Byte+Comic+Strip


 * Assignment 2: Comic Creation**
 * “Byte”**
 * Jessica Pashkiewich**
 * 996034241**
 * CCT300**
 * November 5, 2009



**

The comic “Byte” revolves around a character named Byte, who is a feline skeleton living as an every-day domesticated cat. This particular comic strip starts out showing Byte, who is hungry. He proceeds to look around for something to eat when he notices a pet goldfish in its bowl. The images show Byte as he makes efforts to catch the fish, and proceeds to eat it. The ending image shows Byte, with the fish on the floor, after he realizes the fish has gone straight through his skeleton body. The “Byte” comic strip tells its narrative through six panels. The first panel shows the main character’s face, accompanied by words to tell a reader that he is feeling hungry. The second panel shows the fish, which will become his prey. The next two panels show Byte as he makes his way over to the fish bowl and observes his meal before eating the fish. There is no text paired with these panels, but a reader sees what is happening within the narrative through the images. McCloud refers to this as “show and tell”, where a reader sees, or is shown, what is taking place instead of being told through text (McCloud 1993, 138). The last two panels show Byte placing the fish into his mouth. In this panel a reader sees the goldfish being dropped into the mouth of the cat. The final panel shows the moment after Byte has swallowed his meal, only to see that the fish has gone through his skeleton body. I made the final image the largest, horizontally wider than the rest, to emphasize the moment and to add length to the moment being shown. McCloud discusses “gutters”, or the “space between the panels”, as ways to show or affect how time is perceived within comics (66). I did not use the gutter space to show time, but instead used various sizes of panels. McCloud suggests that “the panel shape can actually make a difference in our perception of time”, possibly giving the “feeling of greater length” (101). I kept my six-panel comic strip limited to a single page, so as a web comic a reader would be able to read the entire comic with little to no scrolling. I used a limited palette of colours for my comic strip. I feel that using fewer colour places more focus on the characters and what is taking place. Byte’s character is mainly white with light brown shading, and the use of colourful backgrounds or objects may have overshadowed his presence. I used red for the background in the setting where the fish is shown to show that Byte and the fish are located within a house. Three of the panels that focus on Byte or his actions do not have a red background, to emphasize the character. I chose a cartoon-style for the artwork in this comic. Byte’s character is fairly detailed as he is a skeleton, so I kept the background and objects incorporated into the comic simple. I chose to draw Byte in a cartoon style because of the fact that he is a skeleton; McCloud believes that cartooning allows one to focus on “specific details”, thereby “stripping down an image to its essential meaning”, and amplifying that meaning “in a way that realistic art can’t” (30). In reality, the skeleton of a cat would not be walking around a home, or chasing after fish. Cartooning Byte’s character allows this impossible idea to take shape in an unreal cartoon world, and therefore appear to make sense. I titled the comic and named my character “Byte”, which is a play on cats “biting”, as well as referring to a computer byte since this is a web comic. My main goal with this comic strip was to create a character and bring him to life through realistic traits of cats, such as his hunger for the house’s pet goldfish. I attempted to tell the narrative with minimal text and to portray the story through images and the actions of my character.
 * Comic Strip Narrative**
 * Analysis**

**Works Cited** McCloud, Scott. //Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art//. New York, USA: Harper Perennial, 1993. Print.