The Secret Language of Comics

Category: Student Posts

Lucius Fox Setup

Student Posts

For my Sunday Sketch I decided to recreate a scene from the Dark Knight where Lucius Fox is in front of his giant computer with many screens helping out Batman. I got this idea because my friends often call my computer set up in my room the “Lucius Fox setup” so I thought it would be fitting to recreate this scene. Unfortunately I do not have as many screens as Lucius Fox so instead I tiled many pictures of blue security camera footage across my monitor to make it appear like I have that many screens. Unfortunately my dress shirt is in the wash, so instead I made a substitute for a blue jacket. While the angle and posture is not 100% the same, I made slight adjustments because if I took the movie’s angle, and Morgan Freeman’s you would see my wall instead of the monitor which I think is the main focal point of this scene.

Halfa Kucha Reflection

Student Posts

I took a different approach from most of my pieces of writing when I began constructing my argument for this Halfa-Kucha. I tried to combine aspects from previous assignments namely the tracing pages assignment and the second part of the literacy narrative. Like the tracing pages assignment I tried to build this from the ground up. Because I have digital copies of both Kindred and Stitches, I began by screenshotting various scenes that were related to trauma or recovery, and then I annotated each screenshot. Using the annotations I chose a related Judith Herman quote and began drafting up the structure of the argument. Here, I took inspiration from the second part of my literacy narrative where I try to represent my flow of ideas in an abstract, non-linear way. I drew arrows, concept maps, and webs. Finally I linearized this representation into the series of slides we see above.

For the slides I took a minimalist approach due to the nature of the presentation being just under three and a half minutes. Due to the short time, my words would be dense and important so I did not want to draw attention away from the argument by having ornate slides. Writing the script for this Halfa Kucha was challenging because I did not want to speak fast, because comic panels are already dense and the audience’s’ attention would be split. I tried to take a minimalist approach with my words, and I timed how long it would take to say each slide at a moderate pace.

Overall I liked this presentation style because it forced you to be minimalist, making sure every choice I took served a purpose. I also think the way I went about constructing this argument was more aligned with how I think, so I will definitely be using a similar method in the future. One thing that I might change in a different setting is getting rid of the timing and making it just slightly less scripted to make have a more conversational tone for certain audiences.

Halfa Kucha Reflection

Student Posts

I took a different approach from most of my pieces of writing when I began constructing my argument for this Halfa-Kucha. I tried to combine aspects from previous assignments namely the tracing pages assignment and the second part of the literacy narrative. Like the tracing pages assignment I tried to build this from the ground up. Because I have digital copies of both Kindred and Stitches, I began by screenshotting various scenes that were related to trauma or recovery, and then I annotated each screenshot. Using the annotations I chose a related Judith Herman quote and began drafting up the structure of the argument. Here, I took inspiration from the second part of my literacy narrative where I try to represent my flow of ideas in an abstract, non-linear way. I drew arrows, concept maps, and webs. Finally I linearized this representation into the series of slides we see above.

For the slides I took a minimalist approach due to the nature of the presentation being just under three and a half minutes. Due to the short time, my words would be dense and important so I did not want to draw attention away from the argument by having ornate slides. Writing the script for this Halfa Kucha was challenging because I did not want to speak fast, because comic panels are already dense and the audience’s’ attention would be split. I tried to take a minimalist approach with my words, and I timed how long it would take to say each slide at a moderate pace.

Overall I liked this presentation style because it forced you to be minimalist, making sure every choice I took served a purpose. I also think the way I went about constructing this argument was more aligned with how I think, so I will definitely be using a similar method in the future. One thing that I might change in a different setting is getting rid of the timing and making it just slightly less scripted to make have a more conversational tone for certain audiences.

Halfa-Kucha Reflection

Student Posts

Constructing an argument to present to the class felt like creating a compressed essay, in a way, yet not quite. It felt as if I was typing an essay while I typed my script but a big difference was the way my script was much shorter—only 2 pages long—compared to my essays which are usually 3-4 pages, largely due to the fact that I wasn’t going into extreme detail presenting my argument. In an essay, I’ll spend lengthy paragraphs trying to prove whatever I’m arguing, however constructing my argument for this format forced me to just cut straight to the chase and share my main points within the time limit. I think the way I decided to organize my presentation is something I could make use of in my written work, mainly because I started off my planning as if I was writing an essay: presenting my argument and pointing to specific evidence supporting it. Because I was sort of stuck in this mindset of crafting like a mini essay to then just translate into a visual presentation—this was very much comparable to my process in my seminar class last semester in which I had to write a research paper and make a powerpoint presentation—my analytical thinking process generally did not feel any different. For the visuals of my presentation, I decided to go with the basic setup of literally presenting what I was saying. I know for me personally, if there’s no words on a presentation, I can keep up and remain engaged if I can see the connection between the oral argument and the visuals presented, so that’s why I went with that decision for my presentation.

By giving this type of presentation, it helped me realize how important it is to choose appropriate and significant visuals and to decide what are the most important parts of your argument to emphasize on within the time limit of the slide. Because there was time constraints per slide, it made me organize much more specifically what I said and when; if I had to say a bit more about a certain topic I extended it out for at least 2 slides but otherwise I tried to stick to “one thing per slide”. This presentation also made me stick to a very concise script—I couldn’t go off on tangents or if I stuttered I had to recover immediately because the clock was ticking on the current slide. While I had to stay synchronized with my automatically switching slides, I also had to be speaking slow enough so my peers could comprehend and keep up with what I was saying. Previous presentations I’ve done only have an overall presentation time limit so I chose how long I got to spend on certain slides—which unfortunately sometimes made me include too many things per slide and most likely minimized the engagement and focus of my audience. One thing I noticed in some of my classmates’ presentations was including specific quotes on their slides. Although we all stuck to mainly images, I realized that emphasizing specific quotes allows the audience to capture the significance of it—I think if I had included the quotes I cited orally it would’ve definitely helped emphasize my argument.

