MEDIA 222 Assignment 3 - Comic and panel treatment
What you will be handing in
This final piece of assessment requires you to produce your own comic. You can use the traditional method of image and text on paper or you can produce a digital comic using an application like Procreate. You are NOT to use AI. AI effectively steals original artwork from unpaid and unrecognised artists in order to model something of its "own".
The aim, much like the comic review, is to see how you can use your knowledge of the comics medium and relevant theoretical frameworks to produce a short visual narrative of your own. The comic can be a complete story or a scene (or scenes) from a longer story. In order to prevent those with artistic or graphic design skills from having an advantage, marks will be primarily awarded for the accompanying treatment, although consideration will be given to the qualities and efforts displayed in the production of the actual comic. The treatment will have two components: a short ‘synopsis’ setting out the story and whether or not the story is excerpted or complete, followed by a ‘page and panel commentary’, offering an account of the creative decisions you have made and why (this will be the main part of the treatment). It is required that you provide scholarly support for those decisions in the form. of references to and quotations from the academic material we have read during the course.
Length: 4-6 pages (comic), 1500 words (treatment), but there is a 10% leeway.
References are included in the word count. Use whichever referencing system you prefer, but use it correctly.
Percentage of total mark for the course: 50%
Deadline for submission of comic and treatment via Canvas: midnight, 13th June 2025 (submit treatment and scan of comic as one PDF)
A sample from a previous year can be found here
(https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/121262/files/14530547?wrap=1)
(https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/121262/files/14530547/download?download_frd=1) .
Treatment guide
You should think of the treatment as a critical essay on your own work. It is intended to be a critical reflection on the decisions you made in order to realise the story (or excerpt of the story) you are presenting.
I want to see that you understand the language and techniques of the comics medium and can put them to good use. This is where marks will be awarded.
The treatment should be a critical commentary on the significant aspects of your comic that you wish to discuss. Imagine you are writing a review of how the visual narrative is constructed in a comic, only in this instance it is yours! You should be using a lot of the language we looked at in lectures 3-5, so refer to the lecture slides again and the readings for those weeks, if you need to.
I am expecting you to provide short academic quotations that help support or explain your decisions, so the treatment should include a bibliography (included in the word count). You can also refer to other comics where you have seen the technique used and explain why you thought the example was successful. You may add examples as an appendix, if you wish. You are not required to add such an appendix. It's just an option.
The treatment should begin with a brief account of the comic. Outline the story and say whether the comic is an excerpt from a longer story. If it is, please explain why you chose to focus on this section of the comic for the assignment.
You should then proceed page-by-page explaining what you have done. This is not an exhaustive list. I do not expect you to comment on every technique used or include something from every page, but the elements you might speak about could include:
- page layout
- number, shape, size and location of panels
- panel frames
- size, shape, use (or not) of the gutter
- use of colour (or not)
- use of text; use of text as image
- use of speech/though balloons or captions (their position and form)
- issues around sequence of narrative
- decisions about the double page (possible need to reveal something on the page turn
There may be other stuff you wish to talk about, so don’t worry if it’s not on this list. These are only suggestions.
If you comment on the number of panels on page 1 and the number is the same on page 2 you are not expected to repeat your decisions. Use the next page of your comic to speak about something else.
It is perfectly OK for you to write more about a page in which you use a lot of techniques to express a specific part of the story. We are not expecting an equal amount of writing devoted to each page.
You can present it in any way you like. Organise it according to page number, give a little more detail about what is taking place on the page and then explain the technique(s) you have used to express this.
For example:
Page 1. Person walking to work, starts to day dream. I have used a regular panel structure of 9 panels to suggest the normality and regularity of the day, but as the daydream starts I have changed the border of the panel frame. to a squiggly line to suggest the events are taking place inside the person’s head. As argued by … . this is an important technique. I have also placed an important event in panel 9. As … argues this is a privileged panel on the page and I will also use the ‘rhyming function’ (Groensteen, page) to repeat the element later on page …
This is just a guide as to the sort of thing I am expecting, but you can adapt to suit your comic.