WP2: Pre-write 2

The main back story for this comic comes from the fairly recent stories of people getting in trouble, particularly with their employers, because of things they have posted online (often social networking sites), whether text or photographs. People that had posted either rude or threatening things online or inappropriate pictures of themselves have been caught by employers or otherwise and were punished. A lot of this comes from the fact that the Internet and social networking websites are still evolving, especially in terms of rights and privacy. What social networking sites and other websites most often do is create a false sense of anonymity or privacy. This has lead to either peoples current or future employers, etc, to find said posts and invoke repercussions. This leads to the first figure in the comic telling the second to be careful about what he posts online.

Another set of contexts of note is the norms of modern comic strips. The most general stereotype is the three aligned square panels in a strip, with more being added, particularly a second row for many longer comics, or some panels being widened. This said, the comic at hand doesn't neatly fit such a form, although the outer boundaries are still aligned. The comic has a much more vertical flow with a large blank panel in the center. The last three frames taken by themselves would constitute a more normally expected comic strip.

Secondly, the difference between comics and pure text being the drawings (or less so pictures), this comic also breaks the norms of art to text balance. Most comics have full panel art and little text. This comic breaks from that pattern by first limiting the drawn to the very minimum of telling the story at hand while, especially in the third panel as it becomes the focus, it contains much more text than would be expected in a comic, very condensed. The art of the comic is limited to the stick figures and the basic desk/computer that the second is initially sitting at, a slight difference in the "hair" used to indicate who is speaking in the latter frames. After the first two frames, when the computer is no longer necessary to the story, it is removed, giving additional focus to whats left, the simple figure and especially the text that he is "saying" (the first person is even removed after the first two frames when he no longer has anything to say). The last three panels again return to more of the norm, containing little text, although the content still breaks the expected of comics.