Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Hi, friends! Can you believe that this is the last blog post of the semester?! I know I can’t. It’s craziness.

For my last blog post, I took what Scott McCloud said to heart, (literally), when he said (wrote, really), that “no other human being can ever know what it’s like to be you from the inside” (pg. 194), and created a comic to express that. (Yes, I know that was the prompt, but sheesh, I wanted it to be mysterious). I wanted to take the idea of individuality very seriously and literally, because of some personal reasons.

For years I was known as the “perfectionist”, the “smart girl” or whatever label people wanted to slap over my identity. I had a hard time fitting in and truly knowing who I was, because people were often defining me and what they thought I was. I’m sure many people can relate to that. Many people can also relate to the fact that you can present something on the outside, and it is NOTHING like what is actually occurring on the inside.

I wanted this comic to express that feeling. So I chose to focus on the main things that I have been battling this semester. That was the inspiration behind the idea/purpose: I wanted my internal parts that no one sees to be just as prominent as the parts of self that people do see. The content was based off of this, as I mentioned earlier: the things that I have been battling this semester; the things you can’t see.

Outer vs. Inner Appearances. Created by Haydyn Wallender, Spring 2020.

The form was a comic, but a different structure than before for me. I chose to really play with different frame sizes, the line stroke of the boxes, and the colors of the comic. Each specific internal piece of me is linked to a pattern that I felt would express that part of me. The boxes are, in a way, meant to be reflections, or mirrors, to show the two different aspects of a person at once. You can read the middle panels in a specific or very vague way; I wanted the experience to be up for interpretation and not be so “black and white” like my other comics have been.

The idiom and genre of work was based off of a memoir I have been writing for another class this semester. In that piece of writing, I focus a lot on the abstract parts of self I show here, but in a more flowing, loopy sort of way, where there isn’t a definite conclusion. Internal conflicts and trauma can’t really come to a definite conclusion in my mind, but I reached a conclusion with art that was different than with my writing, so I thought that contrast would be interesting to display.

This leads to the structure of my comic, which I would argue is interdependent as well as additive. The words of my comic amplify the little girl’s thoughts, which are my thoughts, reflected in her world. If the phrases weren’t there, the comic would not only be difficult to understand, but readers would only see a surface level, when there is more there to decipher. As for the interdependent part of the comic, what she is experiencing as a cartoon is similar to what I go through internally and externally, and the words that I chose to write go hand in hand with the images to convey a deeper meaning and idea that the images couldn’t do alone.

The craft of the comic was simple enough: I doodled my idea while Kristin was discussing the new project during the recorded lecture, and then decided how I wanted to set up the panels, how I wanted the color schemes to go, what size and kind of font, and how I wanted the comic to be portrayed to readers. The surface, or the finishing touches, were spacing of letters in the “depression” panel, as well as the perfecting of aligning shapes and colors and making sure that things were easy to read. I also went back and did the “create outlines” suggestion that Kristin mentioned to ensure my font would be read “accurately”.

Overall, I think this comic had more depth, color and thought put into the creation of this piece than any of my other comics. I loved getting to work with Illustrator (though it was a pain in my butt), and struggle through to make such an accurate comic. This is why I believe that my comic was more ambitious. Though the images and shapes were simple, more detail was put into each frame, and I hope that is evident.

Thank you for reading this post! I hope that you all have a safe, wonderfully well-deserved summer, and do some fun things. I hope to see y’all around in Avery next fall. (:

For my final comic, I decided to not only take a bit more time and thought into my comic, but to incorporate a bit of myself as well. The general idea of the comic is someone missing their significant other during social distancing and simply wanting to get away with them, but at last, have to resort to their phone for communication. I used song lyrics from “On Melancholy Hill,” by the Gorillaz, to not only encourage this story in my comic, but to also incorporate my creative writing side. So, before diving into my process of creating this comic, I want to address some of the small yet significant details that can be found in my comic. First, I tried something different with the formatting of my frames in which they do have an order to be read in, but might not be easy to identify. This is my attempt to have the reader participate in which if they are familiar with the text shown throughout the comic, they most likely will be able to understand how to read it. If not, the proper way to read it is from first the top left, bottom left, middle two columns, and then top right, finishing with the bottom right frame. The text is also in a font to make it seem thought-like, or as though she is listening to these words. With this, I attempt to produce an aesthetic response and emotional understanding within my six frame comic.

