Meanwhile, at Boston City Hall...

Meanwhile, at...

Boston City Hall

This project's inspiration comes from the zines that were presented in our class. They were created using old newspaper clippings and magazine bits. My first thought after seeing this style was old fashion comic books. What if someone took those old panels and told a story repurposing them? That was the idea going into the meeting at Boston City Hall.

Once I got to the meeting, I started deciding who would be represented in the comic. There was a strong woman in the discussion, who naturally would be Wonder Woman. Then there were two disgruntled men afterwards, who I immediately saw as Batman and Superman. It was only a matter of finding the matching panels on Google to display my story.

Here are some of my notes done by hand during the meeting

The meeting was held by Boston City Council on Wednesday, October 9th, 2019. The assembly was very interesting yet a confusing experience. They went very fast and I tried to jot down as many notes as I could. I did some research and found out they recorded the whole meeting and put it onto YouTube. Once I rewatched the meeting, I could quote the members more accurately for the comic book. Seeing the high school that joined me in the audience reinforced my idea of how this comic book could connect with a younger audience.

The creation of the comic came down to understanding the dynamics between real life and fictional characters. Having Wonder Woman take a leading role seemed natural since the conversation was lead by Ms. Wu. Then having the conflict come from dominating male figures only natural led to the other powerful men, Batman and Superman (Baker and Ciommo). 

Choosing this specific meeting was basically done on a whim. I originally wished to attend the meeting before it, but couldn't make it to the building on time. Rakshya was actually there with me as well, and you can see the two of us in the recording on YouTube. There was a high school at the meeting as well, adding an interesting dynamic to the audience.

This is the process of how I converted the original panels into the format for my comic. I first cropped the image to get rid of the excess text and borders. Then I swapped the colors to black and white to allow each varying colors from each panel to blend more easily. Then I clone stamped the text with a white background in the bubble and replaced it with my own text.

Here is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1T39LPQDFA&t=1169s

At the end of the meeting, I met with counselor Kim Janey. While she asked more about me than the other way around, I asked her how we could learn more about our communities. All she told me was that, "We are your neighbors." and we just had to find a way to talk with Back Bay's representative.