In Evelyn’s reflection of “Seen and not…Read?” I couldn’t help but agree with her. We really did have so many different ideas for our comic and we really were excited to delve into our ideas to show the class what we had in mind but like she mentioned, “it made me realize that while graphic novels give the writer incredible artistic freedom, it can also be really limited.” As the artist I myself felt very confined, but I think this had to do with my own artistic means of expression. I myself am not a talented artist; I cannot make poses and express characters the same way as I can with words and dense descriptions.
No, instead I had to search a mass amount of online databases for free range photos of character poses and change them enough by adding clothing, changing hair color, eyes and hair to make them truly my own. Still, it was time consuming; far more time consuming than writing is in itself. I could write out one of our small comic scenes in maybe, five to ten minutes, but to draw it and edit it to make sure continuity matched (which I made a few mistakes in drawing I will admit,) our smallest comic took about four hours to make and our larger ones taking six hours.
Looking back, drawing the comic was a lot of fun but in the moment it was beyond stressful. We had deadlines to meet, every Friday and every Wednesday we were supposed to post a new comic and I felt overwhelmed. I had so many other papers to write, projects to get ready for, and this was something I couldn’t skimp out on. It really made me appreciate any graphic novel artist, but honestly, I wouldn’t wish that level of stress even on my greatest enemy.