For my major project, I will be exploring the use of sequential art and imagery for the purpose of conveying a story. My ultimate production will therefore consist of a digital interactive graphic novel sharing a series of short interconnected stories through the application of sequential imagery. These stories will be autobiographical in nature, adapting personal reflections and events in relation to my own life and state of mental well-being, with the intention of adding intimacy to the project.
The question I have decided for my project to test is:
“How can emotion be interpreted through sequential art and stylization in a narrative format?”
I’ve chosen to fixate on the concept of ’emotion’, specifically via the way it relates to serious personal issues, and how I personally perceive the associated emotions internally. My life for a while now has spiralled out of control into a complete mess, and both my physical and mental health has progressively worsened. This will be the ‘narrative’ basis of the project. The project’s final outcome I will work towards is an interactive graphic novel that explores how I have perceived the world and my being at certain points in my day-to-day life, my overall thoughts and realisations, and the specific emotions I have felt during these moments.
To retrograde for a moment, about 6 years ago (when I was 16) my mother passed away from lung cancer. For about a year prior to her death, her suffering and symptoms from both the treatments and the cancer itself worsened, and she ended up suffering through a lot of physical and emotional pain. Throughout this time I didn’t see or hear too much about the specifics of her condition as my father mostly took care of her, however, I still saw her condition worsen and would sometimes have to console her during emotional episodes and aid her more limited movement, and I was still informed about her in a general sense. Regardless of this, I genuinely did not think at the time that she would actually pass away. Even when we were told at the hospital that she only had around 3 weeks to live, I just thought that everything would really just be fine in the end like it always was, and a major event like that isn’t something that could happen in my life. 3 days later, she passed away much earlier than the expected 3 weeks, and even though part of me admittedly had already prepared myself for this eventuality, it was still greatly shocking.
This traumatic event eventually led to me developing various issues, including existentialistic thoughts and a strong fear of death, as well as general low mood, hopelessness for the future, anxiety, physical fatigue, device addiction, lack of motivation, a major lack of sleep on a weekly basis and fogginess of the mind, among other things. Since college when this began these issues have only gotten more intense, causing me to get slightly lower grades on my college work, low quality and delayed submissions in my first year of University, then having to re-sit my entire second year of University. Now my life, situations, physical health and mental health are the worst they’ve ever been in my life. Nowadays I also suffer from an intense longing for more connections and friendships, and to be recognised for something I’m genuinely proud of. I haven’t been diagnosed with anything, but I am currently attending CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) sessions which have been helping, but mostly I’m still suffering in the same condition – I’m currently suffering a lot and my work has practically ground to a halt.
My work has ground to a halt mainly due to mental anguish and a severe lack of motivation. The production of my final major project has been massively affected by the inability to complete something, regardless of my desire to do so. For the longest time, I only had a vague idea of what I actually wanted to do for this project – to create a graphic novel that was somewhat inspired by events of my real life. This idea derived from my general understanding and passion for sequential art, as well as inspiration upon discovering the autobiographical works of manga artist and author Nagata Kabi (these two will be discussed in their own individual blog posts). Nonetheless, I struggled for quite a while not knowing what precisely to focus on in this graphic novel, what to adapt, what could be translated from reality into fiction, and how the final product would turn out. I felt constantly in limbo unable to conjure up something that felt genuine to me and not a lackadasical kind of representation of what I really feel and think like, in addition to general hopelessness and misery.
Eventually hit me – I had the idea to make, for my final major project, an autobiographical graphic novel not just about my general struggles, but specifically about how I was unable to come up with an idea for my final major project, the events leading up to this moment, and the stress and fatigue that this caused. It will be mostly serious and down-to-earth in nature but may feature comedic and light-hearted elements. This project can be very ‘meta’ in nature, and feature the raw intensity of my emotions as they’re happening in real-time, rather than what I felt months or years ago. This perfectly ties into answering my question of how emotions can be portrayed – by illustrating them exactly as you are feeling them in real-time! The title of the final product is ‘Painfully Mid’, which reflects the notion that even though what I’m suffering from isn’t as bad in the grand scheme of things in comparison to the atrocities others have to deal with, it’s still painful to me due to my inability to understand it from being too ambiguous.
Personal experiences I will be covering and illustrating in this project may include:
- Sleepless nights
- Mental fogginess and physical fatigue caused by sleeplessness
- Procrastination
- Recurring fear of death
- Unhealthy eating habits
- Appreciation for the world around me – it’s existence and natural beauty
- Longing for more friendships
- Stress over lack of uni work completion
- Slowness
- Lack of motivation
- Confusion and contemplation of the world around me and existence itself
Ultimately, the final product will focus on numerous specific instances of my daily life that are significant to me in the way I felt on those days. Each instance will be worth a page or two and will be in chronological order. The ‘narrative’ will see how my life progressed throughout the months leading up to the end of my final year at University, the time in which I felt and still currently feel the worst physically, mentally and emotionally in my life. If time allows it, I wish to also transform my final product into both a prototype physically bound release and a webcomic.
Across the following WordPress posts, I will clarify the project and its influences in greater detail.