I was continuing my research, looking into reading materials a tutor and I went through before uni started. I did not look for more new reading material, partially because when I did try I could not find anything of relevancy. I have identified some of the keywords of my research project:
children's comics, comics, interactive comic, interactive storyline, comic games
Hopefully using those keywords would help me further my research.
Some notes on the early reading materials that are relevant to my project:
Ozge Samanci and Anju Tewari "GPS Comics: Seeing Thru Walls"
University of Berkeley 2010
This was an interesting idea and innovative concept. The user would walk around a designated physical parameter with a handheld device, and significant geological cues would activate an interaction with a character in the game. After a certain amount of interactivity, the application would generate a comic based on the interactions between the user and the virtual character. I quite liked this idea personally, but there was no finished product or any reviews of sort for any conclusions. This only related to my project tangentially; the use of handheld devices and the user's ability to manipulate the narrative themselves (albeit illusory) were rather similar.
Also Scott McCloud "Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art" HarperCollins Books, 2004.
Gillian Whitlock "Autographics: The Seeing 'I' of Comics"
MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 5, No. 4, Winter 2006 965-979. Published my John Hopkins University Press
This journal purposed that comics help realise the potential of comics to communicate autobiographical narratives of trauma. It focused on autobiographical comics analysis, and explained in depth the effectiveness of using comics to portray serious issues.
The author referenced a lot from McCloud and his definition of comics; such as reading comics require closure (seeing parts but perceiving the whole), and that comics was not just the marrying of words and images, but transcended both through the use of closure. An important quote in the journal from Edward Said referenced by the author was "(comics) seemed to say what couldn't otherwise be said, perhaps what wasn't permitted to be said or imagined, defying the ordinary processes of thought, which are policed, shaped, and reshaped by all sorts of pedagogicals as well as ideological pressures... I felt that comics freed me to think and imagine differently". This was significant because it supported my view on comics not just being "kiddie flare", but something able to influence a person's way of thinking and imagination. It also advocated my argument on comics being effective in communicating any subject matter, even those dealing with trauma and war.
The journal discussed Art Spiegelman's "Maus" and Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" extensively as examples of autobiographies dealing in traumatic experiences. Links between the iconic character designs and situating the reader within the story were made, and lines between the visual style and its symbolism were drawn. The most essential part of the journal stated that because comics require so much from the reader, it calls for them to become a collaborator, and that they must use their own imagination to construct a coherent story. Here was another reason supporting my view on the depth of engagement when reading comics.
I can draw links between this text and my idea. But I will have to state that "Maus" and "Persepolis" are aimed towards more mature readers, and that my project would be of darker subject matter, but aimed at children. Also I know I am not referencing these materials correctly, but I hope that is acceptable as they are just for documenting reasons.
08/03/16 Tuesday
Zak Waipara "Otea: Transmission and Transmedia"
I was given a link to an ex-student's Master's exegesis also dealing with comics and interactive games based on it. I thought it would be extremely helpful if I read through it. The abstract was clear in outlining the material's contents; which included
- A definition of transmedia
- The objections and goals of the project
- Subject matter (in this case it was related to Maori culture and mythology)
- Target audience (also children)
- Future/ long term goals (which was for others to employ and build on)
The exegesis was 86 pages long, and it was immediately daunting for me to imagine what I had to do for my own at the end of this year. However this was for a Master's degree, so perhaps it was not the level of sophistication for me to reach just yet.
It was clear from the start that extensive and in-depth research was done in order to create this exegesis. There was already and overwhelming amount of footnotes and references made even for the origin of this project. It really dug deep into the origins of the project, going into the practitioner's personal experience in learning te reo Maori. It embodied his interest in language, and his belief that his project would advocate the learning of another foreign language. It was incredibly fascinating to learn about where the project stemmed from, and that I could also incorporate such topics in my own exegesis.
This exegesis also provided me with a lot research material I could use in my project. I have noted down a few that could be relevant to my research:
Art Spiegelman, "Metamaus"
Henry Jenkins, "Transmedia Storytelling: Moving Characters From Books to Films to Videogames Can Make Them Stronger and More Compelling"
Henry Jenkins, "Game Design in Narrative Architecture"
Jesse Schell, "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses"
There was hope in expanding my research. Now I had supporting materials in comics and games. There were two more areas left uncovered for me, and those were linking comics and games together and how could such a merging be appealing to children.
Also on Tuesday I was preparing for the ZEN Presentation all honours students were required to do. It was a short 2 minute talk of an overview of our project. I, like many, hated public speaking. So I typed up what I was preparing to say for the presentation. With my refreshed and new found knowledge on comics, my first draft when read out was 1 minute and 30 seconds long. I decided to expand upon it, and ended up with a 4 minute long speech. I cut everything down to bullet points, and decided to just use those to help me go along. The presentation was Wednesday.
