So, I have been doing tons of writing lately, but it's all for school and all for this English class at Lower Columbia College.
I am not going to do all that writing and not post it all to my blog. Plus, I am typing this entry, Tuesday 1/29, on Saturday 2/2, so I need to catch up and quickly. Fortunately, I have been planning, so the next two, which also relate to this assignment, are basically complete. How's that for being smart about doing double duty?
I haven't taught Watchmen in a class room since 1988 or 1989. I think it was 1989, but I don't digital records of that time, at least not here. And all my paper files are back in Michigan.
Some of the materials I used, like the famous Comics Journal interview is now online, so it didn't matter that I could not find that issue of the journal when I was home in December.
I put a lot of thought and effort into these two assignments -- one solo assignment and one group assignment.
In short, in the solo assignment, each student choose a recent news story and writes a short comic book script depicting it (though there is also a historical event option). I freely borrowed this idea from LCC faculty member and new friend/colleague Nicole DiGerlando, who does the assignment with Moore's V for Vendetta. Of course, I put my own spin on the idea.
In the group work, the students team up to brainstorm and analyze parts of the Watchmen category, which gets us all talking about the graphic novel and sharing with the class but also allows the students to create the second part of their solo assignment in which they write about four elements of Watchmen that inspired parts of their own comic script.
I think it's pretty cool.
ESSAY TWO -WATCHMEN
for ENGLISH 101 - Lower Columbia College - WINTER 2018
MINIMUM LENGTH = Five pages of comic book script; each page must contain a minimum of four panels. One page may be a splash page. All panels must contain captions and/or dialogue.
MINIMUM SOURCE USE = Three sources minimum: one must be a news article from a credible source.
MINIMUM NUMBER OF CITES = Four minimum: one from each source and an extra.
- Pitch idea for comic script
Your pitch should contain a description of your idea, the purpose for how you will communicate about your idea, and at least one source, the recent and credible news article that will form the core of your idea.
- PURPOSES FOR YOUR COMIC SCRIPT
- to inform: basically, teach a current event or a current event that opens a subject of inquiry. FOCUS.
- inform with commentary: teach about a news event but with opinion as an added element.
- PARODY/SATIRE: Like Mad Magazine, The Onion, Cracked, and more: How can you express opinions AND mock at the same time. If you choose this avenue, you may use an existing fictional story to parody a news article; for instance, The Mueller of Oz (aping the Wizard of Oz and Mueller investigation).
Use EITHER parody OR satire. These are different animals as will be explained in class.
- BRAINSTORM
http://www.cracked.com/
https://www.theonion.com/
https://www.madmagazine.com/
- Let the research drive your work.
- Have an idea? Hunt for a news article.
- Have no ideas? Hunt for news articles. Scroll through Twitter feed. Look at news sites, like the BBC or CNN. Look at fake news sites, like The Onion.
- Hunt for historical ideas and then hunt for more current news articles from the last three years only.
- CHOOSING THE RIGHT ARTICLE: WHAT IS KAIROS?
Kairos basically means “timely” or “at the right time,” and is a term we use in rhetoric to think about how we write, why we write, and the purpose of how our writing may strongly affect our audience. For example, the opinion column I read in Sports Weekly last week about more oversight of NFL officials, especially in championship games, and ability to review botched calls like pass interference is an article with much greater kairos following the Saints-Rams game than before it.
Your idea will need to exhibit kairos. And when you write about your idea, which you will do in the second part of this assignment, you will need to define kairos and defend your idea as “timely” and why it is timely.
- What is the difference between a current event and a historical event?
I am defining a current event as one that has taken place since 2015. Your news article will have to be from 2015 through now to qualify.
Though you need to share a current news article as a core source, you may choose a historical event to teach, comment on, and or examine through the lens of satire OR parody. If you choose an event from before 2015, then the next section is for you.
- How do we tie together (connect) a historical event with a current event?
I am going to share various examples in class, one of my main examples will be Columbus and genocide. Should we deify with a national holiday and mythologize someone who neither “discovered” America nor is worthy of celebration given that he was directly responsible for exterminating native tribes and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of native people.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1324 - No More Glorifying Genocide, Cruelty, and Avarice - NO MORE COLUMBUS DAY
https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-1324-no-more.html
How would I connect it? I went to Google and searched “genocide 2016.” I just picked a year in our range, and I found tons of stuff, like this.
“ISIS Committed Genocide Against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, U.N. Panel Says”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html
Nailed it, n’est ce pas?
Word.
- SOME THINGS ARE NOT FUNNY
Some things are not funny. I do not think everything can or should be mocked. Some disagree. I do not think rape is funny. I do not think child abuse is funny. BUT mocking the trouble Adrian Peterson got in for his extreme corporeal punishment of his children could be funny. What Bill Cosby did to so many women is not funny at all, but a parody of the Cosby show with references to his crimes might be funny, or at least some people will find it funny.
