In Review: 28 Day Comics Challenge

Hosted by InkyGoodness

I’m back with a little round up of final work I created in the InkyGoodness 28 Day Comics Challenge (more info in my last post).

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen these already, but I wanted to post here with a little more background.

1. NYT Games comic

This was such a funny and fun brief. Kathy Lee, art director for NYT Games, gave us a brief based on the daily “Connections” game (which I have subsequently become obsessed with and am making my way through the archive of like 500+ boards).

The words I went with included Sheep, Puppet, Apartment, Mobile, Options, Shares, Likes, and Followers.

The narrative I came up with is a female sheep (called a "ewe") making a puppet in her apartment. She takes pictures of the finished puppet with her mobile phone, then scrolls through the many photo options. She shares her favorite on social media, and the likes and comments roll in from the sheep’s followers.

When my brain sticks on something, it really holds on. Hence why I just had to incorporate “ewe” and “bleating” (the sound a sheep makes) somehow, even though it wasn’t necessary for the brief. I scratched the brain itch by adding in the last panel, which features both words. After incorporating “ewe” into the sheep’s social media handle, I added the Alanis Morissette poster to panel 3 to show she is clearly a big fan.

2. NYT Well comic

My 6 panel NYT Well comic was inspired by this Daydronk post from back in June. When we received the brief, I went back to that “illustrated musing” (what else to call it?) and tried to fit it into 6 panels. That’s when the ability to restructure and edit a story really came into play. I pushed myself to cut out as many words as possible, in order to say as much as possible with each panel imagery.

3. Self-initiated comic

This assignment was wide open in terms of subject matter. So I followed my heart…which led me to create something with a bit of humor and realness, which I’m realizing is my sweet spot. Or at least my favorite category.

I stuck to mostly image (as opposed to dialogue or other text), and really tried to push myself with color and composition.

I’m happy with how it came out, and delighted that it was selected for inclusion in the printed zine that will be coming out in the spring from the challenge hosts!

I’m taking everything I’ve learned and using it to inform my storytelling and image making. That said, coming next week…finally, the next installment of my Italy travel diaries!

Keep creating x