ENGRD101.01. Fall 2023. Emory University
For my quadriptych comic, I started with the first panel being the opening image, then moved onto the next two panels being the conflict, and lastly, resolving the plot with the fourth panel. The construction of this plot felt a lot less restrictive than the triptych, as I had more space to communicate my story with more clear and detailed illustrations. Having the two middle panels to stretch my story allowed the storytelling to feel a lot less fast paced.
After crafting this self-portrait by laying out the possessions of my backpack, I’ve realized that most of my belongings (no matter how mundane) perfectly capture my aesthetic. I feel like my friends could identify what belongs to me by simply looking at the color and pattern, so I think that this image is an accurate representation of who I am. The most challenging part about this assignment was trying to come up with clever captions that could also further encapsulate my identity. I think that representing oneself in a catalog of stuff in one’s bag is a form of writing, as it communicates a part of who we are in a creative way!
Throughout the Literacy narrative as a whole, I’ve had to think about writing and drawing as a process. I’ve made multiple revisions, drafts, editing, and so on. Composing a literacy narrative about my key experience was difficult because I knew it would be something personal that I had to be willing to share.Yet, it wasn’t a different experience because I have written a literacy narrative where I had to divulge personal details. However, drawing my experiences was a novel exposure causing me to reminisce on past memories and execute them on paper. When I was reading stitches and spinning, I felt like I was in the story with them, sharing the author’s experience with each panel. Knowing that my comic would have that effect on my reader was a difficult concept for me to grasp. Looking back and seeing how my primary experience affected the way I write, read, and communicate, I wanted my reader to comprehend rather than feel.
When I incorporated my visual component to my narrative, it became much easier for me to interrupt my story. As the old saying goes, I can show you better than I can tell you. Having the visual aspect helped me grasp the many phases of my writing and reading skills as they developed during my school years. It not only helped me grasp the various stages, but it also established the format for my comic. Elementary school, middle school, high school, and the final panel to the present. It helped me go into detail when creating my comic, which was one of my critiques on my writing story. Based on how I sketched my characters, I was able to gain a new perspective on my writing and add extra detail instead of being too vague.
The most difficult aspect of the assignment was conveying the emotions of the character I sketched. I was aware of how palpable my emotions were, but I had difficulty bringing out the expression on my character’s face to show my readers how crucial my experiences were. If I were to hire an illustrator to assist me, it would be with the drawing. Another difficult aspect of my comic was conveying how my story does not have a happy conclusion. It leaves the reader wondering about my journey and relationship with writing. Which takes away from the false idea of how stories always go from adversity and trauma to a happy momentous ending.
Both Stitches and Spinning use various techniques such as framing, omission, color, and angle to realistically re-visualize the authors’ emotions and traumatic memories. Such techniques used increase the reliability of the authors’ mood and promo the readers to make their own interpretations.
Stitches and Spinning use similar methods to portray and highlight emotionally intense moments. Both authors utilized the concept mentioned by Hillary Chute that “Cognitively, one’s eye usually first takes in the whole page, even when one decides to start in the upper left corner and move left to right (Chute).”—Both Tillie Walden and David Small reduce the size of the panels and fit a large number of them densely into one page. This change in panel organizations might induce the readers’ curiosity. Also, the compact configuration, combined with the content within the panels, might at the first glance give the audience a sense of quickened pace and intensified emotions. In addition, in both works, the time presented on the page seem to run slower than in other parts of the narrative: every movement and thought of the characters are captured in order to accentuate the tension of the moment. Moreover, on both pages the authors seem to isolate themselves and omit certain parts of the larger scene. Tillie Walden seems to focus only on herself during the scene at the competition, leaving out any information about the actual reactions from the audience and judges. The omission conveys how at the moment she was too panicked and embarrassed to look at the audience. David Small also excludes any mentions of his family’s reaction on the page. Knowing David’s mom’s earlier warning of not going near the elevators and her overall resentful personality, the readers are suspended wondering how she would react toward David’s behaviors.
Although there are many similarities on the two pages, the authors use different techniques to depict their mentality. For example, Tillie Walden seems to angle particular at herself throughout the page, showing her dread and possible wish of isolating herself at the moment. There was no change of angle, and Tillie Walden expresses her inner thoughts directly through words that occupy entire panels. On the other hand, David Small illustrates significant shifts in angle: first at himself, and then to the fetus leaping out of the jar.This shift illustrates how David Small tends to materialize his fears and imaginations and portray them visually as opposed to with words.
The two authors also use colors and framing differently. On the page, Tillie Walden creates two types of obviously distinct panels—one light and one dark. The light panels depict her movements and some of her thoughts, while the dark ones seem to represent her internal panic, which seems to grow exponentially after she falls. She also uses blank panels and repeated scenes of her sitting on the ground possibly to express how long that moment seemed to her in her shock and fear.
