the digital comic I used a lot of visuals to help depict what is going on. Whether it was the time or year. To make the digital comic I used a comic app that helped make an easy template for me. It made it easy and divided the comic into small boxes that I could use from scene to scene. With the comic app I could use my Apple Pencil and draw just like I would on paper.

For my hand drawn comic things were different than using my iPad. I had to actually make the boxes for each scene use paper, pencil, eraser, and a ruler. There were alot more tools involved in just creating my actual comic. My hand drawn comic was also a story and it talked about how I got to WSU. It went into detail on my journey here and what I had to do to get where I am today. The biggest difference for me between the two had to be just the amount of effort and usability. Hand drawn comic took way more effort to put together yet it was very user friendly. It was so user friendly because it’s what I’ve grown up doing is drawing as a kid. The digital comic was way easier to put together but the user friendliness was harder because I was working with something new which was the actual comic app. The difference between reading a paper comic over a digital comic is a paper comic feels more friendly and traditional over the digital comic. The digital comic feels very modern and doesn’t have the same vibes as a paper copy. Lastly after reading the first chapter of Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud I learned a lot of basic teachings in comics which helped make my comic strip a lot easier to complete. Overall, it was really cool to see the differences and similarities in both the hand drawn and digital comic.

I preferred making the print comic to the digital comic, but there was certainly positives and negatives to both. I’m not a gifted artist, so it took me a while to produce anything recognizable in the print comic, which was definitely frustrating. With the digital comic, everything could be perfect squares or rectangles, so my simple drawing took 100% less ruler work on MS paint than it did physically. There were also drawbacks from the tools I had themselves, such as not having any sort of color for my physical comic or making my digital comic on paint, where I couldn’t adjust shapes, rotate text, etc… The process was much simpler on the digital comic though, it felt more comfortable to size things perfectly, undo a mistake without having to worry about erasing and having streak marks.

I personally don’t find much difference to reading a comic on screen as opposed to paper. There isn’t problems such as the page tearing or the pages flipping back on their own with seeing comics on screen. The main thing that holding a physical graphic novel like Understanding Comics is nostalgia from being a kid and reading Sonic comics before school. The thing I think I like the most about how Scott uses emphasis on his words when reading Understanding Comics, and I tried to emulate that a little in my digital comic with the third panel and the spaced out/bigger lettering to show emphasis. Once again, there isn’t many font options in paint and I would’ve rotated the text to space better if I could, but the idea is there.

Before I started to work on my comic, I had left it to do it last minute because I thought it was going to be easy but when I got to the point where I had to brainstorm, I was struggling a lot to come up with topics and image. Never did I think I could ever make a comic, and especially not about myself. Before reading the book “Understanding Comics”, I had never really read a comic book, and I had a different perspective about comics. I always thought comics were just pictures about random stuff, but I have learned that comics can be very informational and are also a form of telling stories. I think that working on a comic on paper was way easier than doing it digitally. Working on paper gave me more freedom to express myself, as when I was doing it digitally, I was restricted to adding certain details because I did not know how to use my resources well.

I think something that I struggled the most with while working on my paper comic was coming up with the images that were going to relate to what my comic was going to be about. Also, another thing that I struggled with while I was working on my comic was doing the illustrations, which I didn’t know were not necessary for a comic. A struggle I faced when working on my digital comic was finding tools that I already knew how to use.

The difference between reading a comic online and reading one in a hard copy is that comics are set up in books in a certain way for us to understand the comic. When you read a comic online it rearranges the comic which defeats the purpose of the comic.

After reading “Understanding Comics”, I got a better idea of what a comic is like, although I still struggled when creating mine.

The difference between my experience of making a comic by hand versus using a digital tool was major. Not only did I find the digital comic more difficult, I had absolutely no knowledge of how to do it and could not find a way to match the comic’s quality to my handwritten one. I did manage to get it onto the hard drive however, so that’s a positive. The benefits with a hand drawn comic is that there is a bit more possibility with it. I was able to simply erase what I disliked and redraw it. I was also able to organize the frames more loosely, instead of being right next to each other. Finally, it was not difficult to draw what I wanted, choosing the words I wanted to use as well. A drawback with the handwritten method is that I could only draw and color to the best of my ability. This caused me to limit my picture choice a bit, as well the story. The lines are not straight either compared to the tools the digital method has. The digital method provided more variety in tools, allowing me to make straight lines and have the conversation font look clean. However, a drawback is that it was frustrating because I had little knowledge as to how to do it. This caused me to limit my story choice much more than the handwritten one. I also had to restrict my linguistic choices and image choice due to wanting it to fit in the word bubble. As well, I ended up using the same image three times due to me not wanting to draw more with my finger and phone. A block also appeared behind one of the images which I was unsure how to remove, so I left it. 

The difference between reading a digital comic versus one on paper is not too different. If the digital comic is produced well, its manageable to read, even on a screen. However, there is something pleasant about having a comic in my hands because then I can look closer at each panel or image. Although, reading on screen creates this ability to read comic’s layout in a more variety of ways rather than just left to right as having it in hand would do. 

Reading Scott McCloud’s, “Understanding Comics,” did not necessarily give me ideas when I was creating my digital comic, but it did give me some reassurance. His definition of a comic was more lenient than mine. I also did not feel so inclined to provide a beginning, middle and end when reading, so I decided to start in the middle of a conversation.