Project Title: 

Documenting History Through Comics

Essential Question(s):

How can explore my personal history through the art form of comics?

Statement of Purpose

For my Senior Project, I will interview my relatives who lived through the partition of India and document their experiences through comics. 

 

Overview: Describe your topic and project to the committee.

I want to start my project by interviewing my family members who lived through and were impacted by the partition of India. In addition to this, I will also be doing extensive research about the history of the partition as well. This project challenges me and excites me in that it focuses on using a new art style of comics and devoting myself to becoming an expert on a historical event. I am passionate about both making art and learning about history, and so this why I choose to do this project.

How will you measure your success?

Success should not be measured by product but by process and learning. What outcome from your project will indicate to you that your experience has been a success? What personal goals or achievements will indicate success? If you have a product-based project, what is that product, and how will you measure the success of that product? 

 

Learning Goals

• Learn how to transform interviews into sequential art
• Learn how to create comic strips
• Learn how to storyboard
• Be able to make my own comics after my senior project is over
• Discover new artists/comics that I can draw inspiration from

General Work Plan

Ongoing:

• Reading comic books/graphic novels
• Researching information about the partition of India/colonization of India
• Talking to my relatives about the partition (not only my relatives who I am interviewing but also my younger family members who were impacted by the event as well)

Week 1: 

• Contacting my relatives who I want to interview
  • or contacting relatives who know the relatives I want to interview (since I don’t have all of their contact information
• Conducting interviews with my family members via phone calls, skype, and possibly facetime
  • Transcribing/taking notes on the important information I learned afterward
• Doing the bulk of my research about the Partition of India

Week 2:

• Figure out the plot of my comic book and/or comic strips
  • What parts of the interview do I want to be part of my final project? What parts might I leave out?
  • What is the story/stories I want to tell?
  • What do I want to highlight about this historical event?
  • Are there any quotes I should put in?
  • What do people already know about the partition of India? What might they have never learned before?
• Begin to storyboard

Week 3:

• Finish the first draft of my storyboard and work on revising it
  • Show it to James, my family, my friends and see what parts work and don’t work
  • Do I have all of the parts I want to include in the story? Do I want to add or get rid of anything?
    • Is any essential information missing?
  • Does the order of this story make sense? Should I move any scenes around?
• Finalize my storyboard and prepare to start creating the real comic

Week 4:

• Begin outlining the comic and drawing everything (don’t use color yet, that will be a later step)
  • I should focus on making the bulk of the comic in this week

Week 5:

• Finish making the comic
  • Start coloring everything in
• Begin the front cover

Week 6:

• Finish the front cover
• Finish the Back Cover
• Bind the book together
• Possibly make copies?

What a Day Might Look Like:

• Looking at my interview documents and deciding what quotes and descriptions I want to incorporate into my comic book
• Figure out what I want the plot to be of the story (this might be longer, or shorter depending on what the story is ) and make a story arc on a sheet of paper with the beginning, end, and climax of the story
• Begin storyboarding and try to get as far as you can

Documentation plan

I will document the experience of creating this comic, along with my sketches, notes, and parts of my final comic on a google slideshow. I love using google slides and I think it will be a nice way to show both my written reflections and my artistic work side by side. Each week, I will dedicate at least one slide to my reflection(s) and at least one slide to the comic book progress I am making.

Resource List 

The only book I require is Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition because my Uncle (who lived through the partition of India) recommended it to me. Other than this text, all of the other books I will be reading are being loaned to me by Karyn and James. All of the art supplies I need are in my house, but if I need more I can afford to order some online, or see what I can borrow or use while I am in the art room.