Comic



Comic Creation: Another Day, Another Bird Bath Robyn Lew CCT300 4 November 2010  The comic is meant to be a “slice of life” story, one that makes light of the life of a bird. The moral of the story refers to the nature of the food chain or the hierarchy of species. Even though one bird is physically and emotionally dominant over the other, this is completely irrelevant when they are proved to be equally vulnerable when it comes to the hierarchy of species, as they both nearly lose their lives to the cat. The dominant bird loses his feathers in which he takes immense pride because they help him to attract “chicks”, and consequently he is equally as silly-looking in the end as his lamer counterpart. The birds have been personified through their human-like characteristics, physically and emotionally. I wanted to clearly identify and link the commonality between characteristics in different species. Just as the human species is compromised of dominant beings and inferior beings, the bird species also maintains these inherent dichotomies. The first bird – small, round and favouring peace and quiet, implies a loser status as he sits alone by the bird bath. He is the personification of the nerdy, loner stereotype. The second bird – tall, lean, and strong-looking is meant to personify the popular jock/meat-head. The stereotypical opposition between jock and nerd is universally familiar to most people through mass media such as film and television, and may be reminiscent of personal memories of high school days. The universality of these characters makes them easily identifiable and relatable. I decided to make the birds extremely cartoony because according to McCloud, “the more cartoony a face is…the more people it could be said to describe” (McCloud, 31). By manipulating the basic facial features of birds (beak and eyes) I was able to create a familiar arrangement of eyes, nose and mouth that are recognizable characteristics of human beings, which in turn strengthens the connection that people can make with the birds regardless of the fact that they are a completely different species.  The speech bubbles were important in emphasizing the birds’ personalities. I also used speech bubbles to slightly distract the reader from the cat in the background and to enhance the subtlety of the cat’s approach. In terms of image and text, I did not necessarily want one to take precedence over the other; however, the text enhances the comical experience of the narrative and reinforces the stereotypical roles of the birds. In this comic, the panels are mainly duo-specific since “both words and pictures send essentially the same message” (McCloud, 153). Although there is a significant amount of dialogue between the birds and accompanying text, if one were to cover the text, I believe that the narrative would still be decipherable. The expressions on the birds are quite universally recognizable and the sequence of events is so straight forward that the narrative could still be comprehended without the aid of text.  The speech bubbles are also arranged so that the dialogue can be read chronologically from left to right, since that this is generally how speech sequences are arranged in the English language. McCloud explains that it is most sensible to arrange figures from “left to right in the sequence we will ‘read’ them” (McCloud, 97). Since the dominant bird initiates the dialogue between him and the other bird in every panel, I placed him on the left to make it easier for viewers to follow the flow of dialogue. In addition, I arranged the bubbles in terms of height so that not only does it read from left to right, but top to bottom as well. The text within the dominant bird’s speech bubbles is also larger and more abundant than the other’s, which draws more attention to his bubble first, thus making it easier for the reader to follow the order of dialogue. The larger text also plays into the dominant bird’s bigger and obnoxious personality and the smaller text works to support the reserved personality of the smaller bird.  The concluding sequence of the comic requires closure in order to make sense of the panels. The third last panel shows the birds in the process of flying away from the cat as it pounces on them. In the panel immediately following it, the birds are sitting on a branch, essentially naked and only a few feathers remain on their bodies. This subject-to-subject transition requires a higher `degree of reader involvement necessary to render [this transition] meaningful” (McCloud, 71). Without closure, the two images seem visually unrelated and only active participation from the viewer makes their sequence meaningful, since there is no panel that shows the cat actually taking the feathers off the birds. One is left to create that image or action in their own mind within the gutter, in order to make sense of the final panels.  My comic is meant to be simple and straight to the point. I wanted the story to be entertaining and comprehensible for all age groups. I did not want to restrict the characters to human physical traits, which might create a disconnect for some viewers, so I chose animals that are likeable and completely different from humans. I tried to achieve a simple yet entertaining narrative with a beginning, middle and conclusion by making the characters easily identifiable, the plot simple and the conclusion subtle and ironic.

Bibliography McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. [Northampton, MA]: Kitchen Sink, 1993. Print.