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**Bentley Tales Narrative** //Bentley Tales// is a story about a dog named Bentley who has a good heart but is always put down by his friends. Bentley and his friends are always shown to be going on exciting and new adventures but this is usually due to the fact that Bentley has forgotten to pack something essential for their trips. In vol 1. episode 1. Bentley and his good friend Klaudia decide to go off to Egypt on their ATV. However Bentley does not seem to be the smartest and forgets to put gas in the ATV. Bentley instead assumes when driving in the desert, the ATV would automatically receive its power through the sun through solar technology. Klaudia is very agitated and annoyed with Bentley. This is not the first time he has made such silly mistakes. Everyone treats Bentley as if he is incompetent. They are now stranded in the desert, Bentley and Klaudia have no other choice except to leave their ATV and find help, however more mishaps happen along the way. As Bentley and Klaudia are walking through the hot desert, Bentley thinks he sees a coconut. Klaudia automatically assumes that Bentley is dense and says he is dreaming and that what he sees is simply a mirage. Bentley being the nice puppy that he is simply acknowledges Klaudia’s remarks and trudges on. It is then when Klaudia thinks she sees water. She points this out to Bentley and then decides to run to the pool of water. However, instead she finds herself face first in a pile of sand. She is so embarrassed. Although Klaudia may have her face stuck in the hot desert sand, Bentley is happily enjoying his ripe and juicy coconut.

Comic Analysis According to McCloud Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art book examines the elements behind comic book creation. The first being My overall theme of the comic is a very upbeat and comical. I portrayed this by having bright colours. I did this through photoshop, increasing the brightness. The “colors objectify their subjects”(McCloud, 189). The light setting (the desert) and brightness symbolizes positive energy and humour I chose to use real life images and edit them to use in my comic. I tried to get the actors that I used in my comic to use extreme facial expressions to show my story line. I edited each photo in photoshop in order to either add more images to make it look more a desert setting or to make the image more abstract. According to The Invisible Art, simplifying an image makes it easier for the audience to indulge. According to McCloud, “Stripping down an image to its essential ‘meaning’, an artist can amplify that in meaning in a way that realistic art can’t”(McCloud,30). This is done to avoid the distractions realistic images hold. It is simply easier for audience to convey the message through abstract images. Although I did add some elements of abstraction to the images I still kept the images quite realistic. I wanted to give a real life sense of humor. The reason for this is because the images are quite realistic however the relationship between the dog (Bentley) and the human (Klaudia) is almost fairy tale like (almost cartoon like). The different combination of the two made me think that it brought out the comedy of the story that much more. I used “due-specific” (McCloud,153) panels in page one and two. I used them to give a background of the story and to still be able to have the character make a speech. However the most popular type of speech that I used was “inter-dependent”(McCloud,155). I used this method throughout my whole comic. The first panel on page three, Klaudia is running towards her mirage but what is interested about the panel is the fact that I try to make it look like movement. I used the method of “motion line”(110). This can be seen through the multiple images of Klaudia slowly getting lighter indicating quick movement.  On the second page I used quite a bit of closure (McCloud, 88). This can be seen by the amount of panels used. This is quite an effective method because it never really allows the reader enough time to wander away and move the story in a the direction it is meant to be told in. The reader is “caught quickly so as not to let the reader fall into confusion or boredom”(McCloud, 90). However another important aspect of my comic is the size of the panels. For example of page two, the longest panel is located on the bottom because it is outstretched since Klaudia (the is pointing out into the distance. It triggers the eye to look forward. This is an example of a bit longer closure than usual. It makes the reader think about it more. This is known as time frames (McCloud, 94). On page three, the top panel where Klaudia is moving in a quick direction is shown to have a long panel however our eye is drawn to move across the image because as our eye takes times to move across the image, this time is portrayed as her running.