David Small doesn’t incorporate major shifts in colors or repetitions in his panels. However, there seems to be a change in the framing of the panels switching from reality to his imagination: the outlines of the first three panels have dark and well-defined edges. The outline disappears in the next two panels and reappears in the rest of the panels but becomes bolder, duller, and less defined. David Small uses outlines to separate his internal fantasies and external reality, while Tillie Walden uses uniform outlines throughout the page.
In order to utilize these technique and portray the moments realistically, the authors must revisit and investigate deep into details of their traumatic memories. For example, Tillie Walden must confront her sense of humiliation and panic again to create ideas such as using different color themes and repeated panels; likewise, David Small must remember his childhood monster in order to draw it out completely. Such endeavors help situate the readers in the authors’ point of view for them to better sympathize with the authors’ emotions at the particular moments. Increased relatability then allows readers to make their own more profound, metaphoric interpretations, such as how the fetus might represent the constant dread David Small faces with his own diseases and his controlling and somewhat selfish family, and how Tillie Walden’s reaction to herself falling reveals her fear toward the revelation of her identity. In Stitches and Spinning, Tillie. Walden and David Small use panel configurations, timing, and omission similarly, while they differ in their uses of angles, allots, and framing. The various techniques used by the two authors realistically illustrate their traumatic memories, helping the readers sympathize with the emotions and make their own further interpretations.
Work Cited
Chute, Hillary. “Comics for Grownups.” Introduction. Why Comics?, e-book ed.
Tracing Pages: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GkcNVpZW0OdqanRzzcmakwqeMaCDEIEfPFlxAotnzGs/edit
Through the planning process, I decided to use pages of the book that have strong symbols to show a bigger picture within the text. Thus, I decided to use a page from David’s dream and a page from Tillie’s performance to illustrate the stem root for why they are the way they are. While tracing the pages I believe I was able to recognize more patterns and meaning within the illustrations because I was spending more time looking at the panels. More specifically, I think that tracing helped me lead to more discoveries within what the panels really mean.
The ABT writing format was very hard for me to adjust to. I kept worrying about if I was following it especially at the end of my essay as I was not sure if my thesis thoroughly followed it. In order to solve this problem I kept re-writing the essay in order to make sure I stayed organized and on topic within the format.
Overall I loved the annotating part of this assignment as it helped me learn more about the value each panel has for a story. However, I had a very hard time forming an analysis in an academic essay format. The biggest insight this project gave me was the ability of small pacings and size e differences that can make a huge emotional impact.
Stitches by David Smalls and Spinning by Tillie Walden are two semi-autobiographical comics that encapsulate the childhood traumas of each author. While the majority of both stories fill the pages with a similar amount of illustrations, the authors use very different strategies within some of the most important pages of the story. Small uses three extended panels with precise detail, while Walden fills the page with 20 small panels. In stitches, David is in a large temple. In the first panel, David enters a room with a door and is curious about what it leads to. The second panel follows David through his journey, illustrating a narrow passage, and around the corner, out of David’s vision is another door that is much smaller than the first. David is at the door in the third panel, but it is too small for him to fit through. Within this sequence, each panel is thoroughly described with illustrations of each piece of furniture and linings of the wall. Thus, the well-described panels set the tone to be slow, mysterious and anxious about what is to follow, building up anticipation for what is behind the door only to be disappointed. Tillie states that ice skating is not just a sport but a part of her life. Thus, the ice skating competition is a large influencer in how Tilly acts. Walden utilizes 20 panels on one page to represent Tillie’s thought process while going through her competition routine. A majority of the panels are small boxes with a navy blue background—some white—, and a phrase about the competition. The white panels are scattered along the sequence of other panels. These panels represent Tillie losing focus on the competition as two of the three thoughts involve what her mom’s reaction will be to her poor performance, while one is just a white square representing her blanking about what is to come next. The overall sequence lacks detail but one panel is very detailed with the eyes of multiple looking disappointed in her performance. Thus, this sequence of panels represents Walden setting a very fast pace with an anxious tone to illustrate the high-pressure event that Tillie is competing in.
