Chapter Six is a shocking, highly emotional chapter, opening with the brief, stunning sentence "The dogs were dead". This presents a powerful contrast to the camping adventure with its lazy brunches, petty squabbles and flirting. As the blurb on the back cover puts it, "Hell has come home."

Your task is to present the events of this chapter in the form of a comic strip. You must observe the following guidelines:

• You should have 15-18 frames. Consequently, you must plan carefully which moments to include. Many details found in the novel will have to be left out.
• At least 14 frames must have a caption and/or dialogue attached to them. Do not just copy these from the book; you will probably need to shorten things – e.g. Homer’s "The power’s off in the coolroom. It stinks terrible" might become "Power’s off. The fridge stinks." (In fact, that’s one of the challenge of comic strip writing: how to pack lots of information into just a few words.)
• You must check your text thoroughly for errors before writing it. (Consult classmates and the teacher.)
• You do not have to be a highly skilled graphic artist; however, you should try to make your drawings as clear as possible. Look at some real comic strips and see how the artists vary their perspective (e.g. wide angle, mid-shot, close-up) just as film makers do.

 

Frankie Meehan