As mentioned, my idea for this comic is to represent the longing to be with someone, but being prevented from doing so. Many might recognize it due to today’s situation, which is where my idea came from, but essentially it could be equivalent to long distance relationships. Regarding the form in my comic, I do have the frames next to each other but in a certain order so that I could experiment with the pictorial sequence, something I had never tried in previous comics. This can be seen in the middle two frames, an idea inspired by page 115 in Scott McCloud’s graphic novel where he addresses motion across multiple frames. Unfortunately, my art abilities limited me and I could not display motion across multiple frames, though I tried, so I settle with making the background of these two frames look like they could be pieced together into one still frame. However, by not being in the same frame, it helps the reader identify that they are not together in person, but perhaps sharing the same thought or feelings. (I also realize that the boy looks like a turkey, once again due to my limited art abilities).

In terms of Idiom, I struggled, but decided the the triangle can represent the flag on a boat, while the phone can mean long distance communication, which can have an even deeper meaning upon recognizing the purpose of the comic. This then becomes followed with structure in which I use a soft blue to set the comic in a variety of ways, for example the blue creates the setting of the sea, night time, and distance as it can be associated with longing and sadness.

Then the crafting, in which I believe is where my ambition shows the most. I decided to try new tools that I was not too familiar with and find something that seemed interesting or full of room for creativity, then made it work. An example of this can be the opacity bar which I played around with a lot. The background of each frame is filled with a color at a lower capacity to help other pictorial elements stand out. For example, the moon in the first frame is yellow, but the opacity in the reflection is lowered in which, despite being the same color, it shows to be a reflection due to the brightness of the moon. The middle two frames are also full of different levels of opacity as I, for the first time, attempted to create shadowing on the individuals clothing, and to create texture in their hair. I also used layers here the most, creating a few layers of outline before hiding them to show the final product. I also attempted to use the paint brush in these frames, using different sizes and opacity levels to add texture into the overall comic. Finally, the most ambitious decision I made was the order of my frames and making the text small so that the images stand out first rather than the diction. Of course I still used some tools I was familiar with, but tried to use them in a different way than before such as the bolding of the pencil tool to represent vibration rather than sound. This is concluded with surface, in which it appears to readers to be a comic about sailing to sea with a lover, but not being able to.

For my final comic I thought about individuality and what makes us individuals. Scott McCloud thought of individuality in the way that “no other human being can ever know what it’s like to be you from the inside,” (McCloud, 194). As individuals we each have a different set of ideals that set us apart from one another. I thought of those ideals as dreams and figured that no other person can know or understand another individuals’ dreams like they can. I took the dream idea in a more physical manner, and thought it would be interesting to physically portray some common dreams or ideas that people have, that I have also had.

The ideas that I had for this assignment are portrayed in comic form, made by Adobe Illustrator. In this comic I have created a short story or portrayal of dreaming, but more in a literal sense rather than figuratively. The comic shows a person sleeping at night with a large thought bubble meant to represent his dream. In his dream, a dream wizard appears and asks him what he would like to dream about this time and below is a set of options. I structured the dream into three different sections or options. The structure differs from the traditional paneled comic because it has more organic shapes. In the set of options are common things people dream about that also represent a deeper meaning that is different for each individual. The first option is a “Save the World” narrative that is represented through a superhero icon. This option is meant to represent the idea that everyone has (figurative) dreams about something or someone that they wish they could save or even to be a hero to someone. It could also be interpreted as becoming a superhero which represents society’s view of the perfect person- something everyone finds themselves wishing for at some point. The next option is the “Become a Millionaire” option which represents the dream that most people have of becoming successful, whether it being financially or in any other aspect of their lives. Finally, the last option is memories. This option represents the memories of the past that people hold on to or regrets about the past people may still have.

