For this weeks assignment I placed the contents of my backpack on the floor in an attempt to provide insight into my day. All these objects were extremely important for this particular Friday. Here is the list of items and their significance:
Wallet – For the times when Venmo doesn’t cut it
Apple – A quick snack between classes
Earbuds – For peace of mind during my commute between classes
It’s Your Health – One of my few physical texts.
Water Bottle – Hydrate or Die-drate
Coffee Mug – So I don’t experience caffeine withdrawal
Laptop – My portal for all my assignments, research, and most readings
Pen and Pencil – Filling in parts of my health book
Why Architecture Matters – Reading for my assignment due this evening
This week’s sketch was a comic that had to stretch across 4 panels which made me anxious because I have never been exposed to writing a comic. When I was trying to come up with my idea for my topic I knew I wanted to talk about an incident last week in which my teacher cancelled class and I showed up to class in a frantic run thinking that I was late. This style of comic felt different because the triptych had a clear beginning, middle, and ending section while the quadriptych had to have a 2 panel middle section. Having the middle act stretch across 2 panels allowed me to add more elements to my comic and have it run in a more fluid fashion. I told a comedic story because I needed a break from being serious and philosophical in my posts.
This composition process was actually very difficult. This is because I wanted to challenge myself, and draw from different angles. If you cannot tell, the first and third panels are shots from the back. I chose this one because I wanted to capture my character and his sister sitting together while having the television screen in the background. The fourth panel was the hardest; I chose this angle because I wanted to give a different view to the reader, where you see the main character’s controller not plugged in. This format of a comic seems more complex than a triptych. This is because instead of one middle panel, there are two. I used one of the middle panels as additional context to the scene where I used the second one to set up the conflict. Having two middle panels allowed me to give more context to the audience without putting it in dialogue or a thinking bubble. I told this story because I was talking to my sister on the phone right before I made the comic. I liked playing single player games as a kid so I didn’t have many multiplayer ones. My sister, Summer, would always watch me, and we would talk about the game. Being the selfish boy that I was, I would play most of the time, but Summer would want to play about once a week.
Creating a quadriptych comic was a slightly simpler process for me than the triptych assignment. The quadriptych assignment gave me the freedom to add or rather complicate the simplified middle story of the comic. Unlike the triptych comic, constructing the quadriptych comic with one additional panel allowed me to “flesh” out the story more. I wanted to tell a story that emphasizes the idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” by drawing a stereotypical cartoon character who mistakes a giant monster for a cave. As shown in the quadriptych, the character runs towards what appears to be a cave. The third panel shows the character from inside the “cave” with the jagged edges giving the idea that this is not an ordinary cave. A giant monster can then be seen in the final panel.
This assignment took me some time to complete, mainly because I had no idea of what to do for the plot. I decided that I wanted it to be funny very early on and began to search online for some comical quadriptychs to give me some inspiration. After pondering for some time alongside doing some other work, still I had no idea of what I wanted my plot to be. I decided to just start drawing anything that came to mind, add some text, and see where that takes me. Luckily for me, this process took me exactly where I wanted and I landed at the final product you see above. It’s fairly simple and the punchline doesn’t come until the end which is something you see often in other comics like this. Initially I had the duck as the sole character, however I soon realized that a story will most likely need another character to push it along. Then I arrived at the rabbit who ended up being the one saying the punchline. This assignment was very similar to the triptych in my opinion, it really just felt like now I had some more room to add slightly more depth and plot to the overall comic. Because of this though, I did enjoy making this one a bit more than the triptych.
I am proud of this tale of one enraged customer, but I must admit that coming up with an idea for this quadriptych was a bit more challenging than my triptych. I think this pertains to how easily a triptych can set up a pattern-based subversion of expectations, and the quadriptych’s extra panel would mess up such a joke’s “flow.” Because of this four-panel-box requirement, I had to think a bit outside the box.
After much aimless contemplation, I finally decided on homonym miscommunication as the basis of my comic. Finding the images was not too challenging, but having to slowly zoom in just enough to reveal the “Now Serving Mousse” sign by the third panel presented a bit of difficulty, yet I prevailed after numerous screenshot-crop failures.
To differentiate between the two voices in the comic, I decided to use a bold, all-caps font and sharp-angled speech bubbles for the angry moose and a scratchy scrawl and rounded bubble for the waiter. I had the moose face outwards at the end to give a sense of closure to his movement (as opposed to facing into the comic), and I allowed for the “Mousse” part of the sign to peek out from under his antlers in case readers miss it in the third panel.
All in all, I’m happy with how my comic turned out and look forward to creating more.
