There Goes A Dream: A Junior Visual Narrative Comic by Jasmine Ta (2017)

One of the strangest thing about this comic was its origin. It originally existed as some trivial story I wrote about someone who wasn’t sure enough to chase after their dream. Whether it was lack of confidence or ability, I never explained. This comic took that story and turned it around. There’s this thing I’ve been thinking about and I’m impulsive enough to go after it.

As terrible a writer I am, I’m an even worse artist. It was difficult and frustrating trying to find some style of art that wouldn’t confuse the reader on the action nor look so bizarrely out of place as to distract. In the end, I did a simplistic style, simplistic enough that I didn’t make a mistake on Illustrator every five minutes and erase an hour’s work.

If there is anything I could change about this strange piece, I might have wanted to work on the main character’s personality, just so they wouldn’t have that perpetual dumb-looking face in every panel. In general, though, the idea of using comics to bring a story together was certainly interesting, and I’d like to incorporate the idea of bringing words and pictures into another interesting thing someday.

In any case, while this project took me several weeks in Illustrator, there were plenty of people who were painstakingly drawing every line in every intricate panel. Their pieces were practically overflowing with symbolism. My piece is about some weird kid who decided to chase after a butterfly. I have newfound respect for people who care about their art, and now I know just how hard it is to create one.