For this quadriptych, the process started with coming up with a story that I could tell in just 4 panels. I used a similar method to one I used in my triptych of hitting the reader with a surprise of sorts at the final panel after using the earlier panels to build into it and give the fourth panel more emphasis. I got the idea of ending with “Sir, this is Wendy’s” when I remembered seeing a comment under a social media post where this user had rambled on about something that I can’t remember now, to which someone replied, “Sir this a Wendy’s drive thru”. The whole concept of being hit with such a response after pouring your heart into communicating a message is something that I find humor in. I knew what I wanted the fourth panel to look like but I didn’t know what I wanted the preceding panels to illustrate. A challenge I faced in creating this quadriptych was figuring out how I could build into that final panel. It was kind of difficult stretching similar dialogue across the first three panels because I wanted to do so in a way that the audience doesn’t get bored of what they’re reading. I did so by trying to change the scene in which dialogue was taking place. This also helped to emphasize the duration of the character expressing his feelings just to realize that he was talking to a Wendy’s employee the whole time.
Transferring the essay to comic form was harder than I expected. The process involved a lot of thinking about how to format and ensure the message essay was properly communicated within the new medium. With the intent of keeping this a rough draft, I wrote myself notes on what I would look to add to the final copy of the comic. As I work on the final draft, I will have a combination of hand drawings and pictures to ensure the comic communicates the message of the essay in detail.
Just like the triptych comic, my idea came relatively quickly for this comic as it stemmed from traveling back home for fall break. However, the structure of forming the story took a lot longer than expected due to the extra panel. Unlike the triptych which has a panel per portion of the story- beginning, middle, and end, the extra panel within the quadriptych made the structure more confusing since it could be used within any portion of the story. I decided to use the extra panel between the middle and the end to give more emphasis on the change between the two characters to clearly convey the message of the story. The purpose of the story, which was to not take advantage of events within our lives, was to ensure that the simple idea of the story would not just be taken literally but used in all different aspects of life.
This assignment was inspired by my best friends, who has a strange compulsion: she likes to put things off until it is exactly at o’clock. This is actually a manifestation of procrastination. The biggest challenge of this assignment and the difference with triptych is that there is an extra panel, which I thought would make it easier to make the story clearer. But in fact, the four panels make us need to have abetter control of the structure of the story. I want to use this story to remind myself not to be a procrastinator all the time.
I struggled to think of ideas for this Sunday Sketch, but I knew I wanted to make it about a personal experience. Since I left campus for fall break, it seemed fitting to make it about home. The weather in Lexington has consisted rain and only rain which has made it difficult to do the things I wanted to do. This felt pretty similar to the triptych because it still has a clear beginning, middle and end. The only difference was being able to use two panels to focus on the conflict instead of one, which I preferred because it allowed for me to put more emphasis on the rain.
The thesis that I came up with was : Both novels employ black and white illustrations, blending contemporary color schemes with a retro art style connecting the anecdotes to their respective eras. However, “Stitches” adopts a darker and grayer color palette, reflecting the intensity of David’s internal and external conflicts, and the pages of “Stitches” exude tension and drama throughout the story, partly due to David’s constant hardships. Overall, this assignment was a lot of fun and different from any other assignment I have done throughout my high school academic career; it was a great assignment to do amid midterms to get myself out of the grind of studying for a couple of hours. I enjoyed tracing the two pages of the comics, and the racing paper was also a very cool part of the experience. However, I found writing the ABT format more difficult than the “traditional way” I was taught to write an essay. Throughout high school, I was taught that the thesis statement comes first in the essay, and that was how the whole essay was built, so constructing this essay was a lot different and required more time to create. I do believe that this assignment did help me to understand the secret language of this way of writing and how each detail on the page can symbolize something about the mood the narrative wants to take on or the character development of the protagonist in that given moment. The biggest insight I gained was just the dark tone that Stitches took on and how the experiences that Tillie and David faced throughout their childhood shaped how they view that traumatic time in their life today.