I recommend that you use your own judgement when it comes to humor if you choose it as your purpose for this assignment.
I try to use my best judgement in the classroom with my use of humor, and still things fly out of my mouth that, upon further consideration, I might not normally say out loud. I ask you to cut me some slack as I am YOUR TV SHOW and I am doing STAND UP just as I would cut you a lot of slack. You would have to work pretty hard to offend me.
- THE COMIC SCRIPT WRITING THE SCRIPT
FIRST, choose how you are TELLING THE STORY. You have to choose one method and stick with it. News Broadcast is the only method that can be mixed with one of the other methods.
- PICTURED NARRATOR: Like Understanding Comics or The Influencing Machine, you create a character who speaks to the reader directly, breaking the “fourth wall” as in the wall between the characters and the reader.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall
- UNPICTURED NARRATOR: Like Rorschach’s journal, this narrator is simply sharing the story but not DIRECTLY with the reader. The fourth wall is not broken.
- NO NARRATOR - DIALOGUE ONLY: The story does not employ a narrator. Instead the story’s writer creates a situation in which the characters discuss things and convey information through their dialogue. This method is difficult to pull off as there IS NOT NARRATION.
- NEWS BROADCAST: This method to deliver exposition may be combined with one of the other methods. You describe panels set in a TV news room and news anchors are delivering the news.
- OMNISCIENCE (limited) - The Narrator exists but is unseen and unnamed, like Stan Lee, who was often “telling us” the story in the Marvel comic. In some cases, the “telling” feels more overt, like Stan Lee, and in other cases more like a hint, much less obvious. In fiction, this method follows only one character. In comics, the POV can often hop around from character to character, and yet notice how in Watchmen, many of the issues are centered on a specific character and the chapter tells his or her story or he or she actually narrates, such as with both Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan.
- OMNISCIENCE (total) - No clear feeling that the narration comes from a speaker. There’s no sense of a person in the narration at all, and the mode of story telling does NOT focus on a character’s POV, like the character-centered approach of some Watchmen chapters mentioned with limited omniscience.
There’s no “right” answer here.
Choose the method that works best for you and your story. Choose the method you like best.
THE CONTENT
- Use the samples comic scripts to write your own script.
- Examine the various comic book scripts I share in files (or even look around on the Internet yourself) and create AT LEAST the minimum page count.
MINIMUM LENGTH = Five pages of comic book script; each page must contain a minimum of four panels. One page may be a splash page. **** All panels must contain captions and/or dialogue. ****
SPLASH PAGE: A splash page is a single page in a comic book that often (though not always) contains the title and creator information. As it is not always the title page, it can appear anywhere in a comic book. If you use one (and you don’t have to), it can be any of your five pages. A splash page features no panels. It is one giant panel that fills the page.
DESCRIPTION OF VISUALS TO ARTIST: One thing that makes a comic script unique – even more unique than a film script – is that it provides somewhat detailed (some more so than others) descriptions of what the artists needs to show in the frame. BUT often comic book writers are careful not to tell the artist how to draw the imagery. Some give more information and direction than others. It’s a working relationship between two creators. But a good comic book writer will give the artist lots of freedom to, well, BE AN ARTIST while at the same time making sure every detail is accounted for. As an example, Alan Moore planned every sign, match book cover, piece of paper that looks like trash, product name, EVERYTHING. It was all part of constructing his world: Gunga Diner, Promethean Cab Company, ads of Veidt’s Nostalgia, and so much more are in his script.
So, DESCRIBE the panel and then provide CAPTION and/or DIALOGUE in script form as per the samples.
MORE ABOUT THE SCRIPT
Tell your story and meet the minimums (you may exceed). Give the story a clear beginning, middle, and ending. Use characters freely, but as you introduce them, you must describe them. Again, see the comic script samples. One caveat is that some scripts lack character descriptions because the characters were already defined. I have tried to provide several samples that do contain character information. These descriptions do not have to be lengthy.
For example, here’s a description from Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Bitch Planet, issue #3: “Adult Penny Rolle, in a jumpsuit of some kind that is NOT the NC Bitch Planet uniform. Something akin to scrubs, I'm thinking? She's a huge woman -- fat, fat, fat -- with a swathe of curls on the left side of her head and otherwise bald. She is not shackled – her arms hang at her sides. Let's have a good look at her. Don't apologize for the rolls.”
SOURCES: Your story has to be the product of some small amount of research. As such, cite like a traditional essay with in text cites and end references. Character dialogue and/or captions may contain direct quotes from sources. Meet the minimums as detailed here:
MINIMUM SOURCE USE = Three sources minimum: one must be a current news article from a credible source.
