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.
My friend group and I have been debating whether Burger King is good or not. Personally, I don’t think Burger King is good at all, but some of my friends disagree. This sketch is meant to depict how people should be “embarrassed” of eating Burger King( joking of course).Instead of utilizing a photo like i did for my triptych, I decided to sketch because I’ve gotten used to it since my first storyboard and it feels more comfortable. Thinking about how to stretch the middle section wasn’t too tough because my approach was basic enough, and it created a dramatic waiting effect.
This photo is used in a rather literal sense, but I feel it describes the journey I took over the course of this project, which ultimately was me searching for additional context using the images and other elements of comics.
(Photo Credit: Sitka Sound Science Center)
My essay’s thesis discusses the idea of the monumental moments in each story and the emotions portrayed in each one; this then highlights a new concept that suggests these moments and emotions serve as a deeper connection between the reader and the characters in the story. These connections give Stitches and Spinning a human element to them, giving the reader the incentive to keep reading and apply the authors’ actions to their own lives.
Tracing the pages differed from any other literary analysis I’ve ever done. The aspect of this process that was most beneficial to me was removing the words found on the page I was tracing. The lack of words forced me to be more attentive to the images on the page and the message the author was trying to convey to the reader (thus, the “secret language of comics”). Languages are not always verbal or said aloud using words; the variety of images and frames conveyed a message about the story that words alone would have been unable to do. Comics connect words and pictures, benefitting each other and creating a unique form of literature that provides the context necessary to the story’s plot.
Because I had to use the ABT thesis structure for this essay (which was very unfamiliar to me), I had to focus on providing context immediately while broadening my ideas down, rather than finding context as I write the essay, a method I am much more familiar with. However, writing using this structure allowed me to find my ideas much quicker and use them to find new ideas that I never would’ve found had I continued to use my writing methods from high school.
This project has furthered my understanding of Stitches and Spinning, and I have made connections to the works in ways that my essay’s thesis describes. I look forward to discovering more connections in comics I read in the future!
This photo is used in a literal sense, but it best illustrates the process of cutting unnecessary elements out of the original narrative to turn it into a comic. (Photo Credit: Freepik)
My initial literacy narrative felt more like an essay than a story/narrative. That’s why when it came time to turn it into a comic, I had trouble figuring out which elements to keep and which to cut. I decided to focus on my CommonApp essay, where I wrote about my personal growth through the play I participated in during my junior year of high school. Choosing what to include in the comic relates to the “rhetorical composition” learning outcome, specifically the concepts of organizing and developing my thoughts in a way that provides me with a clear idea of what the final product will look like.
The hardest part of this assignment was drawing the comic itself. I am not artistic, so I was nervous about drawing a 3-4 page comic. However, drawing out the storyboard was a helpful tool for gathering my ideas and figuring out how to use them best. I could then take the storyboard and trace over it using a thicker pen tool before adding color to make the comic more pleasant to look at. I enjoyed the coloring process because it allowed the page to come to life as if I relived the memory. This process relates to the “visual thinking” learning outcome because I used the means of drawing and art to communicate my ideas to an audience. I took many creative liberties that I certainly wouldn’t have taken in different circumstances. The combination of various mediums has always interested me, and I was excited to expose myself to a new medium that involved drawing. As a result of completing this comic, I have a newfound confidence in drawing that I hope to apply to my other classes, specifically my freshman seminar, where our final project will be designing a video game. I am excited to use what I have learned in this class throughout my college career!
Creating a comic from my literary narrative also allowed me to show my understanding of Scott McCloud’s “Clarity” diagram. As I began the storyboard, I became aware of the five categories in the diagram. As I explained in the first paragraph, I had to find the moments that mattered most and cut the ones that didn’t matter as much, which relates to the “choice of the moment” section of the diagram. Another diagram section that stood out to me was the “choice of flow” section. Flow is crucial to me when reading any literary work–otherwise, I lose interest and give up reading the book. That’s why the moments I chose to use were so important–they needed to fit together cohesively and flow to keep the audience’s attention.
This process allowed me to revisit my literary narrative in a new light. My narrative is a narrative now instead of an essay that only serves as the answer to a given prompt. The limited drawing space forced me to jump straight into the narrative’s central idea(s) instead of “tip-toeing” around them, which was one of the main critiques about the first part of my narrative. My narrative now feels like a coherent story that shows growth in myself and the quality of my writing (as seen on the third page).
In the beginning, I thought that this version of making a comic would be easier than the triptych, but in reality, it was more difficult. Because in the triptych, you knew that each comic frame represented something, the beginning, middle, and end, but there was just an extra frame for the quadriptych. For me, it was quite difficult to find a use for this frame, as it was difficult to find a use for the extra frame because I did not want to be repetitive and I also wanted to avoid starting another plot, knowing that there was no way I could fit another story in just four frames. I decided to do my comic about camping because this fall break, I am going camping for the second time ever in the Great Smoky Mountains, but the first time I went camping, it was not the greatest experience. We took a 3-day trip, and the first day went great because the sun was out all day and the weather was beautiful. But the next day was terrible, as there were thunderstorms all day, dramatically worsening the whole experience. The rain sucked all the fun out of the experience, and the first thought that entered my mind was that I wished we had just booked a hotel.
