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Introduction
“Isn’t the weather in Maryland so bipolar?” Examining the word usage: what does bipolar mean? What does a bipolar diagnosis entail? This capstone is a 20-page comic in the style of an investigation that centers around the reactions of various entertainment styles to the murder of an individual with bipolar disorder. By creating a comic that investigates how various entertainment forms have misrepresented bipolar disorder, the audience should be inspired to do their own research about the true nature of the disorder.
Literature Review: Artistic Influence
A big influence on this work has been superhero comics, as they often are political messages created to be digestible to a younger, mostly teenage audience. The project mostly draws from the DC comic “Heroes in Crisis” #9, as it is structured as an interview of various characters (King, Mann, 2019), taking the process of interview, and making it longer for each character, to delve more into the psychology of each. The project has also been inspired by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as it is based off superhero comics and has pioneered a new age in animation (Persichetti, et al 2018), taking from this movie the collage aspect, where every character is designed differently, and expands upon the mediums that could be used in the collage.
Literature Review: Scholarly Influence
There were two studies that majorly guided the product: the first was on reactions people had when they were diagnosed bipolar (Mayor, 2025). The main takeaway from this study is that people’s reactions were negative when they heard the word “bipolar,” but gradually became better as they learned about treatment options such as medication and therapy. Both the negative and positive reactions were implemented into the comic: negative for just thinking about the disorder, and positive when knowing about treatment; people don’t hate the people with the disorder, they just hate the idea of it. The second study is on epilogues, and the reactions people had when shown a performance of someone with bipolar disorder (Cohen, 2018). The takeaway here is that thoughts on bipolar disorders are mixed when just seeing a performance but become positive when an epilogue is provided with information about the disorder. Implementing the information into the comic was a realization that just talking about symptoms wouldn’t help, rather there was a need make it explicit that my characters were discussing a mental disorder.
Methods
To craft the story, a media review of various crafts that included a bipolar character was conducted and a mind wandering exercise to explore various situations that could appear within the story was implemented. In crafting characters, there was a combination of rapid iteration, where concept is was rapidly created and style studies, where I would inspect the style of famous artworks and integrate what was most interesting. Most of latter research was on the technical aspects of a comic, such as learning how to create comic panels in Krita (Ampere, 2020). This technical research was essential for crafting the bulk of the project.
Audience & Impact
This comic should reach mostly teenagers who have a vague idea of what bipolar disorder is, but don’t know exactly what it entails. This audience is important as many teens have mental health issues, but don’t know exactly what they are. They should be inspired to do more research into what ails them. By reading the comic, people should become more comfortable with seeing themselves in the pages of a doctoral book.
References
Cohen, Elizabeth L., et al. “Ending as Intended: The Educational Effects of an Epilogue to a TV Show Episode about Bipolar Disorder.” Health Communication, vol. 33, no. 9, 2018, pp. 1097–104, https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1331308.
King, Tom, and Clay Mann. Heroes in Crisis #9. DC Comics, 29 May 2019.
“Krita For Comics Ep. 2: Page Setup.” YouTube, uploaded by Ampere, 26 March 2020, https://youtu.be/WhuYfX2F1Eo?si=XzYnEf0GeF5kn8-j.
Mayor, Eric, and Lucas M. Bietti. “A Social Media Study of Portrayals of Bipolar Disorders on YouTube: Content and Thematic Analyses.” Journal of Medical Internet Research, vol. 27, no. 14, 67129, 2025, https://doi.org/10.2196/67129.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, performances by Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, and Hailee Steinfeld, 2018.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements go to Harold Burgess, Emily Hernandez, Nico Negreira, and all of the Arts Scholars who helped along the way.
About Me
About Me
Jocelyn is a Sophomore from Fredrick, MD studying English at the University of Maryland. Her interests include astronomy and immersive media, including film and games. Jocelyn's prospective research aims to examine multiple forms of media and how their portrayal of mental illnesses has affected the common consensus on how it affects the average person. Her practice in astronomy focuses on the difference in interpretations of the skies between art and science. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English, she plans to apply for law school and eventually work in corporate law, helping to advance the position of women in the field.
As a College Parks Arts Scholar, Jocelyn intends to explore many forms of expression and how their differences affect the portrayal of stereotypes. She is excited to take full advantage of the field trips offered by the program to see how art has taken form in many different communities, and how the people in those communities keep the artistic spirit alive.
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