Disclaimer: I would never just “do it for the pic”. My quadriptych process began with me thinking I would draw something, but when I sat down to draw, I had no idea what story to tell. Instead, I decided to once again refer to my camera roll to guide my storytelling. When I came across these photos of my best friend and me hiking during our Spring break lacrosse trip in Nevada, I knew I could make a joke out of the spooky hole in the ground. In the middle two panels, I wanted to do a spin-off of the motif in horror movies in which typically white people make the dumbest decisions and put themselves in imminent danger. In my last panel I changed the theme because even though I did hike underground in the volcanic tubes (which was an amazing experience), it would be too satisfying and underwhelming to show the reader what was inside the tube. The reader wants to know what is down there, lost cities, secret rivers, etc. when it is just tunnels and tunnels of rock formations to that are fun to wiggle through. I chose to go with the theme of my generation’s shallow social media lifestyle where we like to plan entire adventures just to post pictures and make it seem like our lives are cool. Normally, I forget to take pictures, but sometimes the lifestyle catches up to me and I just have to get that one perfect picture.
This is different than a triptych because I had to create a more concrete storyline which in general made the entire process more difficult. My greatest struggle was putting all of the pictures in a four-square formation because I couldn’t figure out the column format the was recommended in the assignment post.
The plot of this comic was fairly easy to craft because the story it depicted was fresh on my mind. It just so happened that earlier this week I got into a boarding accident that shattered my phone screen. And with every passing day I’m reminded of my accident as I struggle to view any and all content through my phone.
Recreating the story in a four panel comic was slightly more difficult because I wasn’t sure what aspect of the story was worth a panel. With only four panels to capture the entire incident, each page had to be substantive. Therefore, I decided that setting the scene was very important so I took two panels to make sure the reader was aware of what conditions I was skating under in the story. It also required a bit of thought when figuring out how to illustrate the crash. A lot happened in a very short period of time so I felt the best way to capture the overall moment was to give an overarching perspective of how the crash ended. The final panel was used to portray the damage caused to my phone. One might think that the crash would be the grand finale and that might’ve been the case if I’d seriously gotten injured. However the price I’ll have to pay to get a new phone is what hurts the most.
This Sunday Sketch simply displays what runs through my mind as I slowly approach midterms. I hit the weekend with so much hope and so much relief and I know that I have so much to do still. Yet, somehow I end up on my beanbag chair with food in front of me watching some waste-of-time movie on Netflix instead of doing work or studying. The inner scholar in me is represented by the angel, and the inner scholar in me is often disappointed by my actions.
At first I had no idea what to create for this assignment because I hate having to draw something. But I honestly knew I had no other choice. Once I found out what I wanted to do, I couldn’t help but laugh because it was like drawing a comic about myself. The entire time I continuously giggled at the fact that this is exactly how it happens in my mind. I still have to study for midterms, and I have two in one day, but I could bet that after I finish this assignment the cycle is going to continue. I’m often extremely organized but following through with my lists and schedules is still something I have to work on.
Laptop: I carry this one around incase I get bored and want to watch youtube in my classes… In all seriousness, however, my laptop is probably my most important tool I keep in my bag. I use it everyday to do schoolwork, homework, etc. Without this, I would really struggle to get through my day.
Notebook: My notebook is full of messy notes and messier doodles. The contents of my notebook represent what I’ve learned so far at Emory. Without it, I would have a really hard time studying for my bio tests…
Pens/Pencils: For someone who has really messy handwriting, it seems like I have a lot of writing utensils. Although I don’t use my pen/pencil as much as I used to in high school, I still like to carry them around as it makes me feel prepared.
Cough Drops: You never know when you’re going to need a cough drop. That’s my whole reasoning.
Chapstick: Nobody likes chapped lips. Just take a tube of it wherever you go.
Water Bottle: “Hydrate or Die-drate”, that’s something my swim coach always used to tell me. I always make sure I carry around my water bottle now as drinking water is effective at washing out toxins and other bad things in your body. Plus, nothing tastes better than a cold, crisp sip of water!
Snacks: Keeping up those calories! I always try to make sure I carry around snacks because I know that I lose concentration when I’m hungry
Phone Charger: Probably my most important item… I always keep a spare phone charger in my bag because it seems that my phone always dies at the worst times, so, keeping a phone charger is a simple solution to combat that!
When looking at the contents of my bag, I really do think that it reflects who I am as a person. I try not to carry anything that’s unnecessary, mostly because it would just make my bag heavier. When creating the actual image, I decided to separate the picture of the bag from the contents because when I originally laid out the bag next to contents of the bag, the image became very messy. The most challenging part of this assignment was laying out my stuff in a way that looked aesthetically pleasing.