Small and Walden better illustrate the childhood traumas each character goes through with the choice of size and specific images within each panel. It is well known that events that take place within dreams are correlated to real-life events and emotional states. Thus, the repeated dreams are an abstract way to represent David’s subconscious thoughts at this point in the book. Smalls intentionally places the dream in a temple. This is because historically temples have been seen as a safe haven as people are optimistic that God will listen to their prayers and bring forward a fruitful future. However, this tone of optimism and hope for David is quickly intertwined with mystery about what lies behind the door which is a symbol of opportunity. As the sequence continues, David is disappointed. The door has shrunk to be too small for him to fit through. Thus, what is behind the door within the dream symbolizes the love and support that David craves to experience but what he, in reality, does not have. On the other hand, Walden uses the uniformity of size and color to better illustrate Tillie’s pressure. The uniformity in the color and sizing of the panels helps set a tone of perfection, one that is inhumane, but the three large panels and the three panels of white strategically break up the unity on the page giving the page a more humane tone through the lack of symmetry. More specifically the large panel Walden strategically adds emphasizes the extent to which Tilly is hyper focused during her competition. The panel is a large image of multiple eyes looking at Tilly while competing. This panel symbolizes a root cause for why Tilly is a hyper-anxious person who is always worried about the opinions of other people.
In conclusion, “comics shape time by arranging it in space on the page in panels, which are, essentially, boxes of time “(shute). The specific use of pacing helps show the slow and unsupportive life of David while showing the lack of healthy support for Tillie when trying to perform her best in the ice skating rink. Therefore, from these specific and important pages, the reader can understand the stem causes of the mental health issues of both characters.
Works Cited
Chute, Hillary L. Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere. Harper, 2017.
The thesis of my essay is that the timespan that is involved with the expression of each author’s traumatic experiences leads to their variation in style. This is displayed in the way David’s sketches represent the way he felt about his mother’s abuse which is consistent with an older memory. Also, Tillie tended to give more detail about her physical interactions, which displays more robust memories and leaves the way she felt up for interpretation. While tracing and annotating each author’s sketches, I got a glimpse of the intentionality it takes to bring an idea to paper. From the largest details like a title wave to something small like eye direction, each facet of a sketch changes the way a reader will interpret it. The writing process of this essay was an adjustment for me, but I believe I was able to succeed by forcing my mind to compare the simplest attributes of each sketch without having an end goal in mind and then letting my thesis develop along with my essay. I do believe I am better able to understand the secret language of comics because of this exercise. By analyzing a specific page for an extended period like this, I was able to put myself in the author’s shoes and see how their use of an aspect of this secret language affects the way it is viewed. I subconsciously slowed down time in my world while examining Tillie’s slide that I traced, and later on, I realized this was intentional by her because the last slide of this scene is where she feels most alone and her world most likely came to a freezing halt.
Due to my personal writing style, I began my essay with a small introduction and a draft of my thesis. It personally helps me while writing if I have a general idea of the thesis. After I finished writing, I edited it and rewrote it into the final paragraph. The main idea of my thesis is how both Stitches and Spinning use the medium of comics, specifically utilizing framing and transitions between panels, in unique ways to effectively portray the trauma they endured.
The tracing and annotating was the most enjoyable part of this assignment for me. Although it took me longer than I expected to find the pages I wanted to analyze, tracing the pages was quite fun. I didn’t feel like I gained any productive insights while I was in the process of tracing, however. It was hard for me to distinguish what I had drawn versus what was showing through the page, so I didn’t know what my tracing looked like until I lifted it up. Once I did look, it became clear how different Tillie Walden and David Small’s drawing styles are. My tracing of Spinning came out quite well when I first looked, but my tracing for Stitches looked all funny because I had only drawn the outlines, and there was still lots of shading I hadn’t included.
This assignment made it clear how subtle details and decisions can make such a big impact on the interpretation of the comic. Because I don’t typically examine each page as in depth as I did for this assignment, I didn’t think much about why I understood the emotions or thoughts of each person so easily. Especially for the pages I chose, framing played such an important role in conveying the emotion Tillie and David felt, but the decision making on the framing is something that would only influence me subconsciously while reading.
I made this comic about my fall break, and used photos to highlight some of the key moments of the weekend. One of the most challenging parts of the comic was finding the pictures I wanted to represent the weekend. I didn’t have many to choose from, as I didn’t take photos of everything I did that weekend. It was similar to the triptych, in the sense that it still had to be a short story. The extra panel in the quadriptych, however, helped to include more detail. Having an extra panel in the middle helped me include more details, and made the story feel more complete.
The main difficulty or difference of creating my literacy narrative in comic strip form was that I had only to include the “important” parts of my essay in the comic, as I felt like I had more limited space to work with. Also, I believe that my literacy narrative essay was a lot more descriptive than my comic because I feel like I can go into more depth with my writing skills compared to my artistic/comic-making skills. I believe I was just now as descriptive with my journey of reading and writing, and I think my journey with these skills is better portrayed in my essay. I chose to do my comic in the more traditional paper and pencil way because I felt I could express more of myself using this method. The pictures I chose and how I expressed my character’s dialogue would have been much simpler with the paper and pencil method. If I had the time, I would hire an illustrator for my comic because my drawing skills are minimal, and the illustrator would better understand the point I’m trying to prove and how to keep my audience more engaged.
