Reflections

Assessment: P
I feel that I successful taught and engaged the class in my lesson. I met talk time and went a little over it. My overall presentation took the whole block. I saw a lot of people working on Mini-Comics for my 3rd activity even after I finished my presentation. Many people traded them and even collaborated with friends.

I'm most proud of my comic. I finished the art on Friday but was working on my 2 hour over the weekend so I didn't get the chance to print it til like 2:30am day of. So I'm proud that I got it printed and it looked good.

I think I did good in my Presentations (and will do good for my final product presentation), I'm proud of my creative expression and how it turned out, I'm really proud of my comic and how it turned out as well as my final product but I feel like I didn't work to my potential in regards to individual class and smaller components.

What is most important in creating a successful comic book?
Self-publishing and complete control over final product.

The last month made me really question if I knew what I was talking about and I think the i-search did too, but I feel like it really reinforced my final answer. When I finished my comic, it made me feel like I was successful in my comic. Stress made me question it in a good way.

We should have a 30 minute meet up on Fridays where all the teachers can make announcement to all the seniors at once. Less confusion.

Overall Senior Project: P
I'm proud of what I did this year and far I have improved. I feel like I excelled in some regards but others I fell short in my preparation.

2 HOur presentation

(I will group the desks in groups of 4 but 5 if I need to)
Sponge:
My sponge will be a discussion that will be focused on what they think of when they hear the word comics. It will also lead to what people read and what interests them within the world of comics.
Foundation:
I will talk about where the name comics came from and a brief history about how comics evolved. I won't get too in detail about it but I will talk about the comic code and the history of that, and how that lead to the underground movement in the 70's.
Anwser 1: Clarity
I will talk about reading Understanding Comics By Scott McCloud and how it brought me to this anwser. I will then cover Symbols and Icons, Body language/facial expression and Panel transitions and how they all bring clarity to the reader. Then I'll pair them up to play a quick game of pictionary.
Anwser 2: Research
I will talk about interviewing Stan Sakai and how he really drove home the idea of Research making the story. I will cover referencing photographs, life drawings and historical research and how different artist applied it to their art and story. Then I will (with the help of the class) read the comic Burger for One by Frank Stockton.
Anwser 3: Control
I will talk about my interview with Levon Jihanian and how you showed me the mini-comic Henry and Glen Forever and how it really opened the door that you can make anything. I will cover Self-publishing, design possiblly, and, the networking aspect of it. Then I will give them each a -constructed mini-comic book were they can draw their own comic or picture or writing.
Product:
I will show my mini-Comic that I finished and also talk about the things I went throught to finish it. I will also address the work ethic I gained by working my comic.

Rough 2 Hour

Service learning 2

Literal:

50.5 hours

Levon Jihanian

6263542292

Levon@levonjihanian.com

Interpertive:

He gave me good contacts and should me the process of making comics cheap.

Applied:

He helped prep me for publishing my comics and he showed me new comics that I wouldnmt have consisted success before.

Independent Component #2

Literal:
a.) I, Andrew Alexander, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
b.) In 30 hours of work, I did the rough penciling and inking of panel borders for 17 pages and the final pencils and inked the lettering for 7 of those. I also rough sketched, pencil and inked the final cover for the comic.

Interpretive:
My work on the comic represents 30+ hours of work. Most of the works tends to be shown in the final art but the a signafiant chunk is still done in the prep work. I had designed many covers for my comic and I had to pick one of them and started with the rough pencils and design the title logo. Since the comic is based on my old garage band, I wanted the settings to be places I used to see everyday, so many reference photographs were taken. Then for new concept and characters, design time and tryin different things with them was done. The final pencils are probably the most time consuming and take the most effort since it tends to involve a ton of erasering and editing and recompositing them. A spent some but not a lot of time inking some pages. (Most of the pictures I have shown you for creative expression. I have them if you would like them to be on a post.)

Applied:
I've almost completed this comic and in a few more weeks the art should be done and then I will more to self-publishing it. The work I did (and been doing) has brought me significantly closer to my end goal!

