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Description
First comic assignment for my Sequential Art class. The prompt was to do a 2-page B&W comic on "A Day out of our Summer".

Since the prompt itself was pretty simple, I wanted to push it a bit more. At Panama (where this is set) I took a field course in Tropical Animal Behavior. I've considered going into biology before and I still kind of do sometimes, but I've always had a problem with the killing of any creature, no matter how small. It's not a matter of the death itself, per se, but more a matter of a human causing suffering to an animal, no matter for what cause or justification. (I hate animal testing with a passion, yes.)

I liked doing this project--I loved getting to see the way the spiders reacted and moved, I loved watching them wrap and bite and eat, and I guess I tried to justify my act of throwing other insects into a spider's web as just "helping" a natural process along and feeding spiders in the process, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. (After trying to pinch out a dragonfly once with forceps I swore never to do it again; though it was frustrating and much less successful as a method of putting the bugs in the spider's web, I always just threw them from the jar. If they bounced off, that was the end of it and they were free to go.) I still feel significant regret for many of the insects I did end up killing, so I guess that this is what I wanted to do my comic about, ultimately.

The text was kind of also used to address this point, since I get so frustrated sometimes with how scientists can boil down some things as beautiful as life and death and survival into nothing more than numbers they can crunch and analyze, as endless streams of data...

Though, that being said, there's also an elegance in numbers that I love, so there's the paradox I tried to hint at, too (can you pick up on it?). : )

Also, the style of this comic was heavily inspired by Matthew Woodson's incredible comic, What Youth and Beauty These Creatures Bare

[Page One] [Page Two]

Inked on Recycled Bristol with 005, 01, and 08 Microns, and a white gel pen.

Description
First comic assignment for my Sequential Art class. The prompt was to do a 2-page B&W comic on "A Day out of our Summer".

Since the prompt itself was pretty simple, I wanted to push it a bit more. At Panama (where this is set) I took a field course in Tropical Animal Behavior. I've considered going into biology before and I still kind of do sometimes, but I've always had a problem with the killing of any creature, no matter how small. It's not a matter of the death itself, per se, but more a matter of a human causing suffering to an animal, no matter for what cause or justification. (I hate animal testing with a passion, yes.)

I liked doing this project--I loved getting to see the way the spiders reacted and moved, I loved watching them wrap and bite and eat, and I guess I tried to justify my act of throwing other insects into a spider's web as just "helping" a natural process along and feeding spiders in the process, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. (After trying to pinch out a dragonfly once with forceps I swore never to do it again; though it was frustrating and much less successful as a method of putting the bugs in the spider's web, I always just threw them from the jar. If they bounced off, that was the end of it and they were free to go.) I still feel significant regret for many of the insects I did end up killing, so I guess that this is what I wanted to do my comic about, ultimately.

The text was kind of also used to address this point, since I get so frustrated sometimes with how scientists can boil down some things as beautiful as life and death and survival into nothing more than numbers they can crunch and analyze, as endless streams of data...

Though, that being said, there's also an elegance in numbers that I love, so there's the paradox I tried to hint at, too (can you pick up on it?). : )

Also, the style of this comic was heavily inspired by Matthew Woodson's incredible comic, What Youth and Beauty These Creatures Bare

[Page One] [Page Two]

Inked on Recycled Bristol with 005, 01, and 08 Microns, and a white gel pen.