The Secret Language of Comics: Visual Thinking and Writing

In essence, the comics version is not much different from the alphabetic version of my literacy narrative. The prompt for the alphabetic essay was to “analyze the key experiences that shaped the way you read and write”, which led to my analytical approach to writing an argumentative essay. Knowing that this comic would be based on the essay, I slightly changed the structure of my literacy narrative after the individual conference and made essay flow in a chronological order – how I read and then wrote in my childhood and how I read and then write as I grow up. This eventually became the overall structure of my four-page comic, and the passage of time works well for natural transitions. My analysis from the essay became a narrative voice keeping the development of my stories. Specific evidence such as personal anecdotes then became the visuals in the comic, supporting the narrative voice like it did in the essay.

However, the change in the medium did shift my focus when telling the stories because more visual thinking was involved:

First of all, now that evidence became visuals, I had to put greater emphasis on the details of the evidence, or I would have nothing to draw but plain sentences. On the first page, I had to think of the actual images on the books which reflected that “visuals and imagination are powerful tools for language learning, especially for Chinese.” And on the second page, I could not merely state that “I would first think of a scene as detailed as possible and turned it into words,” but came up with the actual scenes and words I would write down. Same for page four, I almost re-read Republic to find a suitable dialogue for this comic. It was a hard but meaningful process to consider how all elements could be represented visually.

After that, the decisions of whether individual elements should be demonstrated by the visuals or just stated as words in the boxes were even harder due to my limited artistic skills. For instance, the main scenes of the first page should be my mother teaching me how to read in Chinese in bed before sleep in my early years. Ideally, the passage of time could be implied by the changes in my appearance and size in different panels, but this would cost me a very long time to draw if I am actually able to do so. The main technique I employed on the first page was the choice of frame, making it hard for the same book to bore the audience. And the interactions between my mother and I were represented through words in the bubbles.

Last but not least, I found a lot of fun when thinking about the overall page designs after I had some ideas for the visuals. I utilized the “all-at-onceness” on page three by dividing a book into three panels, demonstrating the immersive experience when I read. The panel designs also have plenty of room for creativity. On page two, I broke the boundaries and directly used bubbles to replace normal panels, a piece of advice from the peer editing session, since the content is about imagination. I imitated the first comics I read in this class, “Adventures in Depression”, on page four to show myself and my thoughts at the same time in each panel. I did a small change by using a dashed line to show how I effectively broke the wall between reality and imagination through immersive reading.

One of the most meaningful things from this class so far is the “go-for-it” mentality towards drawing or other visual arts. Every time I posted an Instagram story after completing a page, I would receive messages doubting if I truly had not drawn anything after middle school. I am very glad that I pushed myself to draw something seriously for the “visual note taking” sketch, and the momentum has not declined. This mentality also helped me searching for other solutions when my ideas really exceed my limits. Photoshop and PowerPoint saved me a lot of troubles and time when I could not realize my ideas by my Apple Pencil.

So far, this assignment is the most time-consuming project this semester, but I really enjoy the process and would enjoy it more if I were to have more time available.

Writing my literacy narrative as a comic made me value the comic form more. I discovered adding illustrations to text imbues a text with much new meaning. The problem became attempting to control what I say with my illustrations. I found myself bargaining with my narrative at length about what medium – pictures, framing, text, etc. – could best convey information from my alphabetic narrative. With so many variables at play, my comic narrative has more depth and information than my alphabetic essay. One macro-level issue I encountered while creating my comic doubting that I was artistically capable enough to accurately communicate my meaning. I still am unsure about this, but I tried to draw/frame my comic to play toward my style of drawing and not craft a story that looks like it was meant to be draw by someone else. One aspect I fear not being communicated through my illustrations is the color. Color is an important element of my story; certain contrast needed to be highlighted. However, as I went to scan my pages, I noticed the highest available resolution grayed-out many of my browns (brown being one of the most important color symbols in the story). I tried two other resolutions and finally had to recolor by hand certain trouble areas. The product still displays a few characters’ skin as grayer than intended, but I think I don’t know what medium would be best suited to achieve that color vibrancy I initially wanted. I considered computer illustrations once I saw how skewed the coloring was when translated from color pencils/white paper to the computer screen, but by that time it was far too late to start from scratch. Besides, I’ve neve illustrated on a computer before – like ever (not even casually) – so I probably wouldn’t know where to start, not to mention the risk of the drawing turning out subpar due to my lack of experience in that medium.

