Midterm Project

There were two things I absolutely idolized during my childhood. They were comics and basketball. My midterm project represents just that. Comics and basketball are two very different things, however as a child, I saw both of them as one of the same. As a child, I saw these larger-than-life basketball players running up and down the court while people everywhere were cheering them on. I happened to have found myself amongst the people cheering them on as well. Every time they scored a basket, the people around me went wild. By the end of the game, the team that won the game, they were celebrated with cheers from everywhere. As a young kid seeing this, they seemed as if they were real life super heroes. However, heroes in the comic books were just that, “Comic Book Heroes.” They lived life only on the pages of comics strips. However, these comic book heroes made me invested into their stories of struggle and perseverance. As I was trying to find my identity as a child, I felt as if I shared similar struggles and feats as these characters. 

Trying to link both comics and basketball was difficult, but as I was casually flipping through old photos on my laptop, I came across Mike Alcantara, an artist who creates collages of old comic books and turns them into portraits of heroes. I met Mike in May 2019 at Comicpalooza in Houston, TX. I remember being so fascinated by his work and how detailed and precise it was. I can recall asking him why he does collages, and his response was, “It’s good to remember and pay homage to the artist that came before you. They brought you into this world of comics and super heroes. Somehow, someway, we need to continue their stories.” What he told me stuck to me, “Continue their stories.” As I was preparing for this project, I was going over much older comics I do not read anymore and realized that I wanted to tell “MY” story. With this collage I utilized all of theses elements to create my story. The basketball backboard is the foundation of my piece as this was my first ever passion. The comic strips is a commentary of the “Good vs. Evil” battle and the initial struggle of discovering who I am.