Wang 1 David Wang Dr.

Hancock Graphic Novels: Images/Text 15 December 2012

The Wonders of Teenage Fantasies

The range of romantic relationships experienced by peers close to my age can vary greatly. Some have already experienced a profound degree of connection with a special partner, while others like me have felt the threads of attraction but have yet to act on these feelings. This comic strip that I have created, titled Fantasy, is meant to be a depiction of the latter, a look into the nave imaginations of a shy young boy experiencing his first crush. To tell my story effectively, I use selectively chosen panel shapes to reinforce and indicate changes in perspective, targeted use of color to denote emotions, and intentionally applied lines and text fonts to indicate a sudden change in mental state. In order to strengthen the point of view the protagonist, I use differently shaped panels from the standard rectangular block. Panels one, five, and eight are trapezoidal instead of rectangular, with the angled side of the trapezoid box sloping in the same direction that the main character is facing. For example, in panel five, the protagonists attention is directed at the two girls walking from the top right corner. To influence the readers to follow the visual path of the young boy towards the girls, I have the right side of the panel slant upwards towards the upper right corner as well. The panel then becomes an arrow key pointing the reader towards the object of the protagonists attention. Other panel shapes indicate a shift from concrete reality to more abstract fantasy. For instance, panels ten, eleven, and twelve are cloud shaped to show that the

Wang 2 scenes are the main characters daydreams. Finally, panel thirteen is drawn to be a sharp, many angled star. This represents the beep of the protagonists alarm clock, and the angles symbolize an abrupt jolt back to reality. Combined together, the panel shapes serve to guide the readers attentions as well as differentiate the dreams and experiences of the main character. In this story, colors are used either to denote an intense burst of emotions in the protagonists private mind as well as to identify imaginary scenes. Throughout the comic, real life events are depicted almost strictly in black and white. However, in panels six and nine, I use color only for the background and not for the protagonist. This is done with pink and orange to depict the intense shyness that the main character feels. In particular, the orange halo around the protagonist conveys the internal heat he must experience in seeing the beautiful girl walking down the hallway. The pink provides a more mellow representation of his attraction. Nevertheless, the character himself is not colored in these panels since he still is in the realm of reality. In contrast, panels ten, eleven, twelve, in which he daydreams about having a relationship with the girl, are fully colored since the character has utterly succumbed to his mental fantasies. In the panels, both the boy and a girl have a pink halo around them in addition to the bright surrounding to reinforce a romantic connection. This is interrupted by the star panel, which I intentionally color a bright, almost glaring yellow. This provides the reader a clear indication of realitys intrusion, as well as to contrast the wild imaginations of the protagonist with his more mundane real world. Finally, specific lines within the comic serve to reinforce the protagonists mood at a given moment. Some lines are more obvious, such as the little dashes around the characters head in panel four that indicate surprise. Another such use of lines can be seen in panel ten, where the wavy lines coming out of protagonists face represent the heat of his passion. Others,

Wang 3 however, are more subtle. To reinforce the effects of the stop watch in returning the protagonist back to the real world, the Beep! words are drawn with straight lines instead of curves. The sharp angles of the letters complement the star shape of panel thirteen, and imply that the alarms activation is unexpected and perhaps unwelcome. This trait even extends to the text box at the bottom of the last panel, where its sharp lines complement the protagonists frustration at having his dream interrupted and being almost late to class. In this comic, I endeavor to tell this little love story by using newly gained knowledge of panel design, color selection, and line usage from the class and the readings. While a humble attempt, I hope that the analysis and application of these techniques, along with my imagination, has made a comic worth reading.