Wheelchair Man is a short semi-autobiographical comic series written by Mohammad Sayed's childhood coming from Afghanistan to the U.S. This series addresses the challenges of surviving war and being different while challenging the status Quo.
Layers
Much like the analogue process of illustration, the digital illustrations for this project were completed with several layers. The red lines represent the drafting line for architectural structures, followed by gestural black sketches, black assertive contours and lastly black fill lines.
The Rock: Wheelchair Man's headquarters located in the Hindu Kush mountain range stretching from Pakistan to Afghanistan
Story telling without words
The opening sequence to Wheelchair Man 2: Captain Afghanistan, is a serious of action illustrations of Wheelchair Man flying into Kabul International Airport. There are very few words leaving the reader at the mercy of the illustrations to understand time and place in the story.
Wheelchair Man's first siting of Massoud, before his transformation into Captain Afghanistan
Viewpoint
These spreads show how dramatized viewpoints, like in film, can embellish or pause on a moment in the story.
Angled viewpoints in the war scenes create extra jarring environments
An ominous view of the Wheelchair Man headquarters
The Lab inside the Rock appears as a fisheye view
PANELs
Panels and frames are a perfect opportunity for artistic freedom in graphic novels. Panel placement is based purely off of the content of the story and can be used to enhance a shift in character thought. Sometimes the rules are lifted, as seen below where Massoud stands free of all panels.
