if this is a DC comic, it's certainly a Vertigo comic!

Read the directions carefully: There are several steps; be sure you don't miss anything.

This assignment is worth up to 200 points. It is the major assignment of the semester. You cannot pass the class if you do not complete this project. Start early; work smartly and steadily.

How frustrating.

Over 300 pages, and we are never shown the comic book from which Mandel's novel takes its title. Oh, we have a few moments: "Arthur opened the first issue at random to a two-page spread, ocean and islands linked by bridges, twilight, Dr. Eleven standing on a rock with his Pomeranian by his side. Text: I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth" (Mandel 214). We get a little more of the story, the conflict, the locations, but we don't get much.

Your job, if you (and/or your group) choose this project, is to give us that book (optionally, you could produce Issue 2, or a never-published Issue 3 of Station Eleven).

NOTE: do take note of all quotations from and descriptions of the comic in the novel; you don't want to change those; you are adding to them.

very important clarification

You are not writing/illustrating a comic-book version of Mandel's novel. Again, you are not producing a graphic-fiction version of Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven

You are writing one of the issues of the comic books featuring Doctor Eleven mentioned in the novel. That means you are producing one issue of Miranda's comic book (we are shown little bits of that comic book throughout the novel, but you need to expand on those little bits we are shown).

breaking that down a bit

You will write or illustrate (and/or write and illustrate) one comic issue of Station Eleven. Now, if you manage the entire comic, that will be amazing. That is a lot of panels to write and illustrate. IT WOULD BE FINE if you created about eight pages and then summarized the rest of the comic book (as you envision it).

NOTE: if you choose to do illustration, it need not be professional quality, but stick figures and kiddie-like crayon drawings will not earn a lot of points, but be creative; you can put scour the Web for images and use those, and nobody said pictures had to be life-like; they can be geometric, odd shapes, whatever you think fits your story. This role was put here for those student who love to express themselves visually. If you don't envision yourself as an artist, that's fine; you can skip the illustrations.

Let me remind you once more (since this is important): your graphic version (text in "comic" format or illustrations or both) is not a graphic version of Mandel's novel; it is what you imagine Miranda's comic books (mentioned IN the novel and read by The Prophet) are like. You have some clues (quoted bits, pictures described), but you need to flesh out a whole section of one of those comics.

This comic book may not actually exist (yet), but comics and the graphic novel have a long and very interesting history. Researching all comic book history is too much.

One part of this project will have you do research on the history of the graphic novel. Imagining that you are writing this history in the future, that history will contain a graphic-novel version of Station Eleven, and a page or more of your research paper will explore how Station Eleven (based on the comic book that is created for this project) contributed (yes, past tense; you are pretending to be in the future) impacted the history of the graphic novel. The research paper should be about six pages and use at least three secondary sources (nothing like Wikipedia, please) and the issue of Station Eleven produced for this project (create a dummy Works Cited entry for your comic book). The last (seventh) page of the research paper will be an MLA-format Works Cited page.

what you will turn in (and how)

As was noted in the pinkinsh sidebar box near the top, this project will be done in steps; there are three of them. Each step has a separate due date (see Class Schedule page). The first step requires you to make a choice.


1. graphic fiction Project Proposal

Before you spend a great deal of time on the research, the invention, the writing, you will need to get a Project Proposal approved by me. Be sure you check the due date on the Class Schedule.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: I will not accept your final project if you have not had the Project Proposal approved. Then things roll down hill in a very unfortunate way--you will not get a score for this 200-point paper; you will not pass the class.

The proposal itself is not hard, but it does require you to have considered your options, to have thoroughly read and understood the project choices. The (short) proposal will be typed in MLA format, and it will include:

You will e-mail the Project Proposal as an attched Word (.doc or .rtf) file. Once it is APPROVED! you can go on to the next step.

Simple enough. Before submitting your proposal, look at the Proposal Sample for your project in the Resources section on Etudes.


