Visual Communications students at Ivy Tech Community College Northeast worked with interns and student workers in the Marketing and Communications office at the College this semester to write and illustrate their own graphic novel, “Finding Ivy.”
“Finding Ivy” tells a series of stories that take place after the downfall of the fictional town Atropolis, where money once literally grew on trees and machines helped the citizens of Atropolis with their daily work. When the machines take over and the dollars on the trees dry up, the citizens find themselves in a city looking for a ray of hope. It is up to a small group to re-learn how to control the machines and find the only thing that can save their future: the Ivy Seed.
The project was led up by the Ivy Art Society, a student group of Visual Communications majors who worked on the project throughout the semester in addition to their regular class work. They will have a booth with “Finding Ivy” at the Appleseed Comic Con on May 17 and 18 at The Grand Wayne Center, 120 W. Jefferson Blvd. Copies of “Finding Ivy” will be free, and student artists will be available to discuss their work on the graphic novel.
“It feels really exciting because everybody’s going to be seeing it (at Appleseed), and possible future employers could see it or say, ‘She made something that actually got produced,’” says Colene Smart, a Visual Communications student who illustrated a spread in the piece. “I’ve been drawing all my life. I’ve always had a pen and paper in my hand.”
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