Transtorno depressivo entre universitários: elaboração de história em quadrinhos de caráter informativo

Abstract

This essay aims to create a comic material of informative nature, focused at university students who have depression as well as for the people around them. It discusses many depressive disorders, their symptoms and impacts on young students, bringing in a theoretical basis for later studies. It also discusses the comic books as a language, and the efficiency of this approach to convey the right message to the target audience, briefly showing the kinds of publications that are relevant for the essay and the type of publication that was chosen for the publishing of the final product, according to the kind of story to be developed for this piece of work. The essay also contains reviews of comics that have similar themes, showing an existing demand for comics portraying mental health issues, and that this demand is better answered on online media. Then the practical section of the essay is approached, including a series of interviews with college students who have depression; the analysis of this interviews and the use of it for the script and characters’ development; the transformation of the script into graphic material, including the concept art of characters and scenarios. Later on, the comic’s graphic development is exposed, including the steps of sketches, final art, scanning, image treatment, layout and publishing. Each step is thoroughly demonstrated with the aid of a step-by-step registered from the actual final product. Finally, the publishing is studied, thinking about the target audience, the costs and viability of the publishing, the best tools for connection and feedback, the ease for the author at the act of publishing the chapters and the ease for the reader to find the comic and being able to subscribe and receive notifications about new chapters.