Charinee Prompong, Sien Rivera: Manga

CLAIM
Our goal is to create a young adult, fantasy-themed manga. The final product will be presented as a bound and covered comic book. Look for:
• Artistic and literary growth
• Mythological references, allusions
• Creativity of story, plot, setting, and characters
• Allegorical representations of current, recent history

REASON
On the writer's part, research into mythology, symbology, and current events create a personal learning stretch, and on the artist's part, research on anthropomorphization and landscape art makes for a parallel experience. We hope to not only exercise artistic ability and prepare for possible career paths with this project, but also portray a portrait of current events through a creative lens.

EVIDENCE
• Rough Sketches (see above)
• Scripts; Storyboards
• A short film documenting how to draw/what to write in manga, or possibly a "Making of" film

VALUE
Due to the nature of our project's genre, young adults will serve as the largest audience, and therefore the group that should be taken into consideration in terms of ultimate impact: will young adults understand the allegories? Will they be attentive to the story and characters? However, considering that the right literary/visual analyses are implemented by readers, then the symbolic/artistic link becomes a learning experience in and of itself—one where the analysis itself is an exercise of aesthetics and, more importantly, historical dialectics. Theoretically, publication would be the next logical step after completion. But due to time constraints, the manga may simply be presented to specific English classes either in MCHS or another school, such as Hercules Middle High School, with feedback gathered.