Successful Storytelling in Comics and Illustration
Why do we tell stories? Well, stories give us something to relate to outside of ourselves. They offer us connections— to the storyteller, to the characters, to the world. It is often through stories that we learn understanding, that we develop the empathy so indicative of humanity. Stories give us something to hold onto, to lose ourselves in, to inspire us, to make us smile, sob, scream; they are our ultimate escape and our greatest anchor. That is why, through various incarnations of storytelling, including comics art, illustration, and writing, my thesis aims to explore what makes a successful story. According to Pixar, one of the great storytelling giants of our time, there are twenty two rules one must follow to create a Good Story. For the sake of brevity, I’ll only highlight a few: first, make your characters feel like real people, give them flaws, give them problems they have to solve, give them opinions. Second, be honest, empathize with your characters and let your own experiences lend credibility to their actions. Third, write everything down, every idea, every twist and turn you can think of, but never, in the final product, stick with the obvious. Finally, know your ending before you know your middle, maybe even before you know your beginning. My thesis presentation will be composed primarily of digital elements, due to current circumstances, and ultimately aims to draw viewers into stories, both fictional and nonfictional, of my own creation.
Even the greatest of love stories can have a few kinks. A story of love, loyalty, and moral quandry, “Influence� introduces Lilith and Vee, endlessly devoted partners that can, and will, do absolutely anything for one another.*Warning: blood, implications of sexual harassment.*
I’ll see you tomorrow, Abs!
See ya, Lilith!
Vee?
Vee, I’m home!
Vee? You here?
Vee?
Vee... about yesterday, look, it’s no big deal, okay? Really-
-He backed off, I didn’t see him today. It’s fine. I’m fine.
Vee?
Oh, goddamnit, Vee.
We can’t keep doing this, Vee.
*Sigh...
We just got here. You promised.
...
...Vee. Look. Just ‘cause some guy picks on me a bit doesn’t mean you can“Pick-”!
“Pick on” you! “A bit”?! That asshole did a hell of a lot more thanI know, Vee, I was there!
That doesn’t mean you can kill him!
One less shitty, misogynistic, entitled... incel-bastard in the world.
... Vee, please. I want— I like this place, shitty, incel-bastards aside. I like this house, people at work are nice...
I don’t want to have to leave again, Vee.
And I don’t want to lie, anymore. And I don’t want to be afraid that I’ll come home to a damn crime sceneHe hurt you-
He didn’t hurt meI saw the look on your face-
Okay.
Okay. But that doesn’t mean you can go around killing every asshole that hurts me. ... Can try.
Vee, please. I love you. Please. I love you, too.
Then, please. Try for me. No more killing.
... Okay.
I’ll try.
End... for now.
This is a personal story. Starting the summer of 2012, and ending in May of 2013, Resilience offers a summary of a rather delicate, if formative, time of my life.*Warning: explicit depictions of suicidal ideation, blood, nudity.*
Welcome to my story.
So I tried to kill myself like twice. Yeeeeah...
Not in the most typical of ways.
No hanging or overdosing or electrocution.
No cutting or shooting myself in the head.
No long walks off of short rooftops.
Cause, you know. Turns out there’s a serious shortage of cliffs in suburban Pennsylvania.
Who knew.
Plenty of rooftops in Philly, though.
Anyway, I tried to starve myself out.
A note on the whole “starving yourself to death” thing: it’s long, it’s slow, and a hell of a lot more painful than you’d think. But, well...
That was the point.
One year into attempt number one, my parents forced me into treatment.
There were issues from the get-go.
For one, I didn’t want it.
For another, the doctors were impersonal, disconnected. Robotic.
Terrifying.
The nutritionist kept telling me,
You’re gonna die. You are going to die, don’t you get that? No shit , lad y.
And the psychiatrist...
That Thing isn’t your daughter, it’s a disease.
The less said about him...
the better.
They got me up to 115 lbs, about 52 kilograms.
Average weight for a 5’ 7” (170 cm) person with a female-shaped body.
I relapsed as soon as I got out of that fucked up mess of a program.
One year into round two, family finally intervened. They always took a while. Call it denial.
It was a different program, this time. Different place. I remember daffodils. It was quiet. Peaceful. Unexpected.
I’d honestly thought it was back to the hospital, for me. A hospital, at least.
Was already considering my options. Just in case. But...
This place was Different. Everyone wore plainclothes. The receptionist smiled at me. And the doc, or whoever she was...
She talked to me. She talked to me like a human being, like a person, just like her.
She asked me what I wanted to do. And I knew that control was more illusory than anything, but. But.
She asked me what I wanted to do, outpatient intensive, day patient, or inpatient.
Outpatient, three days a week, would be easy to subvert. Effortless, really. I had a plan in the works before she even finished talking about it.
Day patient, five days a week, a little harder, but I’d learned well how to hide symptom expression while in the previous program. I’d work it out. I knew I would.
Inpatient... there would be no escape. No hiding food, no exercising in the early early morning, no spending just a little too long in the bathroom. No symptom expression. No room for it.
No control.
I chose inpatient.
Process Comic, details the physical process behind the making of Influence and Resilience. Also included is another short Influence-related comic, illustrating an event that happens a while later in the story’s timeline.
Process
Step:
Questions To Ask:
First, generate an idea: At some point in the Influence timeline, Vee cuts off all her hair.
Why? She is self-destructive and guilty. Not typically prone to spontaniety, but our demons can change us, make us do out-ofcharacter things.
Next: Script and storyboarding.
What happens during this scene? Who is involved? What do they say? Remember characterization and relationship.
Scene: Bathroom Interior Panel 1: VEE is staring into the mirror, still has all her hair. View is from her POV; audience sees the bathroom and VEE’s reflection in the mirror. Door is to the left, visible and closed. Panel 2: VEE is staring into the bathroom mirror, all her hair is gone. Same shot as before, only difference is her hair.
LILITH (muffled, distant): Vee?
Panel 3: VEE is staring into the mirror. all her hair is gone. Same shot as panel 2, no difference.
LILITH (muffled, closer): Vee?
Panel 4: VEE is staring into the mirror, all her hair is gone. LILITH has opened the door and is looking on in horror.
LILITH: Vee- holy shit.
Panel 5: VEE is staring into the mirror, all her hair is gone. LILITH has come into the bathroom, door is no longer visible. Lilith is reaching for VEE.
LILITH (Her words are not the focus.): Vee, what happened? Are you okay? VEE: Sorry...
Panel 6: Black, focus is entirely on text.
VEE: I know you liked it.
Next: Redraw at full size with further detail, ink lines.
How much detail, where? Any symbolic details/ tangential details? Where will speech bubbles go? How big should panels be in comparison to others?
Vee?
VeeHoly shit.
Vee, what happened? What have you- why, why would you do this, Vee, what... Sorry.
I know you liked it.