Disassembly

For this first analytical assignment, your task is to use software to perform a digitally-assisted deconstruction or disassembly of a comic text. Use this process of deformance to play with comic syntax, structure, and semantics, and write a brief essay reflecting those insights.

Process

The basic workflow for this assignment should look something like this:

  1. Search Comic Book Plus to find a comic you want to work with.
  2. Select one panel or other subpage unit. A group of up to three interlocked panels is acceptable, but full pages or multi-page spreads should be avoided.
  3. Download the page that panel occurs on, and crop the panel or group of panels that you want to work on.
  4. Use some software (GIMP, PhotoShop, MSPaint, ETC.) to perform some or all of the following transformations — whichever are the most interesting, revelatory, transformative, or just fun:
    • remove all of the text
    • remove all of the color
    • remove one or more characters
    • remove, add, or distort color
    • remove the panel borders
    • remove other lines
    • animate it
    • anything else!
  5. Write a short essay analyzing your final, disassembled product.
  6. Submit your work before class on September 21, 2022 (see instructions below)

Examples

dis7 Original

dis6 Color removed

dis5 Words removed

dis4 Words and speech bubbles removed

dis3 Everything removed except one character.

dis2 Color inverted

dis1 Color inverted and one character isolated

dis8 Several characters removed

Evaluation

The essay you write may be brief (at least 400 words), but it should be precise and detailed. Examine the differences between the disassembled product and the original, and reflect on that process: At what point did the panel lose its coherence? Is it still recognizable as a comic at all? Is there anything in what remains that illuminates, critiques, condenses, or clarifies some aspects or properties of the comic from which it was derived? Etc.

Write your essay in clear, academic prose that is stylistically effective and grammatically as perfect as you can make it. Assignments that receive full credit must satisfy all of the following criteria.

On the minimalist grading scale, these are the required criteria to earn a ✓ grade:

  • Disassemblage. The disassembly work is thorough, transformative, provocative, or interesting.
  • Clarity of Expression. The writing demonstrates and elegance, correctness, and tone appropriate to an upper-level literature course.
  • Relevance and Coherence of Insight. The insights, discoveries, and nuances of the essay pay careful attention to detail, arriving at thoughtful, interesting conclusions that are well-grounded by the evidence of the source comic.
  • Attention to Detail. The work is submitted correctly, on time, and follows formatting guidelines.

Submitting your Work

While you may wish to post your essay on your personal blog or Discord, the primary way you should turn it in is via Canvas.

Using your favorite word processor, create a document that includes:

  1. the original scan (ideally, reduce it first to a reasonable resolution)
  2. the final disassembled version, and any in-between steps that are interesting or that pertain to your analysis.
  3. Your brief analysis essay

After the images, include your analysis essay in that same document.

Note: Canvas works best with multimedia documents uploaded in DOC, DOCX or ODT format. Other formats like PDF, RTF, Google Docs or Pages can present complications, so please use some version of DOC if possible.