2. the Research Paper

The research paper will be due a couple of weeks prior to the Final Project (due date is on the Class Schedule). It is absolutely required and is worth up to 100 points.

The paper should be in MLA format and must be about four-to-eight pages, with an additional page being the Works Cited page (don't forget to create a fake entry for the comic book issue of Station Eleven you are writing; the author is Miranda, of course, but I encourage you to put your name down as CO-creator). There should be four sources (do not use Wikipedia or other generic sources, and remember that book sources are good if you can find them:) listed, and all sources must be quoted/documented somewhere in the research paper.

The subject of your research is the history of Graphic Fiction. Obviously, with such a short paper you acannot cover the entire history (though your research sources may; you'd just have to select certain parts of those sources). One way to keep this from being a book-length paper is to look at some narrower focus--just graphic novels in the late-20th and early-21st centuries, for example (this is the period where Graphic Novels started to be considered as legitimate "literature" rather than just expanded comic books). You could narrow it even further if you looked at just a few key figures or a few key graphic novels of the 21st century that represent a certain trend (what is the trend? that will be mentioned in the thesis of your research paper). Of course if you go with the "key" creators of the 21st century, one of those will be Miranda and the two rare issues of her comic. Perhaps you can invent a plan she had to write more, but then the Georgia Flu hit.

At least a page of the research paper will be a discussion of the significance of the comic book(s) called Station Eleven, written by Miranda (and you), to the overall field of Graphic Fiction. Since those comics don't REALLY exist, this is going to require you to get creative. You will need to at least block out the comic book before completing the research paper because you must refer to parts of the comic book you are actually creating

It's fun to invent history. It's what novelists do for a living.

Be sure there are plenty of documented quotations from each of your sources, and if you would like to include pictures (I would), that's super, but those pictures do not count as text pages; you still need about four pages of text (so if you have about two pages of images, your essay will be six pages, plus a seventh page for the Works Cited page.

You will e-mail the Research Paper as an attached Word (.doc or .rtf) file.

You can view a partial Research Paper Sample for your project in the Resources section on Etudes.


3. the Final Project

The Final Project will be the comic book itself. This is also worth up to 100 points.

This is the creative bit, and it has some variables, but first, let me stress one more time a very important distinction: You are NOT writing a comic book version of Mandel's novel Station Eleven. The title of her novel comes from the title of two issues of a comic book that show up several times IN the novel. You are going to write part of one of those comic books mentioned IN the novel.

Above I mentioned you should take note of all the references to those comic books as they show up. A few of the panels (images) are described; a little bit of the script is quoted, so you have some clues and starting points for your own version of one of the comics. Feel free to use some of those lines and images described in the novel, but you will have to expand on them to make part of the comic book come to life. Your Final Project will be about eight pages (so it does not have to be the entire comic book).

At the very least you must do the script (the descriptive bits, the dialogue that usually shows up in word balloons above the characters' heads). There is a specific way for writing comic script; instructions are on this site: How to Write Comic Book Script. This does not need to be the entire book; you should have about eight pages, though.

If you are just doing the script (the words), then follow that format (not MLA) and submit the final comic script via e-mail as an attached (.doc or .rtf) file.

But it might be a whole lot more fun if you did both words and pictures, in the form of an actual comic book. Even if you don't see yourself as especially artistic, consider copying/pasting images you find on the Web for your illustrations. Or if you want to actually draw, paint, whatever, you can create the panels, put on the illustrations, add the text just like a real comic book. NEAT :)

If you do both words and picture, you could scan the pages and submit those as e-mail attachments, but also consider putting the pages on PowerPoint and submitting the PowerPoint file (attached to an e-mail); if you are comfortable with Prezi, you could use that format, or (if you are Web-savvy) you could put the pages on a website (such as a free blogsite such as WordPress or maybe a SimpleSite) and send me the URL (http address) to the site where I can look at it.

You can view a Final Project sample for graphic fiction in the Resources section on Etudes.