Whether it is Quadriptych or Triptych, I prefer short comics to have a clear purpose such as making people laugh or giving a lesson. Hence, I wanted to make a funny piece and meanwhile remembered what my friend told me months ago about the reality of bush cricket in the novel. I did not know that bush crickets were carnivorous and expected others to be the same. I utilized the unexpected information in giving a twist at the end.
There were fewer challenges in making the Quadriptych than in the Triptych. I don’t think that it is because one’s easier than the other. I think the prior experience in making the Triptych actually facilitated the process of making a plot and drawing the characters for the Quadriptych.
For the extra space, rather than stretching the middle act, I was able to utilize it as a separate scene where the character Bush Cricket interacts with the reader rather than in the plot. At the same time, it combined with narration gives an unexpected information -a twist – making the comic much more interesting.
Laptop: for essay writing, researching, zoom classes, and gaming.
Ipad: for note taking, drawing, self-testing, and even with the laptop as a second screen
Mouse: for laptop and ipad
Type C – Chargers: for charging the computer and phone
Wireless earphone: for listening to musics, videos, and zoom classes
Wallet: for carrying student ID card
Water: for hydration
This collection of goods is what I actually have in my everyday backpack. Before the activity, I have not really thought about the connection between what I carried and who I am. However, once I took out my belongings from the bag and listed them, I now see that the collection explains/reflects who I am to an extent.
I hate wasting my efforts on unnecessary things, and my collection well represents my focus on productivity and comfortability.
I prefer digital over analog. After multiple experiences of accidentally ripping, spilling, and losing papers – regardless of whether they were notes, textbooks, or class materials – I no longer use physical materials. Instead, I mainly use my laptop and iPad. It is much faster to type than to write. It is much more comfortable to carry a laptop than to carry heavy notes and textbooks. For iPad, it is the same. Famous notetaking apps make the activity more productive. Images can easily be retrieved when understanding complex ideas. The wide choice of colors facilitates emphasizing important sentences.
Furthermore, digitalized files can be saved on the cloud and accessed whenever with any device I have. Whether it is a long academic essay that I have written through a laptop or whether it is a sketch/drawing I did with my iPad, or whether it was a quick picture that I took with my phone, I can access them with other devices.
The focus on productivity and comfortability continues with my mouse, earphone, and chargers. My mouse and earphone are wireless, which eliminates the stress of untieing the cable whenever I try to use them. The below picture well shows the annoyance that we all experienced once in our life. Finally, for chargers, I have bought devices that had USB-type C charging options from the start. Especially for my laptop, I bought one with a PD-charging port. So, rather than carrying a 2kg laptop charger, I use the GaN 45w charger which is even smaller than (4cm)^3 cube.
a meme and a triptych that shows how annoying untieing cables are
Credit
Left Meme from user ‘Funny’ – retrieved from ‘9GAG‘
Right Triptych from user ‘Full_Ben’ – retrieved from ‘JoyReactor‘
The task was not extremely challenging. In fact, it was quite easy as each of my belongings had a reason to initially be in the bag. I believe such a collection of my belongings do represent who I am. However, I do not think that such representation could be categorized as writing. It would be an overstatement to say that the picture itself is writing. Nonetheless, it is true that writing facilitates a more accurate understanding of who I am when used together with the picture.
After reading the instructions, I thought it would be easy as I considered myself to have more episodes regarding learning languages as a bilingual. I first believed that it could not be harder than the pre-writing task where I had to force myself to narrow down my experiences. However, unlike what I expected, the assignment was difficult. The past memories of learning English were engraved into my brain, making it almost impossible to summarize and filter them out. Hence, I chose 3 major ways that shaped my language and introduced them with the stories of how I obtained them. Starting from the anecdote of when I was illiterate, I explain how I started reading novels in Canada, how I started making vocabulary lists, and how I was able to apply all these – new grammar structure, vocabulary, and phrase – and made them my own in high school.
As some events that shaped my current reading and writing skills have a causal relationship with one another, I wrote in chronological order. The method of storytelling helps a smoother understanding of how and why I obtained the specific methods.
The assignment was an opportunity to think about how I developed my current reading and writing skills. It was interesting to organize the history while remembering the painful but worthful past of learning English. Also, by looking back at the time when I could not fluently express my thoughts, I once again felt the aspect of language that liberates people.
