WP3: Pre-Write 1

Most of my experience with art objects is a little dated. Sure, I've been to plenty of museums and displays for different galleries, but personal involvement has been lacking in recent years.
As many kids my age, art classes were core curriculum for my elementary days. These early introductory classes gave us all a short look into what art could be, and allowed us to dabble a little in every area. And also start paint fights; that's what you get when you hand second-graders buckets of colored paint and minimal supervision. But besides that, things were never to rigorous.
Those of us who had some skill and enjoyed the work were able to produce some real quality pieces for our age. Often students' art would be placed about the school, or even in youth art competitions. I was lucky enough to have one of my own showcased at a gallery of teen art, though I was only in fifth or sixth grade; that painting still hangs on our dining room wall in my house.
Junior High was really the last time I was classically introduced to any class like this. Once we had such a large room to work, all the resources we could ever need, and several large kilns, our teacher allowed us to step up our game. That's where I learned my love of pottery and sculpture. It had always taken me so long to draw something, my painting skills were lack-luster most days, and forget just about anything else that required that much patience. But getting right to work with my hands and physically molding something really clicked and came naturally to me.
After that, my interest remained, but my options didn't. I couldn't fit in an art class to my high school schedule and I really had no other outlet. The closest I came was when I was given some modeling clay after a local art shop started putting them on clearance. Most of those sticks still have yet to be used, but on one rainy day, I did produce a few amateur pieces which appear on my Facebook photo album.

WP2: Final Comic

Author's Note

In trying to break from the usual monotony of wordy posts, I took the opportunity to design my own comic, rather than analyze someone else's. While this saved me some time in struggling through word-counts and textual revisions, creating the work was no walk in the park, either.
The comic genre is not something that is normally taken as a form of literature. As many pop-culture enthusiasts will be more than happy to explain, the general public still sees comic strips as something they read in the Sunday paper or something for children; even major works like Watchmen receive scoffs when someone tries to assert it could be on a level with The Great Gatsby. Especially with the aforementioned work, that is not to say that real, difficult topics cannot be explained through such an art form. That is precisely what I aimed to do with my strip: use comics as a means to discuss hard issues, but with lighter, more aesthetically pleasing visuals than would accompany a standard work of scholarly prose.
My series of panels (here placed in a slide show) went through several iterations, but began their life, surprisingly, as a poem. Poetry is a style of writing very dear to my heart, and it comes quite naturally to me these days, particularly when it has to do with those closest to me. That's why I decided to begin in text, where I could get my thoughts down, while playing with a rhythmic feel to give the piece a sense of pacing.
After I had found the words, I went right to sketching out my panels. I knew that in trying to emulate the feeling of Andrew Ryan's monologue, I would also do well to implement the visual style that Bioshock designers put along side it. So I started with the middle four (originally planned to be five, but "'No!' says my counselor, " was eventually scrapped because it felt monotonous and unnecessary) panels, finding symbols of each group to use threateningly. Keen observers will note in these frames, many references are made to various source materials.
But I knew, after having all of the panels laid out, that I wanted to push the envelope more. Something had to be done to break my work from the standards of a comic strip. While working on in-class reviews, John brought up the idea for the final frame, bringing it out of the hard square edges of all the others. This is a means of symbolism for the piece: my words are of constraint and hopelessness in all but the last frame, so they should remain in their own stark black borders, while the final shot has none.
Another interesting innovation is likely the most obvious: rather than place the panels into a rigid and page-like framework, I opted to place them in a slide show. Not only does this utilize the abilities and norms of the blog and internet, it also brings the piece closer to the source sited in my Statement of Purpose.

Statement of Purpose

Final Draft

(Click the slide show at any time to see the current panel in greater detail)