MINIMUM NUMBER OF CITES = Four minimum: one from each source and an extra.
Have fun!!! This assignment is supposed to be fun.
Anything I have forgotten will be explained in class and/or added to the editable Canvas assignment and/or my blog.
PART TWO OF THE ESSAY TWO ASSIGNMENT
YOUR COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS OF WATCHMEN AND YOUR COMIC BOOK SCRIPT: - In addition to your comic script, you will need to write some analysis.
- DESCRIBE the choices, the decisions you made in creating your script. Define kairos and how your script is timely.
- ANALYZE: Choose four elements of Watchmen that inspired elements of your own comic script. Explain and analyze these inspirations. Describe the element of Watchmen and then how it influenced your own creative choices.
Elements can be a single panel, a page, a sequence, a running theme, a character, an idea, or even part of or all of one back matter (the material after each issue).
Write a short analysis of this element of Watchmen, focusing both on the instance itself (describe and analyze) and its position in the larger context of the work of Watchmen as a whole.
I will provide a few examples in class to guide your work on this part of the assignment. We will also do a group assignment that targets this material.
WHY DO WE READ WATCHMEN? Issues and educational goals to examine and/or achieve: Purpose, audience, storytelling techniques, exposition/dialogue/narrative, the connections, commentary on current events(kairos), Developing critical ideas about current and historical ideas, argument and persuasion. How do we influence people with our writing? How does Watchmen influence its audience?
I have more thoughts on why this comic and why comics in this class that I plan to write out on my blog. Stay tuned!
COMIC SCRIPTS like this one: BITCH-PLANET-3_Kelly-Sue-DeConnick.pdf
All in a folder called COMIC SCRIPTS in files.
There is a template:
Comic-Experience-Script-Template-2013-10-05.doc
EXTRAS
SEARCH - "Watchmen comic book script" the full comic
https://www.scribd.com/doc/13749342/Watchmen-comic-full
COMIC JOURNALISM
http://www.tcj.com/reviews/journalism/
WATCHMEN STUFF
Watchmen and Intertextuality:
How Watchmen Interrogates the Comics Tradition
by Julian Darius | in Articles | Mon, 21 March 2005
http://sequart.org/magazine/2664/watchmen-and-intertextuality-how-watchmen-interrogates-the-comics-tradition/
Why does “Watchmen” use the 9-panel grid?
https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2558/why-does-watchmen-use-the-9-panel-grid
WATCHMEN - LIT STACK EXCHANGE
https://literature.stackexchange.com/search?q=Watchmen
Why Is Watchmen So Important?
https://io9.gizmodo.com/why-is-watchmen-so-important-5162302
A Reflection on Watchmen: The Power of Color
http://graphicnovel.umwblogs.org/2015/09/28/a-reflection-on-watchmen-the-power-of-color/
Banned Books - Watchmen
https://thecomicbookteacher.com/2014/09/25/banned-books-week-watchmen/
COMICS JOURNAL - ALAN MOORE INTERVIEW 1987
http://www.tcj.com/the-alan-moore-interview-118/
Watchmen: Comics and Literature Collide
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1604&context=etd
Alan Moore, Watchmen and some notes on the ideology of superhero comics
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233486774_Alan_Moore_Watchmen_and_some_notes_on_the_ideology_of_superhero_comics
ARCHIVE OF THE FUTURE: ALAN MOORE’S WATCHMEN AS HISTORIOGRAPHIC NOVEL
https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/english-association/publications/peer-english/4/2%20Tony%20Venezia%20-%20Archive%20of%20the%20Future.pdf
“Watchmen: Deconstructing the Superhero”
https://library.ndsu.edu/ir/bitstream/handle/10365/22356/Watchmen.pdf?sequence=1
On the Boundaries of Watchmen-Paratextual Narratives across Media
https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:869023/FULLTEXT01.pdf
‘‘Who Watches the Watchmen?’’: Ideology and ‘‘Real World’’ Superheroes
JAMIE A. HUGHES
Under the Mask_Non-Normative Sexuality in Alan Moore’s Watchmen
https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/unca/f/T_Smith_Superhero_2017.pdf
GENERAL DISCUSSION AND INTERVIEWS
https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/24093/what-are-the-qualities-of-watchmen-unique-to-comics-and-in-which-way-did-the-mov/24131
REVIEWS
https://geekreply.com/uncategorized/2015/05/08/10-recommended-comics-watchmen
WATCHMEN TV SHOW - HBO
https://io9.gizmodo.com/these-watchmen-set-pictures-seemingly-reveal-the-fate-o-1826760037
and
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-cast-of-hbos-watchmen-has-been-revealed-and-the-fan-1826269382
DAMON LINDELOF'S LETTER about the new TV show for HBO
https://io9.gizmodo.com/damon-lindelof-unveils-his-bold-plans-for-the-watchmen-1826239088
SCRIPTS
http://www.scriptsandscribes.com/sample-comic-scripts/
http://www.comicbookscriptarchive.com/archive/the-scripts/
MAIN : http://comicbookscriptarchive.com/archive/
http://www.comicsexperience.com/scripts/
AND THESE (once I publish them)
https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-re-reading.html
and
https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-script-for.html
GROUP WATCHMEN ANALYSIS
The purpose of this assignment is to begin to generate ideas for the analysis part of Essay Two.