Recreate Movie Scene

Student Posts

I wasn’t sure which movie scene I wanted to recreate. Literally 30 minutes before writing this reflection, I came up with the idea to recreate this scene from KIll Bill Vol 1. I already had a bright yellow sweater, black pants, and a cardboard katana. The katana is from a theatre project from 11th grade that was collecting dust behind on my bookshelves. I finally put it to good use. I wanted to focus on the pose more than anything else. Also, I didn’t have any other props that I could add. I actually watched Kill Bill for the first time this semester. In this particular scene [ spoilers ahead ], the bride is ready to chop down the Crazy 88 gang in Japan at the House of Blue Leaves. She is on a killing strike for revenge for what to her in the beginning of the movie. This scene is very gorey but so iconic.

Sketch 9: Breakfast at Tiffany’s Recreated

Student Posts

Original Image Source: https://images.app.goo.gl/TncUbrvLq1nPzzEc6

I decided to recreate the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In the scene, Holly Golightly is standing in front of a Tiffany’s store display window in NYC with her morning coffee and breakfast. This is one of my favorite classic movies and as I brainstormed for ideas, I knew I recognized that I had props and wardrobe that would fit the scene. Although I didn’t have the exact outfit, I think my substitution works well, except it would have been even better with gloves and actual pearls. I’m really proud of my attempt at recreating her hairstyle with a scarf; it looks better than I envisioned. I also didn’t have exact props (coffee cup, paper bag, and pastry) but the ones I used get the point across. The only thing my recreation doesn’t portray is the glass window she’s looking into and the storefront background. My facial expression is neutral like hers, however she has a longing look because she really wants the jewelry inside and the status that comes with it. I struggled to portray that look of yearning and wishing.

Casino Royale?

Student Posts

For this sketch assignment, I have decided to re-create the iconic poker scene from casino royale. Having watched the movie a few times, I still get excited when James Bond reveals his straight flush, which very rarely happens.

The original scene from the movie Casino Royale, when James Bond flipped over his 5 and 7 of spades.

Here is my version of this scene, which I re-created using a deck of cards and my poker chips. I do not have the black and red chips they used in the movie, so I used black ones instead. I also could not position my hand correctly, so those are the only major differences.

Casino Royale?

Student Posts

For this sketch assignment, I have decided to re-create the iconic poker scene from casino royale. Having watched the movie a few times, I still get excited when James Bond reveals his straight flush, which very rarely happens.

The original scene from the movie Casino Royale, when James Bond flipped over his 5 and 7 of spades.

Here is my version of this scene, which I re-created using a deck of cards and my poker chips. I do not have the black and red chips they used in the movie, so I used black ones instead. I also could not position my hand correctly, so those are the only major differences.

Sunday Sketch 9

Student Posts

In order to figure out what scene to replicate for this sketch, I thought of movies. that I have seen recently. One of which was Superbad, which is a comedy about high school students trying to get into a party. One of my favorite moments of the movie was when Fogel was fake being arrested by the police. This is the scene that I tried to replicate here. In the scene, he was wearing a white shirt and black pants, which I had in my wardrobe. Besides the outfit, the other critical part of this picture was finding people to serve as the police. Luckily, my friends were available and served as the cops. As seen above, they are restraining me by holding my arms, which is accurate to the scene.

Halfa Kucha

Student Posts

In high school, I did quite of few of presentations, and I was in theatre for 3 semester. I still get the jitters before doing something in front of a crowd, and I am fairly confident in my presentation skills. Before working on the Halfa Kucha, it thought that it would be easy to an extent because I already had an idea of what I wanted to say and present. While working on it, I went through the graphic novels looking for panels that are relevant to my vague idea then I constructed my argument. Looking back, I wished that I constructed my argument first then pick out panels. That way I can focus more on the argument and not get lost in which panels I should put in the presentation. I wasted a lot of time picking the right panels. As for the argument, I wanted to put more into it, but the time restraint held me back. Which is good for this type of assignment, it would be harder to stray off path, and I focused more on the important stuff. I liked not having to create an introduction for the presentation, describing the plot. I could just get right into it. If I were to implement that into analytical writing, I would focus on the body and then right the introduction and conclusion.

For the panels on the presentation, I wanted to focus more on what is drawn on the panel rather than the text. For Teddy’s slides, I cut out the frames where he facial expression was showing. In Sabrina, the facial expressions are kinda bland. However, there are the few times where it more realistic features to it.

Whenever I give presentations, I try not to be that one person who just reads off the slides. This assignment made sure that you won’t read off the slides. I also did not need to worry about typing my argument out; I could just say it. With the slides moving automatically, I had to make sure what I said was relevant with each slide, and I had a limited time to say it which was nerve racking. Towards the end of the presentation, I kinda went off in a tangent and was not able to say what I wanted too. Remembrance and reconnection can happen at the same time. But why? who knows because I couldn’t finish. From my fellow students’ presentation, I would try to slow down myself down and have flashcards to keep myself on track. As for future presentations in general, I would try to put less on the slides and just talk about it.

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