“Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust”.

 

Hello ladies and gentlemen of the PLP bloooooggggg my name is Colton Wallin and for the next 10 minutes, ill be your guide to our newest Humanities project: ‘A War to End All Wars’. This project would be about writing comic books. Now me being a regular kid, I surrounded myself with many many comic books growing up. Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Peanuts and much more. As of recently, I’ve not read as many comic books as I did before pre-pandemic. So its been a while since I read a good old fashion comic book.

 

At the start of the project I learned that this project was about WWI. Now growing up with a dad who was very fascinated with WWII, Im a total geek about the Second World War. The first however, I barely knew anything about it. So project this would be something totally new to me

We started with learning about how the war started and the immediate causes and consequences. Whey the neighbouring nations went to war, the results of the war, and the long lasting consequences. In this keystone, we created a slideshow presentation on the belligerents of war (a list of who declared war on who). And a page of the effects of war, long term and short term.

This project wasn’t all just the history of WWI however. As I mentioned before, my favourite part of the project would be making the comic book. How much better to learn about how to make a comic about WWI than to read a comic book about WWI!

 

We read the very intriguing and interesting; World War One 1914-1917. Even though it was just a comic book, I learnt more about WWI in that evening where I read it, than I had in my entire life. During this keystone, we learnt all about the technical elements of comics, things like thought and speech bubbles, different panels, and character emotions.

After many reflections, connecting the book to the war, and learning how to write a comic, We matched our technical skills and our understanding of World War One causes, battles, and technologies, into our own comic about a battle of our choice.

Being a patriotic Canadian who loves his country I had to choose the famous battle of Vimy Ridge. I dont know if its just me, but at my old elementary school, we had remembrance day ceremonies. They always talked about this Vimy Ridge battle and how a group of Canadians took a hill that the French and British people tried taking but failed. That’s when the Canadians took it in a matter of days. To a little 8 year old Canadian me, this battle sounded super badass, So I knew I had to make a comic about it.

Our story follows a young Private, newly insisted in the war who’s extremely opposed the idea of it, but is forced to join. We follow him and the Canadian army, as they storm the Ridge in an action packed, historically accurate graphic novel. Im not going to spoil it for you too much, so heres the full comic on me 😉

 

I put a ton of effort into the drawings (maybe to much) and I spent a ton of time on research because I hate inaccurate information in things like comics and movies. None of that means anything if you dont have a proper story that readers are interested and invested in.

 

I loved this project and learned lots! I learnt all about WWI, conditions and consequences of the war itself, Technical advances and machinery, and the details and facts about many battles during the war. I also learned about the many types of styles and elements of a well structured comic book. Using this knowledge I created a super cool comic book that I really enjoyed making and will cherish forever.

W Project.