I’m a long-time reader and admirer of comics, but that’s all I’ve ever been until now—an eager fan. Growing up, I spent many afternoons getting lost in the world of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes comics. In high school, I started reading shoujo manga and the works of Junji Ito (an eclectic mix). In recent years, I’ve immersed myself in the world of graphic novels and short-form comics by illustrators and comic artists that I look up to.
I love how expansive comics can be as a form of storytelling, and I always marvel at the way art and writing can work so seamlessly together. As much as I loved reading comics, it felt so far out of my comfort zone as an illustrator whose work is usually limited to telling a story within the constraints of a single piece. It was always something that I wanted to try one day, but forever remained a seemingly unattainable wish on a to-do list.
At the end of last year, I got an opportunity that finally pushed me beyond the wall I had set up for myself. Viterbi Magazine, the USC engineering school’s alumni magazine, reached out with the opportunity to work on an illustrated story in the format of a comic. Having never worked on anything like this before, this was a pretty nerve-wracking prospect. But I also saw it as possibly the best way to jumpstart my journey into comic-making. And so, I said yes!
I’m super excited to finally be able to share my first ever published comic! It’s my first published comic, but it’s also the first comic I’ve ever made. I learned so much during the process and wanted to share what it was like to work on from start to finish.
✦ Ideation ✦
This story, written by Caitlin Dawson, follows the research of Professor Xiang Ren on how we can get a better understanding of the way AI works so it can be more transparent, bias-free and explainable. He compares the mystery and the unknowns of the inner workings of AI to the mysteries of his baby daughter’s internal logic as it develops. In the same way that he hopes for a bright and fair future for his daughter, can we imagine and hope for the same as AI is developed?
To kick this project off, I was given a draft of the comic script and some reference images to look at for inspiration. The comic had to be exactly six pages long, but aside from this, I had a lot of room to interpret it in my own way. The most daunting challenge was figuring out how to tell this story through multiple panels per page while also leaving enough room for text.
I got started on thumbnailing the pages, really unsure of exactly where I would end up. Something I always have to fight through at this stage is pushing past the fear that I won’t be able to find a solution for whatever problem I’m chipping away at. But if I put in enough time, I do know somehow I’ll be able to figure it out. Thumbnailing six pages of a comic was that feeling of uncertainty a hundred times over. How do picture book illustrators figure out sixty pages of art? How do graphic novelists detail out several hundreds??
✦ Sketches ✦
For the sketch stage, one of my goals was to play around with paneling and keep it varied, but still serve the flow and content of the story above all else. Ultimately what I ended up with was less experimental than I was imagining, but I still felt like it worked well. Adding in placeholder text for this stage also helped to guide my sketches into a more realized form. It made clear which formatting plans from my thumbnails did and didn’t work, and I had to adjust accordingly to make sure everything fit.
For the color sketch round, I made a couple requested edits after getting feedback and went in with a limited palette to tie all the pages together. I wanted to use a mix of warm and cool colors to show the shifting between worlds through the course of the story.
Something I had to really figure out at this point was how to stylize my characters, as I was asked to include more faces. Those that are familiar with my work know I normally either draw small, faceless people in intricate worlds or detailed close-up portraits. For this comic I wanted to find an in-between. It took some experimenting, but I really like where I landed and it felt natural for me to draw.
Between the color sketches and final art, there was another round of requested changes that would require quite a bit of reworking. It was a new challenge to figure out, but I also took it as an opportunity to go in and adjust areas I wasn’t completely happy with both in terms of edits and pages that had already been approved.
The palette was one aspect I wanted to change because it wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I decided to push it to an analogous palette, and overall it felt more harmonious while still allowing for tonal shifts through the story. I also chose the final typeface to use—something that was ‘comic-y’ but didn’t feel too different from this visual world I was working in.
By the time I submitted this round, I was really happy with how it had turned out, and I’m glad to have had some extra time to rethink parts of the comic that weren’t working for one reason or another. Thankfully, the art director and writer were happy too!
✦ Final comic ✦
Here at long last, is the full comic: Building a Mystery, written by Caitlin Dawson and illustrated by me!
It’s wild to look back on this process now, many months after I sent the final art out. I had a lot of ups and downs while working on it, but I’m happy that I can say I’m really proud of what I was able to achieve. This was such an intense learning experience for me and it was absolutely the push I needed to recognize and expand beyond what I believed my limits were.
I’m grateful as well to have been paired with this story. I was hesitant at first because AI has been such a controversial topic in the world of illustration, and rightfully so. It’s one of many new obstacles that weigh heavily on the minds of commercial artists, and there’s little to no infrastructure at the moment to protect artists and their work. And of course the issues and implications of AI reach far beyond the art world as well. But this story looks at AI from a different angle, and considers it with intention and care. I wanted to reflect that in the balance between the warmth of humanity and the coldness of technology in my comic. While there’s a lot left to learn about AI, it does give me hope that there are people like Professor Ren who are actively working towards building a future in which AI can be used in a more fair and transparent way.
Much to my relief, after having worked on this project, I only want to make comics more! I’m really excited to be able to explore this new world and write and illustrate my own stories. More to come soon.
✦ A bonus comic ✦
While working on this job, I also made time to participate in my first Hourly Comic Day. You can read it here and you’ll find a cartoon me working on sketches for the Viterbi Magazine comic—a comic within a comic!
Well for your first comic I think you did great! The color palette really brought everything together nicely, and even though it seems like a simple choice, I can imagine the thought and work you put into finding the right balance. It paid off! Everything flows and fits nicely, making it an easy to read. And you shared the process so eloquently too! I'm definitely looking forward to more.
This turned out so amazing Christina! I know you had expressed nervousness about tackling this project but you really made it your own! I felt like you conveyed the story in such a crisp, engaging way. I could even see it animated into a Ted-Ed video of some sort with how you played with the pacing and panels. I can't wait to see what other comics you make.