Right now I have thought of using the games "The Walking Dead" and "Wolf Among Us" by Telltale Games as a reference point for comics based videogames.
09/03/16 Wednesday
Today was the day of the Zen Presentation. I spent the morning and the night before familiarizing what I was going to say.
My presentation consisted the main focus of my project--- which was to create an engaging interactive comic aimed towards children, why I was doing it--- so children may use their imagination in the reading experience as well as learn something of value, some context; in this case I referenced a bit of Chris Riddell's illustrative work, and how I was going to produce it---- by using Photoshop, AfterEffects, X-Code or Android Studio and Flash.
I probably talked very fast because of nervousness, and I could have forgotten to mention some important points on my presentation. But I had very little time to prepare, so it was a relief that I did manage to get up and complete the presentation. By the end of the semester, I would have to do a 10 minute long presentation on what I did so far on my project.
When the presentations were done, I continued reading Waipara's exegesis. And it continued to give great examples of what a proper exegesis should look like. It was effective because the practitioner always included diagrams, screenshots of work-in-progress and flowcharts along with in-depth explanation and evaluation of what he did. There was always a few footnotes and references to support his practice. Everything also linked back to Waipara's Maori roots, which connected all the different parts of the exegesis together as a whole. It was something that he constantly referred back to: transmedia and its ability to promote the learning of Maori language and culture.
I was struggling to come up with a theme for my project. At this point I did not have a particular direction I could take. I only knew I wanted to create a comic that was a bit creepy. It was after dinner when my sister, age 11, told me how she felt there were white eyes staring at her when she was bed. I tried comforting her by explaining how our brains could frighten us when it cannot perceive anything in the darkness, and it imagines things in order to make up for that emptiness. From this I suddenly had the idea to have a theme about overcoming a certain fear. This was no fear in particular, as the feeling of creepiness came from the sensation of uncertainty, and therefore I felt like this theme would be perfect for my project. It also suited the visual style, Chris Riddell's works portrayed a sense of whimsical uneasiness. I have decided at this point the theme, and now I could use "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Goosebumps" and "Courage the Cowardly Dog" as supporting evidence that children liked to be scared every now and then; but the purpose of my project was not to merely intimidate them with uncanny imagery, but help them overcome their psychological fear. I hope that by reading my comic, children would learn (in a non-pedantic manner) that being afraid is nothing to ashamed of, and that the dark of night is always followed by the morning light.
10/03/16 Thursday
I have finally completed reading Waipara's exegesis today. The Appendix in the last pages was where Waipara had compiled all his work-in-progress. He even went as far as going to different library events to promote his comic project. I thought this was a great idea, but in order to do so, I had to get ethical approval before I could show my project to children. I could probably let my younger sister sample my work and collect some feedback from her. But again, I took something away from this exegesis in order to further my own research. I also gathered a few more reference material that may be relevant to my project:
Luke Feldman, "Design a Flash-Based Videogame" Computer Arts Project
D. Lapp. et al., "Grapgic Novels: What Elementary Teachers Think About Their Instructional Value" Journal of Education, 192, No. 1
Tyler Weaver, "Comics for Films, Games and Animation" Taylor and Francis, 2013
11/03/16 Friday
I had an actual class today. It was a workshop on critical thinking. I felt very unsophisticated when I came out of that class. Everyone there was a year younger than me, and I felt they were all very intelligent and observant. I took a year off from uni and thus maybe caused my way of thinking to be very insubstantial and shallow. But the few exercises we did made me realize how intellectual all those youngsters were. They made great comments and pointed out many evaluations on how to be a critical thinker. I tried to contribute some of own thoughts in class, but it only made me feel severely insecure. So I would just note down what I learned from this workshop:
Critical Thinking Skills:
1) Self Regulation (reflecting on why and how I do what I do)
2) Interpretation (understanding, clarifying, decoding texts and ideas)
3) Analysis (investigating strengths, weaknesses, similarities and differences)
4) Evaluation (assessing and making judgments)
5) Inference/Synthesis (drawing reasonable conclusions, building information back up as your own)
6) Communication (articulating your findings)
Another essential part of becoming a critical thinker is being able to form a rational criteria, and applying that criteria to the theory/principle for analysis. I must also compare and contrast between the different ideas and knowledge presented in my research. Then, I would have to make my own judgments and draw my own conclusions. This lesson was valuable as it taught me to be conscious about the thought process behind all the research and learning.
At this point I had not come in contact with my supervisor yet. I was not sure whether it was because they just forgot about me, or they did not want to deal with me or my project. Either way it was upsetting.
