ReCon(Text)

These are a few images from my piece in the BGSU Faculty Show at the Dorthy Uber Brian Gallery.

 "ReCon(Text)" is essentially an interactive wall comic. Using cut out panels, figures, and word balloons taken from my upcoming original graphic novel, THE DOGS, the audience is free to juxtapose the images in any order or direction on the wall. Behind the cutouts I have economically drawn the logo for the book. This has created new narratives that examine each element from a new perspective. Charming, melodramatic scenes become twisted sexually explicit jokes. Characters are free to confront themselves again and again.

Surveying new ways to present and recontextualize the work from my book, ReCon(Text) aims to be the first of several pieces I have planned. Comics artists have traditionally shown the pages from a book in their original format, often in linear order, when shown at art galleries. Through this series of experiments I hope to deconstruct the conventional nature of comic reading and utilize the gallery setting as a device for heterodoxical approaches to already existing narratives.

More experimental approaches to "Innovating the Strip" will be explored in my upcoming class at BGSU by the same name:

Innovating the Comic Strip involves 2D studio assignments in various media with emphasis on experimentation in the static sequential narratives of a comic strip format. Special focus will be placed on narrative interpretation, content development, and alternative display. Students will investigate and explore the exploding community of online comics, their aesthetics, and examine their functionality as art. Students will innovate the strip free from the constraints imposed by outdated restrictions. Demonstrations will include: How to (de)construct a traditional comic strip, How to start an internet comic, How to develop meaning through narrative comic strip communication, Techniques for optimal impact of various media in unconventional displays, and How to develop prolonged study of formal and conceptual thematic comic strip inventions. Lectures will include: Investigating traditional restrictions, Communicating information and instruction, The value of internet comics, and Collaborative strips and interactive comics. 

Student Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of this course the student will be able to:

• Create non-traditional comic strip narratives utilizing various innovation and experimentation strategies
• Effectively communicate and design meaningful sequential narratives using various 2D media and the comic strip
• Focus on thematic development for prolonged study
• Show increased analytical and visual sensitivity, creativity, and critical awareness of the comic strip format and the role that it plays in the creation of meaning and narrative.
  

Course Content: 
This class will address:

• The history and theoretical principles applicable to inventing non-traditional comic strip structures.
• Demonstrating the tools, skills and software to design and construct non-traditional comic strips.
• Media compatibility and archival issues arising from the use of non-traditional comic strip display innovations.
• The completion of 4 major projects, 1 utilizing site specific display for informational or instructional communication, 2 based on innovating traditional strip conventions in a non-traditional display, and the fourth, an ongoing semester long assignment developing creation strategies/media in an internet setting will form the capstone project