Overall this process was quite enjoyable. The silver lining of it being so time consuming was I got to justify spending hours upon hours just doodling and coloring which was relaxing. Since, I don’t draw often and this project was heavy illustrations, I feel like I honed my specific style of doodling. My characters have a look to them that’s completely unique to me, and I love it. I love the way my characters look, I love what I discovered about how to make them look even better during this process, and I love how distinctly me it all is. My style isn’t technical or particularly realistic, but it somehow just works. Honestly, this project brought me confidence in my artistic skills – something I never considered myself remotely talented in at all.

It was a lot more difficult creating my literacy narrative as a comic. I have written so many alphabetic essays in the past, so using the medium of a comic was a different process. My story was a lot different in comic form than in alphabetic text. For my literacy narrative part one, the story had little to no emotion in it- there really wasn’t that much plot to me editing the story, but in comic form, I added lots of comedy. This made the story a lot more down to earth. Before, I saw this as a serious turning point in my writing career. After adding comedy to the story, it seemed more relaxing and lighthearted. Honestly, my analytical process was the exact same, but when revising my alphabetic text, I think I am going to try my best to add comedy in it as well. It works very well for my comic so I might as well try my best to mimic that.

I made a lot of difficult choices when curating my comic. I chose to add comedy, which was not in my alphabetic text. I did this because I knew my artwork or the plot itself were not the most intricate, and I knew I needed something to stand out. Comedy comes pretty naturally to me when I have time to plan out the humor. I really tried to focus on the facial reactions of the characters; putting real emotion into my characters faces is something that could have made the story even more funny. If I had more time, resources or even a professional illustrator, I would have them work on my facial reactions. There were not many aspects of my comic where I had a clear sense of what I was trying to accomplish and I think that I failed at that. I think the only instance where I could have made a change was in the third page where I tried to draw me in my room shrieking nonsense, while my mom listens in confusion through the door. If I were to have more time and skills, I would have made the shot from above so you have a clear view of me and my mom, making both of us the focus instead of just my mom.

I think that this project really helped me with my writing process. Writing this project as a comic has helped me realize what I can change about my alphabetic text in order to make it better. Adding comedy to my essay would do exactly what I am telling the reader to do in my comic- it would give it my voice!

I really enjoyed creating this comic because it allowed me to illustrate a story very personal to the way I write today. By depicting the overall concept of my Literacy Narrative 1, I was able to look at it from another perspective that to me was more engaging. In my Literacy Narrative 2, A Poem About Poetry, I look at my journey from not writing anything and disliking my English assignments to sharing my poetry on public platforms. The feedback that I got on our rough draft day was very positive and helpful in creating my final draft. My peers suggested that I really bring the imagery to life as well as find a way to enhance the flow of the comic.

On page 2 I have the phrase “beautiful poetry” going into the characters ear from outside the panel. This panel signified how I would watch poetry but never to write it. I decided to bridge the panels together by creating a loop. On page 3, in the last panel I’m the one creating the “beautiful poetry” that will hopefully be going to people’s ears.

This week I submitted my final Literacy Narrative comic. Last week, during peer review, I received comments telling me to focus more on the dichotomy between Math and English. As a result, I changed my final page to include an award in English, revealing how I overcame my struggles in English class. I also received feedback telling me to utilize the frames to depict sudden changes in mood and tone. As a result I included panels that were zoomed in on characters faces.