From past projects which can help me through this project would be projects or workshops that have explored book binding, narrative based and character building. Some current projects that are running alongside this which I think will be helpful is the Anthology which is a project that explores creating a book. This entails page layouts, book binding and how image works with text. Another project that will be helpful is the DNAD project which is game design. I think this will be useful because of the world building and character design that develops into the game.         

   In this project I would like to explore character design as I want to create my own characters in my story. I want to look at the theories behind creating a character and what makes them pull the audience in. As my project will be about mental health I will be researching different types/certain illnesses as it can be broad: depression, bipolar, personality disorder and scizahponia. I want a better understanding of mental health as it will make for a better foundation. A few books that I wish to help me for my research: The Joker a Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime, The Joker Psychology Evil Clowns and the Women who they love, Batman Unmasked Analyzing a Cultural Icon,The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, Race and Representation, 99 Ways to tell a Story: Exercise in Style, Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder, Art of a Character the Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film and TV, The Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy in Everyday Life.                

I would like to develop my book binding skills and explore different ways of bookbinding for making a comic. Page layouts are an important one for this project as well. Again I would like to be able to create my own narrative and characters, narrative is a skill that I keep revisiting but still needs development and character design is something that I have just skimmed through before. I think these are the core skills that will help make this project come to life.      

   My ambition for this project is to create a comic book about mental health or that involves mental health. As I want this to link to my dissertation which is about the Joker I thought a superhero narrative that entails mental health would be interesting. This time instead of using the stereotypical scenario which the villain has the health disorder I want to use it in a different way.      

   Some of the practitioners that I will look at: Sonaksha Iyengar, Prathiksha Bhat, Pranita Kocharekar, Mounica Tata which do Illustrations on mental health. Other artists that I’m going to look at are: Robert Crumb, Bill Watterson, Art Spegialmen which are comic/graphic novel artists. 

   My target audience that I’m aiming for is 16 above that are interested in e.g. superheros, comics, mental health, storytelling. I think a good way to interact with them will be interviews, surveys or questionnaires. I think talking to people who have mental health and people who don’t will give a good overview on who understands and can drive my story.  

Through the stressful time, Carl starts to suffer from delusions and hallucinations not understanding what is going on. The hero offers him to be her sidekick and help stop crime and her arch-nemesis. The boy's journey sets off to become a hero but his thoughts and mind are going haywire making him struggle fighting crime. 

Silver Tongue wants revenge on the hero and uses crime to draw out the heroes. He doesn’t want forgiveness, he just wants the hero to fill his pain. Then Carl and Silver Tongue learn of each other's past and how they witness the same tragedy. During the final fight, the boy experiences another episode and it is left up to the hero to stop Silver Tongue.

Carl finally goes to see a doctor and explains what has been going on. The story flips back and forth between past and present through the psychiatrist meetings.                 


This is my story idea so far for the comic book, i'm not too sure about it at the moment I dont know if it will grab the readers attetion