Note: Sam Hass is the Artist Editor at The Daily Campus
The world of graphic novels is a rapidly growing one, with a myriad of writers and artists making a name for themselves in the field. Joining this extensive list is Sam Hass, a University of Connecticut student who recently completed her first graphic novel.
Hass, a sixth-semester English major and studio art minor, pursued an independent study course in the Fall 2024 semester where she wrote and illustrated “Kel Unshelled,” a 98-page graphic novel aimed at a young adult audience.
Growing up reading comic strips like “Garfield” and graphic novels that her older cousin collected, Hass developed an interested in writing graphic novels early in her life. She cited the series “Bone” by Jeff Smith as one of her main inspirations thanks to how it blended “a serious narrative and storylines, but with really goofy-looking characters with a comedic flair” to make it more accessible for young readers.
“If you draw something super hyper-realistic and detailed, then a kid is probably not going to be drawn to that,” Hass said. “And since this is for a younger audience, I had to walk the line between welcoming and serious character designs.”
The novel follows the story of Kel, a young boy who takes the form of a turtle after witnessing an accident involving one of his best friends, and explores themes of grief, trauma, survivor’s guilt and mental health. To convey these themes in a way that younger audiences would understand, Hass choose to use the surreal image of Kel as a turtle as a metaphor for him closing himself off to the world.
“The protagonist takes the form of a turtle, but he’s not actually a turtle: he’s a kid coping with seeing something that he didn’t want to see,” she explained. “The way we see his world and the presentation of himself is different than what’s actually happening, and he’s the only character that takes the form other than that of a human.”
The project began when Hass approached UConn Distinguished Professor of English Regina Barreca, her English advisor and then-professor, after class about making a graphic novel as an independent study. Barreca was on board, but instructed Hass to get her a story pitch by the next class.
With a deadline way sooner than she expected, Hass sat in a lounge in her dorm with a notebook racking her brain to come up with an idea. She wrote down words to come up with a theme, eventually writing down the words “vulnerability” and “openness.” She also made quick sketches in the margins and began drawing turtles, saying that “if you’re shelled, then you have a hard exterior.”
Barreca greenlit the idea and Hass got to working fleshing out the story in May 2024. She researched post-traumautic stress disorder and its impacts on youth to help her fully develop Kel’s character. The script she wrote consisted of a giant list of what images would go on each panel and how many panels would be on each page.
From there, Hass spent the summer storyboarding the novel, drawing rough ideas by hand of what each panel would look like. To add details, she went around her hometown taking reference photos to use as background for the story.
When the fall 2024 semester began, the story was nearly finalized, with Barreca adding edits to make the story flow better. The biggest change she suggested was to alter the ending, arguing that it didn’t fit with the themes Hass was trying to convey. Hass added that writing the story was the hardest part of the process, especially when it came to the characters and “making sure that their actions were consistent from start to end.”
With the ending reworked, it was time for the longest stage of the process: inking. Hass took pictures of her hand-drawn sketches and uploaded them on her iPad to Procreate, a digital illustration app. The app allowed her to make panels easily and add text boxes. Some pages, especially those dominated by conversations, could be finished in one day. Other, more complex pages took a few days to get the shading and details right.
With the novel completed, Hass is currently working on getting it published. She admits that this process has been intimidating, but she has been researching publishing houses that take open submissions.
Hass described “Kel Unshelled” as the greatest and most substantial project she’s ever worked on, and has helped her reaffirm her future ambitions for wanting to make more graphic novels in the future.
“There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. The whole process was incredibly rewarding to me, even when it was frustrating. I loved seeing a big project like this come together.”