Stanford creative writing class produces a graphic novel

Tom sez, "Our Stanford Creative Writing class wrote and illustrated a 224 page Graphic Novel this past quarter, and now it's up on the web. The story concerns the phenomenon of acid attacks in Cambodia, especially against women. We made the Graphic Novel in 6 weeks, with a collaboration among 17 students in creative writing, art, and design." Link (Thanks, Tom!)

• [gabu]

  Reading this online right now — it’s really fantastic. Would love to see it as a .pdf, but frankly, if I saw this at Jim Hanley’s or another comic shoppe, I’d snap it up right away. May it end up there some day, with the proceeds to go toward something very meaningful.

• [JessicaJ]

  Like Lauren (hi Lauren!) I’m one of the creators of Shake Girl and made the website myself. The reason it’s not released in PDF form as we originally intended is that it’s a sensitive issue that incriminates certain highly-placed Cambodian officials. Because of this, being totally open with form would leave it a little too easy to alter and parody.

• [sabik]

  Yes, because a series of JPEG files is so much harder to alter and parody than a PDF file…

• [lagomorpha]

  I loved every second of this. Thanks for posting.

  (Ps, jpegs are lower quality than pdf, therefore harder to copy and parody. Think about it! I have no problem either way. I mean, it’s quite readable in this format, so why whine?)

• [RadioGuy]

  @Lauren O

  Don’t take it personally. Arguing about acronyms is what we do for fun around here. :-)

• [ployntabs]

  It’s the story that’s important, not the friggin’ DRM. Read the story. Abosrb the message. Try to be a decent person.

  simple

• [rabican]

  I read this the other night when it was linked on metafilter – I liked it, a lot. I have to say I’ve had some very, very bad experiences with Western writers co-opting Southeast Asian tragedies and was quite pleased and surprised to see how you all (Lauren and Jessica et al) handled it so thoughtfully.

  Did think the ending was a bit off, though. Trying to be vague to avoid spoilers, the last couple of pages seemed … abruptly optimistic (from an outsider’s perspective) compared to how the real life Tat Marina was facing things, perhaps? I realize Shake Girl is not, strictly, Tat Marina, but on the other hand she’s pretty blatantly inspired mostly by her, and considering how closely her life story was followed it was pretty noticeable that the ending got a bit of a Disney-ish gloss.

  Overall, though, I will definitely recommend this to all and sundry (or at least anyone I know who can handle this, since it’s tough material).

• [sabik]

  @ployntabs, there is no DRM. It’s just a series of JPEG files with a little javascript to flip between pages.

  There are things one might complain about here (tiny one-character “next page” link; use of JPEG format for line-art, rather than PNG or GIF) but DRM isn’t one of them. There is no DRM here.

• [Lauren O]

  Well, I, for one, am glad our attempt to spread awareness about a serious issue has inspired people to argue about acronyms and pick nits about format. Truly we have made a positive impact on the world.

• [Lauren O]

  Hey!

  Hey, I was in that class! I helped write this thing!

  It’s a bit surreal seeing it on BoingBoing.

• [tdawg]

  it would be even cooler if they posted it in an open format…

• [mr.skeleton]

  Alas, Tom Kealey! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
  of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
  borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
  abhorred in my imagination it is!

  Not really. But really, Tom’s great.