Friday

Final Project - Sketch 1

My story is on "Sleeping Beauty". Here is a link to the original story (Disney version): http://www.fpx.de/fp/Disney/Tales/SleepingBeauty.html

After some discussions, our group decided to change the ending to this:
Sleeping Beauty (SB) couldn't wake up despite being kissed by the prince. Prince decided to kiss a few more times to try and wake her up. And SB's lips swelled!! Prince panicked and rushed her to the nearest hospital and he saw one Korean hospital some distance away.
When he reached he realised that everything's in Korean! Even the doctors could not speak nor understand English. Prince tried using body language to communicate with the doctors, asking them to save SB and cure her lips. Doctors signalled okay and off they went for operation. When operation is done, doctors pushed a mummified SB out of the operating theatre happily and Prince was happy too! He pushed SB in front of a mirror and helped her remove the bandages all over her body. And then...

SB had a gender change instead!

That was the gist of our story. In this sketch, the focus is on the paneling on a webpage. I made use of the endless space of a webpage (the ability to scroll without limit) and paneled my comic in a down and right movement. This is the link to my sketch 1 (file:///C:/Users/AdminNUS/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX56.296/Sketch%201/Sketch%201%20Assignment.html) but I am not sure if you can open with other computers. If not, I've submitted in IVLE. :)

Below are some of the comments gathered after the critique session:

1. One classmate felt rather uncomfortable because my comic seems to move constantly towards the right, without moving leftwards. She mentioned that it gave her an unbalanced feeling of the whole webpage.
My take: I felt that it might be just a personal preference thing because out of the class, only one person responded this way. And also, I don't intend to change this because I thought moving right constantly gave a sense of time and movement. For instance in panel 10, the panel was extended twice as long to show the movement of the prince running from the forest to the hospital with the next panel (in the hospital) continuing right at the end of this long panel. See picture below.
So as readers scroll to the left, it helps them form a mental picture of the prince moving towards the hospital as well. The continuum of time and space is considered here.
Similarly for panel 16, the panel is extended to show a sense of time and space. The long panel helps separate the space between the outside and the inside of the operating theatre and again, as the readers scroll to the left, they would feel a sense of time, that time has passed. And then immediately, the next panel shows the doctors coming out, signalling end of operation. See picture below.
Thus, I don't intend to change the direction of my comic because it might affect the effect that I want the readers to experience from scrolling from right to left every now and then. :)
2. Many liked the idea of what I've explained above about the time and space continuum in my comic.
My take: I love it too! I really felt that time was passing as I read the whole comic. :)) Really interesting characteristic of extending a panel and extend time and space at the same time. :)
3. Jing was concerned about the feasibility and the actuality of a gender change surgery. She thought that to be realistic, a gender change wouldn't happen over just one surgery. 
My take: We decided to go with something that is not realistic because from Assignment 2, I learnt that realistic is not a main component in comic. Also, because our story is built upon a FAIRY TALE, I thought the ending should still contain some kind of fiction and exaggeration to create a better impression and impact on the readers. Thus, unless realistic story line becomes a criteria for our final project, I don't think we will be changing it. But yup, we will still be including the non-fiction part as requested, probably at the surgery part. We were thinking about including facts about a gender change and how different parts will be changed, etc. Not really done with the details but we will most likely include the non-fiction part here. :)

That's all about the comments I've gathered from my tutorial mates. I won't be making any changes because I like the presentation now as it fits my idea of time, space continuum and it explored the possibility of unlimited scrolling on a webpage as compared to the paper form.

Even though Dreamweaver is a hassle, but it feels great when you see your hard work on a webpage! COOL! :D


Reflection
The project is indeed my first time coming into contact with mad scientist approach. I realised that it's actually not that easy because the placement of the panels have to make sense not only to you but also to the general audience! Appealing to the mass audience is important since the comic is created for the general public and not just for ourselves. This was one major lesson I learnt in tutorial during the critique session.

However, I do believe that while you are catering to the mass audience, it is important to retain one's style and the meaning of the story. These are what makes one stands out from the rest of the works. :)

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