In the final year of my Comic and Concept Art BA course at Leeds Arts University we were required to keep a Project Development Journal.

This PDJ was supposed to show how we made progress on our final projects, check-ins, what artist research we were doing, how we made visual/stylistic choices, variations on thumbnails, etc.

We were supposed to make it as we went along, ideally, and regularly show it to our key tutor for feedback (I was lucky enough to have John J. Pearson as my tutor, who wholeheartedly encouraged my approach).

I quickly realised that the best way for me to make this requirement in a way that was sustainable for me and visually appealing in a way that could accurately express complex emotions and ideas, was to draw it. I was hugely influenced by having just read ‘See You Next Tuesday’ by Jane Mai! It’s a group of 4-panel black and white scribbly autobio comics - I was inspired by how they feel like they really were just made for her as diary entries, not for public consumption.

My PDJ became a sort-of comic of its own! Read Death Zine before or after to get some context, but this is also a pretty accurate representation of that year for me.

Here are some of the PDJ pages to scroll through. It’s not the entire thing, as I’d like to release it as a full work one day (double-recommended by a different CCA tutor) despite not planning for it to be seen by anyone except my tutors. Some of this is very personal, so please be kind! Mostly ENJOY!

(TW// mentions of trauma and past-suicidal feelings):