Although Tilie Weldon did know of and read David Small’s novel several times before constructing her novel “Spinning, there are still many differences between the two stories, and both depict two drastically different images and messages, targeting different audiences in their deliveries. While both novels are based on autobiographical experiences and describe how their childhood played a huge role in the person they have become today, they have two different perspectives on the world and the struggles they endured during their childhood years. The difference makes them present themselves differently through comics.
Spinning and Stitches are semi-autobiographical works in which both authors express how they overcame traumatic experiences early in their lives and were crucial to becoming the people they are today. But where these two differ is the situations the two main characters of each novel had to endure. For example, the primary themes of Spinning are that Tillie struggles with her self-identity as a lesbian female, making her have a tough time making friends with other girls and trying to fit into the social norms of that period. On the other hand, in Stitches, the main issues that David experiences are family dysfunction or how one of his family truly loves him, how his family had no care for him when he had a critical illness, and how his family never really cared for his presence or interests, which create different audiences for each novel.
These differences in childhood trauma cause Tillie Walden and David Small to use different storytelling methods. Both novels use mostly black and white images and illustration to depict their narratives, I believe the authors do this because both novels are memoir that uses a contemporary color scheme and retro art style. They implore this kind of retro style for readers to match these anecdotes’ in this era.
In contrast, Stitches had a darker, grayer color theme than Spinning due to the conflict David was facing. Although Tillie had a very tough childhood, she did have people around her who cared for her, such as her Chello teacher, her brother at the beginning of her life, her friend Lindsey, and her father, who supported her. But when Tillie started to come out as lesbian, she still had some support for her identity, like the cello teacher and Lindsey, and her father, in his funny way, also supported her decision. But David did not have people to fall back on. He was not close to any of his immediate family members; in fact, his mother had some sought-out hatred for him, and his father never felt and respected him either, and he wasn’t particularly close to his brother. This is why I believe the pages and delivery of Stitches are much more gloomy than Spiining, as David had no family or friend support.
In addition, the pages of Stitches just felt a lot tenser and more dramatic compared to Spinning. Although this may have been due to the parts of the story that I chose, Stitches has a more dramatic feel overall. Furthermore, the delivery of Spinning is a lot more light-hearted than Stitches because there are many positives in Tillie’s life. For example, she had a lot of success in the ice-staking arena and had a positive romantic relationship for a little while. But again, on the other side, David really had nothing going for him throughout the story, and it seemed like he encountered new problems every time we flipped the page, hence the more dramatic and tenser feeling of the pages and delivery style.
In the pages I chose to analyze, both authors went into depth in every event; for example, they slowed down time on these pages for the reader to better understand the events. Both authors use time manipulation for readers to delve into the characters’ emotional states. They can show a character’s thought process, hesitation, or inner turmoil by extending a moment, giving readers insight into the character’s psychology and motivations.
In conclusion, while Tillie Walden and David Small both drew inspiration from their own life experiences to create the semi-autobiographical graphic novels “Spinning” and “Stitches,” they presented vastly different narratives and messages, ultimately targeting distinct audiences. Both novels employ black and white illustrations, blending contemporary color schemes with a retro art style connecting the anecdotes to their respective eras. However, “Stitches” adopts a darker and grayer color palette, reflecting the intensity of David’s internal and external conflicts, and the pages of “Stitches” exude tension and drama throughout the story, partly due to David’s constant hardships.
For me, making a quadriptych was more fun than the triptych. I got to plat around more with the story I wanted to tell, and I could have a mini “plot-twist” that built up to a resolution. Having two panels for the middle gave me more time to explain the “twist” rather than just having the reversal itself. I have been doodling a lot recently out of boredom from being sick, since looking at my laptop gave me a huge headache, so I drew some simple art with a pen for this piece.
I thought the most challenging part of this sketch was planning the plot since I had little inspiration. Compared to the triptych, the quadriptych provided me with more freedom and space to explain a story. I could include more details and add an extra panel to explain the process, which in my opinion makes the story more complete. My idea came up when I watched one of my friends practice skateboarding. He was trying to flip the skateboard, and in one of the tries, his skateboard flew out while his body remained at the same spot. The sight made all of us laugh, so I thought drawing out this scenario would be interesting.
