Oh the Glory!

Comic generators always seem like great ideas. The pictures look nice, and there appear to be endless options for modification...until I try to make changes. I am limited to flipping images, rotating them, and drawing with my finger or a mouse on a screen. While I can get a perfectly passable comic, I don't really get to use my ideas about design. It's almost always a good idea to draw some of your comic.

There's my pitch.

Now, I'll talk about some of my design considerations in this brilliant, thoughtful comic. [New Pulitzer category: Pure Effing Genius]

I didn't want anything to be quite centered because that shows stability, and this comic is about instability of the mind. I used a lot of diagonals to show movement and tension. In the second panel the diagonal is clearly about tension, and in the fourth panel it's about movement.

The bottom of a panel is heavier and sadder while the top signifies happiness or triumph. I played with this idea in panels two and four. In two, the face is low and sad, and what's high seems to follow (left to right reading) from this negative frame of mind. However, it's not positive. In panel four, I stuck with the left to right reading pattern, but I made the fever dream of alcohol and turkey a positive thing that leads to a rainbow-flooded haze of tranquility. I also wanted the dynamic panel four to contrast with the static starting place of panel one. Panel one is a little off center to suggest instability and also the edges/corner of the picture world. This state of grumpily looking at a computer has been going on for a long time.

Ready for the silly part? No, we hadn't already covered that.

Panel three is how I would represent a manic prayer. The upper part of the panel is hope and potential, and the lines, that in retrospect look like steam or smell waves, are diagonal and wavy because it's not so much a thing said but a hope just boiling out of the pores.

Right.

So, enjoy your comic and design, and have a safe Thanksgiving!