Graphic Novel

Prof. Rajitha Venugopal

Graphic Novels - LITR109

8h January, 2023

Preface

The following, titled “College and Cakes” is a graphic narrative based on the birthdays celebrated in FLAME University. Birthdays celebrated by school students are usually at home or in residential localities, but college students have extra fun. Generally, college students celebrate outside homes and in residential colleges like FLAME University, most of the birthdays are celebrated on campus, outside homes. For many first-year undergraduate students, this would be their first time away from home and since their friends and parents would not be around, college peers must plan for their friends’ birthdays and make it memorable.  Last – minute birthday plans are prevalent everywhere and especially in FLAME. This graphic narrative revolves around a group of four friends, Rohit, Aadit, Sameer, and Sid, who study in FLAME University. It’s Rohit’s birthday and the previous day, as the friends sit at the dining hall and have casual talks, they suddenly realize that Rohit’s birthday is the next day and they have not planned any birthday surprise for the upcoming night. It’s already 5pm in the evening and they have only 6 hours to plan and execute everything. It’s a race against time and the various challenges faced by them is covered in this narrative. Also, they must keep everything a secret and make sure Rohit does not find out!

The artistic style used in the panels is a scrapbook type style. The backgrounds used are realistic but dreamy at the same time. The background settings aren’t too dreamy to be unrecognisable from their actual places and aren’t too realistic that there is an uncomfortable and clear distinction between the characters and the background. The main motive of this graphic narrative is to highlight the reality of last minute surprise parties and in my opinion, we have represented them accurately. The use of realistic backgrounds in our graphic narrative seemed liked a unique idea which would catch the readers attention. Realistic backgrounds also convey the location of scene depicted in the panel thus helping in conveying the theme of the scene.

Hoping that you will find reading this narrative fun and thank you for taking your time!

Thank you,

Aditya, Arnab, and Mrinangshu