Rather than further analyze the comic I found on the web archive Pictures for Sad Children, and used in my last blog post, I decided to create my own for this next writing project. Never have I been interested in creating my own comics, but growing up around my father’s many comic books and his strong concernment with them I have developed some hidden fascination for them and the unique ways in which they tell stories. In addition, I have always been interested in drawing and sketching and, from the audience standpoint, enjoy engaging myself in the cartoons in the Sunday paper. Another reason I decided to create my own comic as opposed to selecting the first option for this assignment is I was ready for a change of pace in this course for myself and, to an extent, my fellow classmates and English professor. I hope to avoid the tedium that can be created by the usual readings and writings of English essays, and bring a little more creativity to this writing project.
The comic I have created is entitled “The Palovican Box of Love.” It is a humorous comic in which a spoiled teenage boy from New York City is going to a family reunion he does not really want to go to in a country called Palovica. He is acquainted with his grandmother, cousins, and other distant relatives he has not seen in years. Bored, the cousins decide to go surfing and “check out the ladies” down by the Palovican beach. There he sees a beautiful girl and decides to try and get her attention. Unfortunately, his American approaches to courtship are very unusual to the people of this country. The teenager finally decides to get some help from his native cousins to win over the Palovican beauty. They give the boy a box and tell him that this is the surefire way to get her attention. In the last frame, the audience discovers that her reception of the box did in fact win her over, and in the box was nothing more than a handful of cash.
My intention in creating this comic is to not only provide comic relief through this writing assignment, but to play on the idea that many people in America seem to think that all problems are able to be solved with money. I understand that my audience will need to distinguish between the Palovican-American family and the people native to Palovica to understand the underlying meaning of this comic, so I will make specific physical distinctions between the two in order to accomplish this. Furthermore, I will incorporate a fair amount of cultural context so that my audience will be fully able to understand the storyline. I think this incorporation of cultural context is even more important given the fact that Palovica is a country that as the author I fabricated. Through this unique manner in which my story is being told, I hope that my argument is realized and my audience find some humor in it.