These drawings are irrelevant to my project. But they are from a personal comic I am planning. Here are the main characters Xiao (male, middle) and Lu (far left and far right).
Today was the day of the Zen Presentation. I spent the morning and the night before familiarizing what I was going to say.
My presentation consisted the main focus of my project--- which was to create an engaging interactive comic aimed towards children, why I was doing it--- so children may use their imagination in the reading experience as well as learn something of value, some context; in this case I referenced a bit of Chris Riddell's illustrative work, and how I was going to produce it---- by using Photoshop, AfterEffects, X-Code or Android Studio and Flash.
I probably talked very fast because of nervousness, and I could have forgotten to mention some important points on my presentation. But I had very little time to prepare, so it was a relief that I did manage to get up and complete the presentation. By the end of the semester, I would have to do a 10 minute long presentation on what I did so far on my project.
When the presentations were done, I continued reading Waipara's exegesis. And it continued to give great examples of what a proper exegesis should look like. It was effective because the practitioner always included diagrams, screenshots of work-in-progress and flowcharts along with in-depth explanation and evaluation of what he did. There was always a few footnotes and references to support his practice. Everything also linked back to Waipara's Maori roots, which connected all the different parts of the exegesis together as a whole. It was something that he constantly referred back to: transmedia and its ability to promote the learning of Maori language and culture.
I was struggling to come up with a theme for my project. At this point I did not have a particular direction I could take. I only knew I wanted to create a comic that was a bit creepy. It was after dinner when my sister, age 11, told me how she felt there were white eyes staring at her when she was bed. I tried comforting her by explaining how our brains could frighten us when it cannot perceive anything in the darkness, and it imagines things in order to make up for that emptiness. From this I suddenly had the idea to have a theme about overcoming a certain fear. This was no fear in particular, as the feeling of creepiness came from the sensation of uncertainty, and therefore I felt like this theme would be perfect for my project. It also suited the visual style, Chris Riddell's works portrayed a sense of whimsical uneasiness. I have decided at this point the theme, and now I could use "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Goosebumps" and "Courage the Cowardly Dog" as supporting evidence that children liked to be scared every now and then; but the purpose of my project was not to merely intimidate them with uncanny imagery, but help them overcome their psychological fear. I hope that by reading my comic, children would learn (in a non-pedantic manner) that being afraid is nothing to ashamed of, and that the dark of night is always followed by the morning light.
10/03/16 Thursday
I have finally completed reading Waipara's exegesis today. The Appendix in the last pages was where Waipara had compiled all his work-in-progress. He even went as far as going to different library events to promote his comic project. I thought this was a great idea, but in order to do so, I had to get ethical approval before I could show my project to children. I could probably let my younger sister sample my work and collect some feedback from her. But again, I took something away from this exegesis in order to further my own research. I also gathered a few more reference material that may be relevant to my project:
Luke Feldman, "Design a Flash-Based Videogame" Computer Arts Project
D. Lapp. et al., "Grapgic Novels: What Elementary Teachers Think About Their Instructional Value" Journal of Education, 192, No. 1
Tyler Weaver, "Comics for Films, Games and Animation" Taylor and Francis, 2013
11/03/16 Friday
I had an actual class today. It was a workshop on critical thinking. I felt very unsophisticated when I came out of that class. Everyone there was a year younger than me, and I felt they were all very intelligent and observant. I took a year off from uni and thus maybe caused my way of thinking to be very insubstantial and shallow. But the few exercises we did made me realize how intellectual all those youngsters were. They made great comments and pointed out many evaluations on how to be a critical thinker. I tried to contribute some of own thoughts in class, but it only made me feel severely insecure. So I would just note down what I learned from this workshop:
Critical Thinking Skills:
1) Self Regulation (reflecting on why and how I do what I do)
2) Interpretation (understanding, clarifying, decoding texts and ideas)
3) Analysis (investigating strengths, weaknesses, similarities and differences)
4) Evaluation (assessing and making judgments)
5) Inference/Synthesis (drawing reasonable conclusions, building information back up as your own)
6) Communication (articulating your findings)
Another essential part of becoming a critical thinker is being able to form a rational criteria, and applying that criteria to the theory/principle for analysis. I must also compare and contrast between the different ideas and knowledge presented in my research. Then, I would have to make my own judgments and draw my own conclusions. This lesson was valuable as it taught me to be conscious about the thought process behind all the research and learning.
At this point I had not come in contact with my supervisor yet. I was not sure whether it was because they just forgot about me, or they did not want to deal with me or my project. Either way it was upsetting.
These drawings are irrelevant to my project. But they are from a personal comic I am planning. Here are the main characters Xiao (male, middle) and Lu (far left and far right).
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