{"id":136,"date":"2022-02-08T15:30:53","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T22:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancroxall.net\/w22dh\/?page_id=136"},"modified":"2022-02-15T14:54:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T21:54:32","slug":"encoding-peanuts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/w22dh\/assignments\/encoding-peanuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Encoding Peanuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rationale<\/h2>\n

As I’ve told you, this class got its start with Amy Schulz Johnson asking my colleagues in ODH<\/a> to help her do some analysis of her dad’s work. Those colleagues created a corpus of Peanuts<\/em>\u00a0by harvesting data from GoComics.com<\/a>. The GoComics team has created transcripts of what happens in the comics, which are tremendously helpful. But…it turns out they’re not always exactly correct. Just take a look at Schulz’s comic for Schulz’s comic for 23 January 1952<\/a> and GoComics’s corresponding data transcript<\/code>:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

\n Schroeder sits at the piano playing. Charlie Brown comes up to him and says, “Say, that’s sensational, Schroeder…what is it?” He looks to the reader confused as Schroeder replies, “Grasse Sonata fur das Hommer-Klavier” As Schroeder resumes his playing, Charlie Brown walks away. The latter says, “Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong around here!”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So it’s close…but it’s maybe not close enough. There’s a lot of information that isn’t captured in this transcript: what music Schroeder is playing and all its attendant information; what happens in which panel; the question mark that Charlie Brown “speaks”; the McCloudian transitions (see chapter 3) across the gutters; and how Schulz signs his name. And that’s just the first five things I thought to type!<\/p>\n

We can do better than this! Creating marked-up editions of Peanuts strips will provide us the chance to more accurately represent the strip, as well as enriching it in the specific ways that we care about: themes, settings, tagging person or place names, recording weather and activities, the direction characters move across the page, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Creating such editions is time-consuming and requires serious attention to detail. But the opportunities for research that we gain with this process makes it worth the investment. To paraphrase John A. Walsh<\/a>, encoding Peanuts<\/em> will “facilitate both close and distant reading strategies” (par. 17).<\/p>\n

Nitty Gritty<\/h2>\n

Each of us will markup one month of strips from each of the volumes we’re reading for class. That’s about 60 strips, when all is said and done. And then you’ll write a reflection on the project…because of course you will.<\/p>\n

This assignment has two due dates. The first month of encoded strips is due on 12 March<\/strong>. The second month of encoded strips and your reflection is due on 9 April<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Before you read further, it’s worth saying that this assignment looks…overwhelming<\/strong>. We will be covering all of this in class and will have some time in class where we are working together to tag things to get you used to what you’re doing. It’s true that this is an assignment that will take you a significant amount of time (plan on at least 5 minutes per strip). But you can<\/em> do it, as long as you don’t leave it to the last minute.<\/p>\n

Assignments<\/h3>\n