For this comic I wanted to highlight the many persons found within the homeless community of Vancouver. An idea which I attempted to bring to life by showcasing the different individuals that make up this group, those including Indigenous persons, immigrant families, and women. In addition to revealing the various housing situations that accompany this social issue, conditions such as poorly built homes, shelters, and improvised lodgings. I decided not to add any facial features to these individuals as I was attempting to speak to the ways that these persons often go overlooked or are seen as faceless to those around them. An idea which I also strove to highlight by having these individuals be engulfed by the stereotypes that are often attached to them. However I wanted to avoid perpetuating them further so I made it so that they blended into the background to the point that they were still discernible but not overtly clear. I ended up avoiding having too much dialogue as the aim was to have the panels speak for themselves, something of which I had been told during my artist interview; only offering a portion at the end in order to wrap everything up. For this design, I decided to take on a more structured or "traditional" approach to the formatting in order to convey the idea of how we get boxed into these perspectives. In addition to just a general desire to play around with a style such as this. Due to this I thought it would be suiting to design the story in a style that was slightly stylized to take off the edge of the content, while not being too cartoony.

Here I have my second comic, a piece which speaks to civil rights issues, or more specifically racism and racial targeting which Canadian police have been proven to engage in. Tactics include a method known as carding, in which law enforcement deliberately pull people over while driving in order to collect information despite their lack of involvement in any sort of crime. In addition to the utilization of stereotypes as justification to engage in inappropriate police conduct such strip searching in public environments. Information I obtained from reading an article about the misconceptions of Canada in the sense that it is viewed as better than the United States when it comes to scenarios such as this. Within this same reading I also learned about the media's involvement in the relaying of these stories to paint individuals from the black community as violent or aggressive. Narratives which have the power to influence the public to accept this take as truth. Another idea I attempted to capture through the utilization of several forms of overlapping media such as websites, news outlets and speech bubbles which relay their accounts of the story but may not be discernible for viewers to read, leaving it up to their own interpretation. This was also meant to be a reference to the article's talk of counter storytelling, wherein the voices of this targeted group are given an opportunity to share their own perspective. Due to the more serious nature of this comic, I wanted the style to possess a more serious tone, which is why I chose to use harsh shading reflective of older comics, while also alluding to the longstanding history of this narrative and the idea that not everything is black and white both in a literal and metaphorical sense.

For my third and final work, I wanted it to talk about different environmental problems which have affected Vancouver as well as offering insights to the plans that have been put in place to reduce and or prevent these issues. Take for instance how pollution produced from cars can be reduced by creating spaces or allowing easier access to forms of transport such as public transit, how factory emissions can be lowered through its location and utilization of renewable energy, the ways that the production of eco-friendly packaging can be used to reduce waste found on beaches, and the ways that we can get involved in helping to prevent further deforestation of old growth forests. In addition to tying into the way that these problems affect the spawning of salmon and the salmon run. An idea I portrayed by having my character think about these problems and solutions which the reader can then physically flip and in the process either reduce or increase the amount of deceased salmon or those which are upside down. Once again, I thought it would be fitting to have a comic that didn't heavily rely on dialogue and instead put the focus on each of the images. I also decided to take on a more stylized or cartoony approach as I wanted it to make it informative but with a bit of whimsy to prevent it from being too factual. An idea I ended up interpreting into the looser, more free flowing panel formatting, including the overlapping and jutting out of images.

Completed Final Project

First Comic Page: Homelessness

Second Comic Page: Civil Rights

Third Comic Page: The Environment

Reflection

In terms of the final outcome of my project, I feel it went fairly well, however as with any artist there are things I believe I could have improved upon. At the start of my assignment, I did struggle a little bit with fleshing out a storyline and coming up with dialogue and I do believe that is reflected a bit in the final outcome of my works. In particular the broadness of topic in both my first and third comics, with respect to the narrative and imagery. In regards to my first comic I am not sure if I hadn’t included text which ended up being a bit blocky and messy, someone reading it would be able to tell these are figures from the homeless community or the setting took place in Vancouver. I was also trying not to perpetuate any negative narratives but I am not sure if I was successful on this front or not. Specifically the text in each frame that references negative stereotypes which consume this body of people or the facelessness of some of the characters which was meant to touch on how they are viewed as invisible. In terms of my third comic I am not sure if it was too generic or broad as I worry it borders on the side of an infographic due to the story I chose to include. While I am also uncertain whether or not the narrative of the salmon comes across clearly or if they just feel like a random edition to the design. Lastly as I had stated I struggled a bit with the dialogue, particularly for the second comic and so I am not sure if its content had any impact or pushed the narrative forward. As part of my plan for this project I had also talked about playing around with my style a bit and while there are differences I am not sure if in particular the first and third comics are too similar stylistically or if they verge on being repetitive.

I already did a fair amount of research on these topics but maybe if I had found more specific information pertaining to these issues, it might have helped to prevent any unclarity. I did try to do this, but I struggled with finding any prevalent information under the school databases. In the end I also felt I was struggling a bit for time and as I am still working out my method and approach to digital art, I am a bit slow at finishing projects. One of the things that took the most time for me alongside my line art was adding in color. I did look into methods on how to do this more efficiently, but I didn’t find anything that was helpful, although this could have been an error on my part. However maybe if I had done a bit more digging I might have been able to prevent any further loss of time. Another thing I might have considered doing was uploading these pieces on some sort of public platform such as instagram. I did intend to make these comics digital as I thought by having them in this format would make it more accessible to a wider public. I do have them set up on my Hot Glue page but this might have been a nice added element.

With regards to the elements I gained from this and the aspects I felt I did well, I do believe I was able to apply styles that helped to enhance the sentiments behind each of these works, including each of their layouts. While I also think that this project helped me to improve upon my use of color a bit more. As creating characters is one of my favorite things to do, I am also quite happy with the turn out of my design. With respect to this process as a whole, I believe this was a good experience in learning more about issues which relate to my home province. In addition to having the ability to play around with styles I have always been drawn to in a medium and method of storytelling I do not attempt very often. In doing this I was able to learn more about the types of styles that I enjoy and how I can apply their attributes into my own work. Over the course of this process I was also able to observe the different elements I could improve upon narratively when it comes to creating comics or finding more ways to work efficiently. In this respect it helped me to understand even better the amount of thought and work that goes into an artform such as this. Ultimately I hope to take what I have learned from this experience and apply it to my own art and projects in the future.