We began our project by working to educate ourselves on the background of the project at hand. Neither one of us had any deeper knowledge about the sustainability programs available on campus that we could produce a quality comic about.
Fortunately WPI offers a number of easy ways to learn about sustainability groups on campus. After walking through all the offered projects we made our decision to focus on the food sustainability programs on campus.
Our first on campus opportunity that we looked at was the Food Recovery Network, this on campus network works to decrease the wasted food that occurs throughout campus from the CC all the way through to freshman dorms. Students and faculty are constantly throwing out and disposing of unopened food items that can be donated to those less fortunate who desperately need food.
Our Second sustainability program that we researched to add to our comic was the Green Team.
The Green Team is a “The WPI Green Team is a student run organization dedicated to making WPI a more sustainable place and educating the WPI community about sustainability.” (http://greenteam.wpi.edu/)
These two programs are going to be our main focus within our comic.
Our next step was to figure out a comic format for our comics, we decided on a simple online comic template an example of which is shown below
This Template and others like it will allow us to draw our comic easily and control the organization better than hand drawn boxes. We plan on using Illustrator to create our final comic but will stick with hand made comics so as to more easily incorporate feedback and critique that we may receive both on the blogs and in class.
To complete our research we discovered a fantastic resource (Which anyone reading this Blog can feel free to also use) an IQP called “Food Sustainability at Worcester Polytechnic Institute” (https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-030411-184854/unrestricted/Food_Sustainability_at_WPI.pdf) this IQP had in depth information into many of the on campus sustainability opportunities as well as useful statistics and other data that can be incorporated into our comics as needed.
Questions we are still considering
How to best format our comic: should we go with a more fun and goofy style like a web comic or should we be more explanatory and straightforward like the McCloud comics?
Which online format to go with for the comic –as there are numerous options ranging from only four panels to a page to as many as 10.
How best to hook the audience so that they are interested in finishing our comic and not merely glancing at it and passing by.
Our next post will have images of our first draft and a deep dive into why we chose the format and images utilized.
We look forward to receiving your feedback on both this post with our background and especially our next post containing our first draft.
Ronan and Nicole
Nicole and Nupur's Infographic 
Solid start, but I think you should narrow down your subject more. I think you should choose whether to focus on the food sustainability initiative or the Green Team, and perhaps even narrow down the subject further after choosing a focus. Remember, you only have 3 pages for this, so it calls for being short and concise with your topic choice.
I think book bound format is the safest bet for formatting because it translates decently to web formats whereas web formats don’t always translate well to book bound formats. But you do you, it’s not a major concern at this point. As for panels, do what is best for the story first and foremost. Sketching out a crude storyboard will help you figure out what panel styles and sizes work best for the message you want your comic book to convey.
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I think you guys are going in the right direction! I really liked that you gave information on environmental sustainability from WPI’s programs and clubs. I think it would be better to keep the comic straightforward with not too many words in order to keep busy students entertained quickly. I am excited to see your first draft!
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I like how you researched on campus resources and chose two to focus on. I am interested to see how you combine these resources and turn them into an informative story. I think this is an interesting approach!
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