WP-2 Blogpost 1

The comic strip that I chose was from the White Ninja comic collection and includes six separate panels. This particular strip is called "White Ninja Performs Armed Robbery" and involves two characters, one being the white ninja (seen masked above) and the second being the man with the distinct facial characteristics. The scene presumably stays constant throughout the whole piece though the audience must infer this because there's nothing in the foreground or background that would indicate any sort of setting. This conscious choice from the artist allows the audience to create the scene for themselves; whether it's a grocery store or in line for the teller at a bank. The scene opens in terror as the white ninja threatens the man with intimidating facial expressions and with what appears to be a gun located under his shirt. As we progress along, we come to find out that the man is a father of three which in fact touches the white ninja on a personal level through an appeal to his pathos. The white ninja, momentarily caught of guard is jumped by the man and seemingly disarmed. The humor of the piece is at the end when the man realizes that the white ninja was indeed never armed and, upon having his finger pulled, just passed gas.

The interactions between both the white ninja and the man (we'll call him the father for convenience) are verbal and are signified by text connected by lines to indicate which character is saying what lines. More powerful than the characters speech are their facial expressions. The mood of the comic is very dynamic in the beginning when the ninja is making demands and feigning a stickup to lighthearted when the father mistakenly attempts to disarm the white ninja thus causing him to rip one. The relationship between the panels is established as a few seconds lapsing within the same conversation between the two characters. Visually this becomes obvious as the characters are in relatively the same places throughout the panels in terms of positioning from one and other.

In terms of aesthetics, the piece is very bland, with only a white background and black lines outlining the characters themselves. Also, it provides an interesting contrast in terms of the construction of the two characters because the white ninja has nothing but his eyes and his mouth to give his face distinct shape and character while the father has a full head of hair, ears, a nose etc.

Overall, the typography of the comic strip gives it the story and backbone that the work requires to accomplish the punchline at the end. There are so few elements to the strip that the focus is completely on the relationship between the characters and the actions happening between the two of them. The typography itself is presented in a simple fashion and seems to be unprofessional and unrefined. The comic's simplicity provides the audience with the option to take everything at play in the various panels into consideration when they're appreciating the piece as a whole.