For this comic I used Adobe Illustrator for the first time and found it more time consuming than I originally thought it would be. I found it easier to stick to a more simplistic style or idiom, since I do not have much experience. To do this I used the shape tool frequently and chose to draw more stick figure looking characters. For the craft step, I incorporated some factors seen in the typical comic that we learned about in class. I conveyed expression, time, and interdependent word combinations. To convey expression, I mostly did this through the way I chose to draw the faces on the stick figures- mostly the eyebrows. In the first panel, the man is sleeping peacefully with a smile on his face. Then throughout the comic the character is happy in all of his dreams except for the last one, where he appears to be apprehensive. I conveyed a sense of time by showing the night sky in the background window so that the audience understands the character is sleeping at night. Lastly, interdependent word combinations are an aspect of this comic because the words help the reader understand the story and put it into context. Without the words, the images don’t exactly speak for themselves or seem to fit together. Finally for the surface, or production step I used Illustrator and applied different techniques within the program. I mostly played with color, dimension, and contrast. In the first panel the colors are all solid with no contrast or dimension and are dark colors to show it is night time. The rest of the images in the comic are made with lighter colors and have more dimension and layering. The background dream bubble contains many different hues of blues that are all layered. The brush strokes are also different than that of the first panel. The brush strokes are not as solid and opaque as the rest of the images to show a more airy, dreamlike feel. Also, in the last panel or circle the colors are slightly darker and there is less contrast than the rest of the panels. This is done to demonstrate the idea that the image represents a distant memory, which is why there is less detail. In memories we often can not recall all of the details about the setting it took place in, so I tried to convey that in this image by only highlighting a couple of the objects in color.

This weekly comic was much more ambitious than my last comics because I used Illustrator rather than drawing this time. This was my first time using Illustrator so I learned how to use it while making the comic. I found it a lot easier than photoshop and actually enjoyed using it. It was more difficult to convey the exact images I wanted to, but I think the ideas were communicated effectively.

Compared to my last two weekly comics, this is something completely different. Where I was basically just talking about my rediscovery of my love for anime since quarantine began, this time around I decided to actually think of a story. As expressing something about my individuality, it’s not necessarily about my every day life — that’s kind of what the last two were about — this is more about what I want out of life. And that’s to be a writer, so I tried to make a story. Therefore, “no other human being can ever know what it’s like to be you from the inside,” is still very fitting because, while the premise is simple, this was my creation and no one else would make it exactly like mine. 

For the idea, I wanted to be able to showcase something that’s actively a part of my life that isn’t physically me. By that I mean, I am a very internal person. Most of who I am exists in storytelling, or various forms of art — painting, drawing, filming, etc. Like I mentioned before, this story is inherently mine because I made it, just because it doesn’t have me as a character doesn’t mean it isn’t me, because it still is. 

Since Illustrator is the preferred mode of creation for this assignment, that’s exactly what I did. But differently than I had before. I’ll say this later, but I used tools that I don’t use often or am not as comfortable with. Similarly, I played around with the frames — the distance from each other, how they overlapped and how I wanted to translate readability which can be interpreted through the text of the panels. As I’ve already mentioned a few times about the panelling changing and not being in the traditional format that I was using before. What I also changed structurally, was that all the panels essentially lived in one panel itself. The background of the trees and forestry is a panel on its own that sets the tone in conjunction with the panels. 

This is definitely a more ambitious project than the last two were. Not only did I use tools that I wasn’t as comfortable with, but I also used a completely different formatting. The last two weeks I’ve done a fairly traditional layout, perfect rectangles that had equal amount of space between the panels and the edge of the image itself. This time, I allowed the panels to be more free-flowing and even created an overall backdrop for them. In the actual Illustrator file, there are over 50 layers. While a lot of the coloring was still pretty flat like the last two weeks and I continued to use the paintbrush tool, I began to mess with the opacity of certain things. I used the pen tool for the trees of the big background and grouped smaller shapes to make bigger ones to manage them more. This comic was so completely different from the last two in nearly every way and I think it shows, as well, how much more time and effort I put into this one.