Comic Book Design Part 2

I will admit that this comic book project took me vastly outside of my comfort zone. I do not feel as if I am either sufficiently creative or talented as my colleagues in this class. After having these thoughts, I have to and I quote "suck it up, buttercup," to create this final project before my practicum will commence in August 2016.

Upon crafting my story board and coming up with the story line, I believe that my comic book might have been overly ambitious. As I am not a teacher, I wanted to relate a specific part of my job, handling cases informally and referring them to Athens Peer Court. I wanted to convey a "typical" (or as typical as can be) case that would be referred to Athens Peer Court, a girl fight. We have a great number of girl fights in the Athens-Clarke County community. Girl fights are a great problem within our community at both the Middle and High School levels.

Athens Peer Court was started in 2012 as an alternative to receiving a punishment or consequence from a probation officer. Since I have worked in this environment since 2006, things have changed greatly. I used to be able to implement a consequence for a given offense rather than referring first offenders to this program. This is one of our Judge's pet programs, and we are now referring all first offenders who want to admit to their charge to this program.

Given that I have over ten years experience handling Informal Adjustments, I have developed a script for handling a general Informal Adjustment case. Given that I have this very well-defined script in my head, I had a very well-defined script that I wanted to follow and I sought images that would, at least, fit this vision accordingly.

Of course, I know that I need to have public domain images/clip art and/or Creative Commons Licensed photographs. I have curated the photographs I utilized on a pinterest page rather than creating a works cited page on the end of the comic book. The photographs I chose were to reflect the seriousness (but also lightness of the process). Yes, some of the people were not the same, however, it does reflect the process of Peer Court and also reflects the actions involved in the process.

Comic Life 3, once it downloaded (it took a very looooong time to download, even on faster cable based internet service), was an easy enough product to utilize. I do not feel as if it stifled my creativity. If anything, I think that this enhanced whatever creativity I possess. Comic Life 3 gave me guidelines for where to insert media, gave me guidelines for using dialog and text that were very appropriate. I had to have technical assistance for one thing (inserting my selfie into the program) from my comic book geek husband. When he helped me, he decided that he liked the program and wanted to use it for himself. He did criticize (well, not even criticize, just let me know) that I used thought bubbles for dialog rather than speech bubbles. I utilized these thought bubbles so that I could move the tail according to where the actor was on the page, if this makes sense.

I think that the design decisions I am most proud of are incorporating real-life pictures of the process. I think that including myself, Juvenile Court Deputy Clerk Mallory Crane, and even the exterior of Juvenile Court, gave this comic book a personalized touch. I would revisit having uniform actors in each scene, possibly determining if a Peer Court volunteer or even a former respondent, would be sign off on volunteering for this project.

I apologize for my drawing skills and also changing my script after completing the storyboard. As part of this process, I completed the storyboard prior to completing the script, prior to looking for media and actually completing the comic book. Yes, this is vastly out of order, and I would probably do it differently when I do a comic book again. However, I think that this attempt was pretty good for a first (and only attempt) at a comic book was adequately done.

Comic Book Design Part 1

This is a project where my perfectionistic nature has reared its ugly head. Which is not fun at all, because I am not very artistically inclined whatsoever. Needless to say, thinking about and planning for this project has stretched my boundaries. I love to read comic books but never thought that I would be able to create one. 

I have given a considerable amount of thought to the topic and content for this comic book. In my "Real Life," I have been employed as a Juvenile Probation Officer for the past 10 years. I have handled thousands of cases for juvenile offenders. In all my experience some of the most common types of cases we handle at the Athens-Clarke County Juvenile Court are either affray or disorderly conduct at schools. Affray is a fancy word for fighting in a public place. Disorderly Conduct can be classified as causing a disruption. Frequently, children charged with Disorderly Conduct have interfered with the operations of a school, a business, or somewhere in the general public. Students can get charged with Disorderly Conduct if they are bystanders in an Affray case. 

For juveniles who are "first offenders," or those who have not gotten into trouble in over a year or two, these cases are handled outside of Court in an Informal manner. The great majority of these cases are referred to Athens Peer Court for the juvenile's peers to recommend the outcome of their cases. I follow through to ensure that they complete these requirements (community service, jury duty, apology letters, and the like). 

Essentially, I want my comic book to convey the process of incurring the charge, the Court processing it, and handling the case Informally with the outcome of Athens Peer Court. My main objective is to help juvenile offenders navigate this process in an easy manner. Yes, this is a very serious process, don't get me wrong. However, juveniles should have an understanding of what is going on their lives. 

This comic book will be geared toward the great majority of juveniles I encounter who incur affray charges, females. There is a rather large "Girl Fight" problem at both the Middle School and High School levels within the Athens-Clarke County community. This comic book will use language appropriate for Middle and High School students and will tell this story in a lively and appropriate manner.