Concept Ideas for Individual Project

My plan is to create a twenty page comic book based on a story idea I created back in high school. It is basically about a person who wakes up in a murder scene alone with no recollection of how he got in the room, what happened the few days prior to this, and what he should do next. The story, in first person, focuses on the character's vision, thoughts, and confusion of the event. The reader knows nothing from the beginning (as does the character), with exception of the character's discomfort. Clues start being thrown in here and there for the reader to decipher. By the end of the story, the reader must understand the scope of events; deciding for himself what happened to the character pre-story and post-story. Visually, I believe I can create an edgy comic book that can accurately describe the situation, and the first-person point of view. I feel that since I intend on creating comic books/graphic novels when I'm established as an artist, this would give me a good chance to practice my skills in comic book narrative and execution.

Two comic books come to mind while researching for this project. One, by the name of Ojo created by Sam Kieth, Alex Pardee, and Chris Wisnia, has a style that I find inspiring. I will be working on my comic book while referring to and studying the style of this comic book.

The other, Johnny The Homicidal Maniac created by Jhonen Vasquez has a style that is also intriguing to me. The narrative is also one of my favorites, and I will also be referring to it along side Ojowhile creating this comic book.

On top of these comic books, I have also been researching the crimes committed by the top serial killers and mass murderers in history. It has narrowed down my thoughts on the character's motives and such within the narrative.


The rest of my research includes collecting photographs and Illustrations of strange human contortions and anthropomorphic images. These give me insight to how I want my story to display itself to my viewers.

The format for each page of this piece will be approximately 6.5x10 inches. Frames will also be included within each page (number of each page will be dependent on the tempo of the scenario on the page), and I will be using Johnny The Homicidal Maniac as reference for the format, as well as it's content. I wish to use black ink for the main bulk of the comic. Once Illustrations are sketched out and inked, I hope to scan everything into Adobe Photoshop and Indesign to create a clean looking final. A cover will be created with multimedia; it will also be in color, as apposed to the black and white of the rest of the comic. That will also be scanned in and printed on heavyweight paper. Binding methods are still unknown. I am able to create a staple-bound book, but I would like to experiment in creating a professional looking glue-bound book.