Goals for Project 2: 500 word response

Currently I am in the process of completing the second project. Our group for project number 2, The Golden Gnomes, had to chose a type of visual genre to study, and then recreate. Our group chose to research the visual genres of comic strips.At first we thought we would struggle finding Research on our topic, because comic strips seem like such simple ideas, but there is plenty we have come across. This is really what i wanted to learn from this project, being able to pick any genre and have the skills to break it down and analyze each and every detail that it is composed of. Basically in a nut shell i have really gained a better understanding of conventions. Some of the conventions we have for our particular genre is the drawings, the drawing you find in a comic strip will be a lot different form the pictures you would see if you opened an anatomy book. The detail of the drawings in comic strips are very simple, they can even be as simple as stick figures. Another convention we focused on was the text used in comic strips. If you were to open a novel, could you scan the page and tell me what the main idea of the story is? well maybe but chances are probably not. In comic strips the text in each frame is meant to be short and simple, if there is even any text. Sometimes the pictures can do the talking, but in our comic strip the only text we included are a few words here and there in the the background so the audience has some sort of guide line to help keep them on track. Along with Audience, Another convention you have to think about when making a comic strip is who you are targeting. Our group really did not discover out targeted audience until we had out story line mapped out. Since our story line fallows the process of seniors in high school going through the college application stages, we decided that we would create our comic to mostly target seniors who can relate, or college students who are looking back at the process they once dreaded. Another convention that is not found in all comics, but we have decided to add into ours is humor. Our story line fallows this boy who ends up becoming so frustrated with the applications and decision making in picking a school, that he ends up just filling a hat with pieces of paper that have a college written on them, blind folds himself, and then randomly pick. Our last frame of the comic is the boy holding up the paper that say Illinois State University, but then we threw some humor into it, because there is also a speech bubble of the boy saying “Son of a...”. We kept the profanity out to keep it appropriate, but everyone will be able to complete the phrase in their heads. Being able to reflect upon the work we have finished in project two so far really makes me feel confident that I can fully understand the process that goes into creating a piece of work to reflect a certain genre. I am happy with our work an can see our project going in the right direction.