Grace Crilly
The best way to write a story is to write from your own experience. Not every writer has to write the same way, since they can choose their own style individually. Writers have their own way of writing the story they want to tell. Some will write a novel with just words and no pictures but other authors will make their book fun by using pictures and speech bubbles. They will also either write it from their own perspective or another person's. They can write their personal stories to use visuals and written representation. Cece Bell and John Porcellino as writers have different ways to write their own comics in their own experiences. The biggest difference is how they started out writing their comics, since Bell's was first a detailed outline and Porcellino started out with imagery by painting. Bell gives more of an effect to show readers how young kids could experience having a disability at that age and how they have overcome frustrations with it along with daily life. Porcellino was able to represent who he was in order to let readers embrace that it's okay to be different.
Cece Bell didn't have much of a process with narrative storytelling, because she doesn't consider herself a good descriptive writer and would rather use imagery to represent a scene. Bell would rather represent how they look, and make it effective that the appearance of everyone made they all were the same from the size of their ears to emphasize the point, that compared to her she wasn't the same as others. In the The Guardian interview Bellstated, "I made them look like bunnies. Bunnies are supposed to have strong hearing because of the size of their ears, but mine didn't work the same." The bunny ears she had created didn't look any different from anyone else's, however Bell's made her feel out of place than others. It's challenging for young children to be told that they're special for having a disability. A child is not at the age or maturity level to understand themselves. Although, what makes young kids with disabilities special is how they can use their imagination, like how Bell does with El Deafo. Being able to be yourself in front of anyone is what kids want, as we grow older though and go into new levels of school with social media it can be difficult to handle pressure that we get about who should be in our crowd circle. Bell tries to help others to learn who they are, to be who they are in front of others and learn about personal experience from having a disability.
Authors of comics/graphic novels don't just have to use a narrative description, they can show visuals of what they mean, like how Cece Bell would have her own imagination about being a superhero herself. At a young age for anyone who has experienced being picked on, teased and bullied as a kid, Bell was in the same position. Bell consistently had a hard time with others telling her sign language can help her communicate with people. She feels so insecure wearing her belt for the hearing aids, that she wishes her ears would work like everyone else's do. When Bell was frustrated about this she used El Deafo to defend herself, but ended up kicking her mom. Bell had also stated in the interview, "To show exactly what my character is hearing (or not hearing) throughout the story, I much prefer using pictures to describe a scene or emotion" (Bell 2). Bell used El Deafo as a way to visually express her anger, but she didn't realize that what she is imagining actually happened. She ends up actually kicking her mom.
The process of any kind of writing storytelling, poems, songs, and comics takes time. John Porcellino started out his comic by only using visuals. Both as a writer and as a person your perspective changes on your own opinions and thoughts that can be used for writing material. For Porcellino's process, he used his visual skills that he learned from college and hobbies. The way Porcellino started out his narrative was with his skill in art, which wasn't heading in the right direction. In the "Getting to the Heart of the Matter" interview, Porcellino had spoke about the start of his process for Perfect Example. Porcellino stated in the interview, "I started to develop the 'Perfect Example' narrative as a series of paintings, but it never went anywhere. I don't think I had the perspective yet to tell it. It was the kind of thing, I knew it was an important story for me, and every few years I'd pull it back out and work on it a bit more" (Porcellino). To write any kind of book, if its a graphic novel, or children's book or a young adult book any author could take up a week, month, year or 20 years to write a book.
It could take as long as it takes to write a story and/or graphic novels according to the author's creative process, on what they want to write or create. Both Bell and Porcellino use their experiences to explain to kids who have disabilities and ones who have depression that it's okay to feel different. Porcellino doesn't drink, or take drugs like the other kids he's around. However, many people with high functioning depression and anxiety abuse taking drugs and drinking alcohol to deal with their pain. Porcellino's peers abuse drugs and alcohol unlike him, who doesn't actually use those for a reason. This does make Porcellino feel different. However that isn't the way he wanted to cope with his issues.
The most important thing for people to know is that they aren't alone, which is what both Bell and Porcellino want the reader to know. As well as that, they also wanted to reflect on their own past experiences and see how much they had grown from it. Everyone has something that they have to deal with. Porcellino had anxiety and depression that caused him to have suicidal thoughts. For a teenager to have depression and anxiety, in their experiences to tell someone the truth usually leads to them saying, "You don't understand." Teenagers don't realize that they aren't alone, especially after hearing from an adult that they know someone who's been in the same position. Don't assume that you know better from what you know and don't make assumptions, because if you jump to conclusions you never know if you were right. Not even just as a writer, but as an individual life you need to know who you are to know what the story you want to tell.
Works Cited
BAKER, DEIRDRE F. "El Deafo." Horn Book Magazine, vol. 90, no. 6, Nov. 2014, pp. 120–121. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=98972775&site=ehost-live.
Bell, Cece. "The Guardian". Cece Bell: I wanted to show what it felt like to be the only deaf kid at my school April 27 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/27/cece-bell-el-deafo-newbery-medal-deafness-childrens-books. Access Day 11, November 2019
Clough, Rob. "Getting to the Heart of the Matter': The John Porcellino interview (Part One)". The Comics Journal May 7,2018. http://www.tcj.cm/jp_1/. Accessed 12 November 2018
Porcellino, John. Perfect Example. Drawn & Quarterly, 2005.
STAI LEGGENDO
Essay Collection
SaggisticaI've been in a variety writing almost everything lately and now I really want to share more of my writing that isn't just storytelling. I wanted to add more of my work in essays, papers, and etc..