Borrowing the ideas from the webcomic A Softer World, I wanted my triptych to address a heavy topic. Thus, I chose to talk about death. I recently learned that the death of a close acquaintance was something that could not be prepared both mentally and physically. The death of someone was something that should not be mentioned in ease. However, I felt pity that many elementary/middle school students use it to curse others’ parents in their daily lives.
Hoping to raise awareness of their actions, I created a triptych that briefly shows what may happen, in fact, what is highly likely to happen. The plot starts with a mischievous child teasing two orphans about their parents, while the narrative sets a tone by juxtaposing the child’s action against the phrase “Do not make fun of others”. Then narration asks to think about the situation from others’ perspectives. After, time passes. The mischievous child becomes an adult, and the day comes – the inevitable day that one’s parents die. The narration ends with a warning that no one knows how life will turn out. This highlights that one can end up in the same situation as others that he previously made fun of. Also, the phrase ‘life is unknown and so is how it will unravel’ can be connected to the last scene where friends who were hurt in the past came to comfort the protagonist at the funeral. This makes the audience imagine how sorry they will be if such really happened, and ultimately raises awareness of their behavior regarding death.
The 5th Sunday Sketch was closest to my 2nd Sunday Sketch as it both has drawings that embody stories. However, it was challenging as I had to summarize the plot into specifically 3 scenes, unlike the previous sketches. If the plot was too complex, many scenes would have been omitted, hindering the natural flow of the story. Thus, it was difficult to find the appropriate point.
When the concept of combophoto was first introduced to me, I wanted to make an art piece that conveys a public interest. Then I remembered the article about the 1992 LA Rodney King Riots that I read the other day. The idea of using firearms in riots was extremely scary and nonsensical to me who came from South Korea, where personal possession of guns is banned. It was so terrible how such murder weapons were bound to be a means to an end for people: especially in the contemporary era, where it is believed that vote is the ultimate medium to make a voice. Today, I am not trying to make any judgments about the past incident in LA, neither about the police officers nor the rioters. What I am trying to say is that as much as I respect the culture and history of the US and the 2nd amendment I care about the people who have been wrongly sacrificed by gunshots. One definite thing is that guns are undoubtedly violent weapon that is capable of ending one’s life. From such a perspective, I suddenly felt the strong urge to tie the barrel so that it could not be shot. Hence, I combined a gun barrel with a tied rope. After doing so, the tied rope also seemed like the potential life of a shooter and victim. Also, I thought it could also resemble the social problem itself that we must untangle.
Credit
“pistol png PNG image with transparent background” from Luis Bell. Retrieved from “toppng”
“Rope with tied knot on transparent background PNG” from Ra20Ga. Retrieved from “SimilarPNG”
For the assignment, I organized the notes from POLS 110. It contains basic principles of international relationships. Three valid theories in explaining the world interaction – Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism – is concisely addressed according to the three framework that was introduced – Interest, Institution, and Interaction. Different levels of analysis – International, Domestic, and Transnational – and 2 major types of interaction – Bargaining and Cooperation – were given. To make the note more visually appealing and easier to understand what I chose to use was illustration.
Different Levels of Analysis
I drew a map for different levels of analysis. Color was used to differentiate the countries. To simplify, the countries that I wanted to emphasize were colored green. At the ‘domestic level’, I wanted to show one country, so I only colored the US in green. For ‘transnational’ all countries were colored green to show uniformity, and for ‘international’, North American countries were colored differently. Moreover, except the countries that I wanted to give emphasize were all colored gray.
The Framework
For expressing the framework – ‘interest’, ‘institution’ and ‘interaction’ – I tried to use pictograms. I wanted it to be simple, but plausible enough. The dartboard demonstrates a goal, the ultimate outcome an actor wants from its political decisions. For the institution, I focused on the aspect of it being established. Similarly, I thought a building was something that is equally definite and certain. Also, I wanted to show the authority that the institution holds, and thus tried to hommage the Korean Houses of Parliament (the picture down below). Finally, for interaction, I drew 3 people as a pictogram and connected each with different colored lines to display the multilateral characteristic of interaction in Political Science.
Takeaways
This task was not only a mere opportunity to make POLS class notes, but also an opportunity to organize what I learned again. Also, the process of thinking about what visual elements to add or subtract was a valuable experience. When drawing maps, I was able to think a lot about the usage of colors, and when drawing 3 types of frameworks as pictograms, I was able to learn about omitting and simplifying them. I was able to connect this with the part about leaving panels out in “WHY COMICS?”. Reminding myself of the book, I tried to make each element of the pictogram count.