Interview 4

Interview 4 1.) What makes a successful comic book? To me, there are two kinds of success: financial and producing something of importance. So, for me producing something with intrigurity is more important. 2.) What makes a successful artist? Like I say in the first question, someone who produces something that they feels is important. 3.) What is most important in creating a successful comic book? Making it honest. So similar to the first two. 4.) What is your key focus on that you feel makes or breaks a project? It’s never one thing, its really a process that makes the comic. It starts with the story and then goes to the art, and then the money and then the printing and then the selling etc. So really its not just one thing rather the things in total. 5.) How does your creative process approach a story? Depends, for The Blot it started out with a series of painting I did and I felt like there was a story behind them and so it evolved into the story. Where on The Wolf it was more spontaneous and free form. 6.) Is it different if it a small idea or joke? Definitely, with like Henry and Glen Forever where there was tons of single panel strips, you are really trying to tell the whole story in one panel which is more like a painting. 7.) Is it different if you are approaching something in another media? Yeah, such as a paint is one frame where like a comic is as many is it takes. So its different levels of freedom and different kinds of expression. 8.) Does collaboration help or hinder you? And how? It’s tough, with people like igloo tornado it great cause we don’t hold each other back, but that’s not always the case. It really depends on the people your working with and how they appoarch the collaborative process. Like are they headstrong or do they not pull there weight. It just depends. 9.) What are some of your biggest influences? Oh man, um, 30’s and 40’s comic strips, 70’s underground stuff as well as the 80’s. I went to art school for painting and I think that the history of painting has really had an influence on what I want to make storys about. Music is another thing that really influenced me. My brother is a musician and always being around it kind of influenced me. Books and literate, poetry; some of my favorites are like Kafka, Twain, Vonnegut. Yeah. 10.) Do you try to pull from influences or is it more natural occurrence? Depends really, in The Blot there was some scene that were references to one of my favorite painters but in my next book The Wolf it is more naturally looking really German Expressionism. 11.) What is more important in pleasing a client while doing freelance work? I work for Disney in their animation on flash web games and there I try and draw up to the quality of standards. I think that drawing for someone that you mutual respect as an artist is also important, that’s topically why I enjoy drawing for bands that I like listening to. Mainly it’s because they trust my artistic decisions and so I’m more willing to take their input. 12.) What can you tell me about Self-publishing? What do you want to know? *laugh* Andrew: How did you get into Self-Publishing? It happened in like 1999 I was trying to get a book published by all the big indie publishers, Top shelf and Fantagraphics etc. I was rejected by them all and so I just try it to Kinko’s and published it myself. I don’t know there was such a huge self-publishing movement until I went to a con to sell it and that’s when I started to meet people and really get into the business. I now like the control I have over the product in self-publishing and don’t want to give it up. 13.) What is key to successfully self-publishing a book? I think the first thing is having a good book. Then its all in the marketing. Going to conventions, doing promotions, having other artists promote it, sending so to bloggers to review it, it’s all in the marketing. 14.) How do you market your self-published stuff? Pretty much what I said in the last question but I want to add that’s it’s really tough trying to market your self-published work and get any crediablity. There is a stigma that if you self-publish that you couldn’t get published and that your work isn’t worth reading which is false almost all the time. 15.) What is the advantage and disadvantage to Self-publishing? Control is a big advantage but it takes dedication. 16.) What is the advantage and disadvantage in having some one else like a publisher do the work for you? You can put more time into the final product because there are more people helping work on it so you can get more done but then you sacrifice the control over everything. 17.) How do you approach a bigger project such a multiple issue story or a graphic novel? I tend to try and do things spontaneously just for the sake of keeping myself from routines. But I think a solid routine is key to getting thought the big ones. 18.) Who is someone you look up to in regards to self-publishing? Dylan Williams, Carla Speed Mckneel and Jeff Smith. 19.) Who is someone you look up to in regards to cartooning? Anders Nelson, Renee French, Chris Wright 20.) Who do you think would be good to interview next? And can you help me contact him/her? Dylan Williams would be very helpful and also Riagne and Megan Hogan are good ones too.

Creative Expression

Andrew Alexander

ComicBooks

What is most important in creating a successful comic book?

I think I will create a front and back cover for my comic

I relates to my project because it is part of my final product