WP2 Statement of Purpose

The purpose of my Writing Project 2 is to demonstrate how the Calvin and Hobbes comic I am writing about makes the argument that childhood is short and needs to be embraced. I will show this by explaining the technical elements of drawing style, paneling, and form and by explaining the ideals embodied in the comic through the dialogue and pictures. I want to show how these elements work to appeal to a large audience and support the argument of the comic.

The primary audience of my paper is my teacher, Mr. Ware, because he is the only person that is guaranteed to read it. In addition, he is the one grading me on my project, so I have to make sure my paper is effective and fulfills the requirements of the assignment. I need to make my writing unique so that it stands out from my classmates' writing projects that might be similar to mine, and I plan to do this by including information unique to my comic, such as background information on Calvin and Hobbes, as well as trying to introduce more specific concepts such as those talked about in "Compose, Design, Advocate" and the McCloud essay on the vocabulary of comics.

A potential potential audience is current and future English 151H students. These people may be looking at my blog as an example of the assignment, and because of this, I need to make sure my writing is a good representation of the writing project. Again, I have to keep in mind the guidelines of the assignment and write a paper that is as comprehensible and effective as it can be. Because these people may be using my paper to work on their own projects, I need my writing project to be excellent.

In addition, since my writing project will be posted to my blog, it will be available to anyone with internet access. This means that another secondary audience will be people browsing blogs or someone searching the internet. Because of this, I will have to keep my writing clear and concise so people who might not know about the specific technical elements and concepts we learned about in class will understand it.

Because the medium of this writing project will be a blog post, the context will be as part of the internet. This will allow me to use multimedia aspects such as pictures and hyperlinks to enhance the meaning of my essay. Besides including the comic I am assessing, I can post other relevant pictures to illustrate my points, and easily link to outside information sources. By doing this, I will be able to focus my writing on analyzing the comic and I won't have to provide in-depth explanations of background and additional information. If I were writing this project in a more traditional medium, such as a standard paper, I would not be able to do this.

This medium is also useful for appealing to my audience. My writing project can be easily reached from links on my classmate's blogs and on the main page for our class. Having it on the internet makes it highly accessible to anyone who might want or need to read it.

Overall, my goal for Writing Project 2 is convey the argument of the comic I am analyzing, and do this in a thorough, well-written paper. As this is the second writing project of the year, I hope to improve on my work in Writing Project 1. I think I will be able to do this because I have received extensive feedback from Writing Project 1, and I will use those suggestions in order to make my writing better.

WP2 Pre-writing 2

"Calvin and Hobbes" is a comic strip written by Bill Watterson. It ran from 1985 to 1995 as a newspaper comic, and now is available in several books. It is about a boy, Calvin, and his tiger, Hobbes and their adventures.

Calvin is named after John Calvin, and Hobbes is named after Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes the tiger, like Hobbes the philosopher, tends to be overly-realistic and pessimistic about human nature and is usually the mature voice of reason in the strip. Calvin is rambunctious and imaginative, and a bit philosophical and unreasonable at times.

When it is just Calvin and Hobbes shown in a panel, Hobbes is shown as an actual tiger. He can move and talk, and is Calvin's best friend. They do pretty much everything together because Calvin doesn't have a lot of human friends. When anybody else is in the panel with them, Hobbes is shown as a stuffed tiger. This makes you wonder what Hobbes really is. Is he really just part of Calvin's imagination? Often, the strip will show Hobbes attacking Calvin, and when Calvin's mom comes, she can see Calvin all beat up and wonders how Calvin could do that to himself. Another thing that makes Hobbes seem real is in one series, Hobbes sends Calvin several secret letters through the post office. Calvin's mom gives him the letters, and then later asks why he sends himself mail because she knew the letters were coming from their house.

Calvin is meant to be a six-year-old, but he also has a lot of adult tendencies, like using big words and criticizing politics, religion, society, and just about everything else. He is shown to be a typical kid when he does things like going to school, getting stuck with a babysitter, and playing with Hobbes, his tiger.

I think Calvin is a good example of people's inner child because he has both adult and kid-like characteristics, which usually is very funny. Because of this, a lot of people can relate to the strip, and it is very popular. A comic is a good medium for showing the idea of everyone's inner child because it is short, entertaining, and available to a lot of people. By making "Calvin and Hobbes" a comic strip, it also adds to the childishness of it. Kids read comics, but it is also geared towards adults. The medium makes it appeal to a broader audience and gives it a more universal appeal.