Group Work Day = Thursday 1/31
Presentation due to be delivered in class = 2/5 TUESDAY
WORTH = 50 pts: 40 points presentation + 10 follow up evaluation
INDIVIDUAL DELIVERIES
- Document with art & analysis (power point may be best).
- Text entry of evaluation of personal work and group work.
- Two responses to two other groups in discussion by Thursday 2/7.
What to do:
- Brainstorm ideas as a group.
- Select four or five elements depending on the number of people in your group.
- Each group chooses at least two connections, one deviation from nine-panel grid, and one other element (plot point, character aspect, narrative technique, etc.).
- ART AND ANALYSIS: For each element, show the art from the comic and analyze it in depth both as a single moment in the comic and the story and in the larger context of the novel as a whole.
DELIVERY OF PRESENTATION
TO INSTRUCTOR: Art and analysis content. In any form. It’s best to put it in a power point. But you may deliver it another way if you prefer.
TO CLASS: Groups present analyses with each person speaking in turn. Or one or two people speak for the entire group, also presenting analysis created by those who wish to remain silent.
TIME MINIMUM: None. But the presentation will be assessed on a sufficient depth of substance as defined by examples shared in class by the instructor.
TIME MAXIMUM: Ten minutes per group.
FROM THE ESSAY TWO ASSIGNMENT (edited):
- please note how your essay content is slightly different than this work for the group presentation.
- ANALYZE: Choose four or five elements of Watchmen.
Describe the element of Watchmen.
Elements can be a single panel, a page, a sequence, a running theme, a character, an idea, or even part of or all of one back matter (the material after each issue).
Write a short analysis of this element of Watchmen, focusing both on the instance itself (describe and analyze) and its position in the larger context of the work of Watchmen as a whole.
I will provide a few examples in class to guide your work on this part of the assignment. And so this is the group assignment that targets this material. I restricted the types of elements that can be chosen and set a minimum (see previous).
IDEAS WITH WATCHMEN:
- Why TWO comic books in the course? Nicole teaches two, and I have different things I wish to accomplish with these works of art.
- WHY WATCHMEN? Other than Time Magazine put it on the list of 100 greatest novels of all time?? Do I need another reason? :-)
GOALS OF CONTENT: Purpose, audience, storytelling
techniques, exposition/dialogue/narrative, the connections, commentary on current events, kairos. Others?
EXTRAS - ADDED 1901.31 at 17:56 hours
IMAGES
This question came up in both classes.
- Take a photo with your phone, email it or transfer it, and then insert it in your power point or whatever.
- Someone who bought the digital copy can take a screen shot of any part.
- Searching the Internet? Tricky but possible. In fact looking at a search of “Watchmen comic book” as images may lead to other people’s analysis!! It’s a good way to decide on a part.
- ALSO, scribd seems to have the entire comic. Had I know about this before now, I would have told you before you bought one. Looks free, but ultimately you may have to sign up. Not sure. But so far I have taken several screen shots of parts that I discussed.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/13749342/Watchmen-comic-full
I may add some images and quick thoughts of the analysis I delivered in class on Thursday 1/31 for at least raw shark and delivered to the shadow – my two connections.
LENGTH
Many intrepid folks noticed I did not set any word counts or limits minimal or maximal on your work for this presentation just as I did not set such parameters for the analysis of the individual essays each of you will do. This is not an accidental omission; it is purposeful. No regrets. Lived life free of compromise. Heh. Hurm.
WAGON CIRCLING TIME
There will be 15-30 minutes but no matter to circle the wagons before presenting on Tuesday the 5th of February.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1901.29 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1305 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
It occurred to me that I really was in someone else’s country and yet, in some necessary way, I was outside of their country. In America I was part of an equation — even if it wasn’t a part I relished. I was the one the police stopped on Twenty-third Street in the middle of a workday. I was the one driven to The Mecca. I was not just a father but the father of a black boy. I was not just a spouse but the husband of a black woman, a freighted symbol of black love. But sitting in that garden, for the first time I was an alien, I was a sailor — landless and disconnected. And I was sorry that I had never felt this particular loneliness before — that I had never felt myself so far outside of someone else’s dream.
