The Secret Language of Comics

Personally, I enjoyed creating the Quadriptych more than I did the Triptych. I think the biggest reason for this was because I had more space, therefore providing me with more freedom to craft a full story.

I found my inspiration for this comic while I was eating lunch in the DCT. I noticed that the majority of students were eating one of two things: salad and pizza. I love both of these foods for different reasons, and I thought it would be funny to showcase a “pick me” war between a salad and a pizza (my guess is the pizza would win, as I feel like it is generally a more popular food option).

Because the Quadriptych was a panel longer, I had the opportunity to use a technique I’ve seen throughout Stitches: reader expectation. Of course, this comic doesn’t have a page turn, but the audience is still forced to wait with the salad for the end result of the comic, which unfortunately doesn’t turn out in the salad’s favor. I think it’s amusing for the reader to be in suspense alongside a literal bowl of salad over a situation that is quite silly when you think about the story as a whole. I guess you could call this comic a “food fight”? (I’m sorry, I had to put another pun in there!)

This assignment allowed me to show more creative freedom in both my drawing/artistic skills and my methods of storytelling/creative writing.

The things I carry in my bag are fairly simple and understandable for any college student. A MacBook Air, notebooks, sunglasses, folders, loose-leaf paper, pens, pencils, a calculator, and a water bottle. I only carry a few items because I like to travel light, and I do not enjoy carrying around extra material and items that have no use because this will make walking around campus that much more of a pain. The two odd items I have is an Aleve bottle because I believe you never know when you will get hurt or have a migraine in class, so having Aleve to the rescue is a must. In addition, I also carry a paper calendar/agenda planner with me because I like physically writing my to-do list. Most of my peers in this generation use an electronic calendar platform like Egenda or Google Calendar. However, I find satisfaction in writing down everything I want to accomplish for the day and crossing them out as I go through the tasks. 

• Folders
  • I have enough papers already, I’ll try and organize them in here.
• iPad
  • Used for homework, games, doodling, etc.
• Headphones
  • For the times when I feel like shutting the rest of the world out.
• Books
  • I put the books for this class at the top…for obvious reasons!
• Daily Planner
  • My mom made me take this with me…should I tell her I’m actually using it?
• Self-Care Items
  • As a student, it is important that I maintain a balance between studying and self-care; this includes protecting myself from the sun rays of Georgia.
• Charger
  • For instances when one of my (many) devices is low on battery.
• Pencil Case
  • I have too many school supplies…I might as well keep them in the same place.

I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment. It serves as a great way to learn about my classmates through their posts and share some things about myself in the process. I tend to be a very organized person, so setting up the materials wasn’t super hard for me. I decided to omit the backpack from the image because like the rug I took the picture on, the backpack is also gray, and I didn’t want that to become confusing to the viewer(s).

This image is representative of me as a person because it shows the balance between my academic life (as seen by all the school supplies) and my personal/social life (represented by the self-care items). I hope people are able to recognize from this image how both of these aspects are important to me and allow me to live my life to the fullest.

To answer the final question in this prompt, I do believe that representing myself through the things in my bag is a type of writing. While unconventional, it still communicates an idea to the reader/viewer and encourages them to think about what they have just seen in order to gain a deeper understanding of the work itself and/or the person behind the work. I had a lot of fun with this assignment, and I hope people have learned more about me through this assignment!

I was at a loss for what to do for this three panel comic, so I decided to create a comic about my team retreat to Tennessee this past weekend. It was a tiring weekend packed with activities – two full length practices, the Tennessee football game, exploring the University of Tennessee’s athletic facilities, and team bonding activities. I am not a great artist, so I decided to create my comic digitally using Canva. A challenge I encountered was finding the right graphic that matched my experience over the weekend. This comic felt different from the other sketches because it required more of a storyline, which was difficult for me to come up with in only three panels.

As a rising middle schooler, I was terrified at the idea of playing football. Baseball is a much safer sport comparitively and it was all I had known to that point. But when my school forced me to play either football or cross country, I decided I could handle it for middle school. In middle school I was still scared most of time, but I noticed how the constant facing of my fears was changing me little by little. Due to this realisation and the friendships that were involved I decided to continue into high school. The photo on the right is me and my senior teammate sitting on our logo our we lost in the post season. It was an amazing opportunity to reflect on how a sport that I was so scared to play ended up being one of the biggest blessings of my life.

Left are right photos are mine. Middle photo- @billbiggsphotography via instagram. The middle photo was actually from freshman year, but it is the oldest football picture I have.

The inspiration for my Triptych came from a conversation I had with my friend a few years ago. He was talking to me about how he thought he lost weight, but turns out his scale was broken and showed a “6” instead of an “8.” Rather than using the exact conversation, I decided to use the word “low” and add some humor with “low battery” and “low weight.” I thought the planning of the Triptych was challenging since I had to minimize the words but convey my idea at the same time. I thought this sketch was different in a way that I had to connect multiple ideas (drawings and dialogues) in a limited space.

Link to Prompt