From the Syllabus

Part 3: Textual Influences.  As you write this section, you will consider what ideas and techniques you would like to borrow (or avoid) from the texts we have experienced as part of the class as you start creating your own graphic text.  This section will require deep critical thinking, as you will want to consider both artistic and literary choices (as well as the relationship between the two).  In addition to citing your influences, you will analyze the effects of the other artists’ choices as you consider the role you would like them to play in your own text.  (4-5 pages)

More Details

Now that you have read multiple graphic narratives, you have enough experience and information to draw upon to conceptualize the graphic narrative that you will write.  This part of your writing project has two goals.  On the one hand, it allows you to think through and articulate the decisions you want to make as you design your own text.  On the other hand, it allows you to demonstrate to me your understanding of the graphic texts we have read.  (In other words, this paper is my sneaky way of having you write a literary analysis essay.)

In your essay, you should draw from Maus, Persepolis, Safe Area Gorazde, and the book over which you gave your presentation.  You can also feel free to draw from any of the other graphic texts to which your classmates introduced you (and you can also feel free to borrow any of those books from me).

In this paper, you will articulate the choices that you plan to make in your own graphic narrative.  Please always explain those choices in light of the texts we have read.  Questions to consider include:

Literary:

• Audience.  What audience do you anticipate for your text?  (Will your readers know much about your topic?  Will they care, or will they need to be persuaded to become invested?)  What choices do you need to make in light of your audience?  (For example, a young adult audience would require different decisions than an adult audience.) 
• Genre/Tone.  How would you classify the genre of your text?  Is it a memoir of your life or someone else’s (as in Maus or Persepolis)?  Is it comics journalism (like Safe Area Gorazde)?  Will you choose to fictionalize events (like some of the texts your classmates gave presentations about)?  How does your genre choice affect your style or tone?
• Character.  Who will be the character(s) in your text?  How did you make those selections?  Will you figure as a character?  If so, will you shape the reader’s understanding of other characters (as in Maus), will you experience the events you are describing (as in Persepolis), or will you serve to help the readers understand how you came to your knowledge (as in Safe Area Gorazde)?
• Plot/Structure.  Many of the historical moments you are writing about do not have a distinct “beginning” or “end.”  Therefore, what choices will you make about where to begin and where to end?  Also, do you aim to provide closure at the end?  Or do you want to leave certain ideas or questions open-ended?  (Consider how each of the texts we read have handled this question.)
  • History.  How will you treat history in your text?  Will you include many historical details gleaned from other sources (like Safe Area Gorazde), or will you touch on only a few historical “events” (and perhaps condense those episodes and/or show them from a different perspective than historical documents often do, as we saw in Persepolis)? 

Artistic:

• Black/White or Color.  Do you envision your graphic narrative in black and white (as in the books we have read so far) or in color (which can range from one additional color, as in Fun Home, or full color, as in Pride of Baghdad)?  If black and white, what kind of balance do you anticipate between black and white?  (For example, Persepolis uses solid chunks of black in ways that Maus does not.)  If color, will you use subdued hues or bright ones? 
• Style.  Do you plan to draw upon any artistic or cultural styles in your artwork?  (You’ll remember that we explored how Maus draws upon the familiar cat-and-mouse images from cartoons, and that Persepolis can be seen as drawing from Expressionism, film noir, and Persian miniatures.)  Through these choices, what do you hope to convey about your content, mood/tone, heritage, etc.?  Within your text, do you ever plan to change your style (as Spiegelman did by including “A Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” pg. 100)?
• Format.  Will your graphic narrative follow a traditional graphic narrative format, or will you incorporate anything additional, such as historical documents or photographs? 
• Characters.  On the continuum between figures that look realistic (Safe Area Gorazde) and cartoony (Maus), how do you want to represent your characters?  Why? 
• Frames.  Will you ever choose to have elongated panels, half-page (or larger) frames, or any other creative or nontraditional ways to visually portray any of your content?  (All of our authors chose to do this in some moments for various effects.) 
• Violence.  Because many historical moments of crisis also include violence or graphic details, how will you choose to portray those moments?  Are there certain topics or images that you will simplify, depict abstractly, or refuse to narrate (as in Persepolis, pg. 39, 142)?  Or, do you plan to provide realistic detail (as in Safe Area Gorazde)?

Please feel free to address other topics in addition to these (and of course do not feel obligated to address all of them).  I developed these topics and questions as starting points to help jumpstart your thinking, but you should not feel limited by them.  Any decisions you have to make in creating your graphic narrative are fair game for analysis.

For any choices that you address, please demonstrate how they are influenced by the texts we have read.  How are they shaped by another author’s use of (or avoidance of) that technique?  What effect do you see in another text that you hope to replicate in your own?  Work to make strong and intriguing connections between your piece and the other works we have read.  You should not only detail what you hope to do, but also offer thoughtful, substantial reasons—based on the works we have read—to support your decisions.

Guidelines

• You will write approximately four-five pages (more is OK, but less is not). 
• You will cite at least 3 other graphic narratives, using parenthetical references and having a Works Cited page.  You may conduct research on these texts to help explain the effects of certain techniques, but you are not required to do so.
• As an analysis of literature, every body paragraph should include examples and quotations from other graphic narratives.  (In literature, examples and quotes serve as evidence.)
• Please structure this paper like an academic essay, with an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  Your thesis, in this case, should articulate what distinctive choices you plan to make in your graphic narrative and why you plan to make them.

Feel free to write this paper according to an idealized version of yourself as a writer and illustrator.  I am looking for what you would like to achieve in your graphic narrative rather than what you might be fully capable of achieving.

Joanne Janssen, Baker University