Back on October 9th, my brother Andrew and I had the unique opportunity to speak with a class of Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) students attending Professor Sean Foley’s History 3010 class. There we spoke about our joint comic book project titled Burden and it was humbling to hear all of the positive feedback we received as the students were able to read an initial version of the story before we arrived.
Professor Foley got a copy of the story from my brother earlier in late 2023 and saw a chance to use it as a teaching tool concerning visual and verbal storytelling.
We had created this project as an assignment for Andrew’s studies and it has since made some waves with the community. The short story features the main protagonist, Andy, and his conversations with a therapist named Emily. He deals with the heavy toll of military service and how it impacts his mental health.
Commercial Comic Book Planning
Burden will be receiving a commercial version that features the main story and other extra artwork and info about its creation. As of today, I’m preparing those materials and eager to make it available to a wider audience.
I imagine veterans, like my brother who served in Iraq in the early 2000’s, will find the story approachable and respectful. Andrew gave me quite a bit of artistic freedom concerning the panel layouts and pacing. He wanted to use a mix of styles for the characters blending the styles from Georges Remi’s TinTin and Craig Thompson’s Blankets.
It’s a clear departure from my usual realism found in my pencil portraits – I really like that here. Our goal is to release it during this last quarter of 2024 or in early 2025 at the latest.
Reflections
I want to extend my deepest thanks to Professor Foley, the class, and my brother for all of the support here. It was very interesting to hear which panels, pages, and symbols resonated the strongest. I love a good visual symbol in comics and Burden has plenty of them.
Burden is one of those projects that blends a small segment of my brother’s life story with a greater narrative concerning world events and warfare. It’s a unique production that I’m proud to be a part of.
Keep telling stories,
Jeremy