I was trying to achieve two things in this piece. One, to articulate what goes on in my mind every time when I am stuck at a traffic light. And in doing so, incite a feeling of familiarity with readers who have a similar experience. Two, I wanted the readers to perform an activity together with me in their mind when they are reading this cartoon. I wanted them to do the countdown in the first three panels.
Much like a stand-up comedy, interaction and engagement with the readers can be achieved with cartooning as well. Although much of what happens will be within the mental space of the readers, it does bring the cartoon to live in a certain way. Think of it this way, if you share your drawings with an audience, it starts to travel and distribute itself in the minds of the readers. It claims a certain mental space in them. As time goes, the image gradually disappears, leaving those that managed to make some ‘noise’.
In the above, my attempt was to create some sort of ‘noise’ through the counting down process. And note, the design was for a gradual close up from three to one. So there is movement along with the count which aims to cement the image further with the readers.
It was a cartooning experiment. Hopefully it worked.
JunMing
Sam Lay 