My web comic story, “What Was That” is about a scary experience I had when I was around 5 or 6. I was at home with my mom and brother and we heard a crashing sound coming from somewhere in the house. My mom dialed 9-1-1 and the police came within minutes. Me and my family were escorted outside while the police searched the house. It turns out, there was no one in the house and the sound came from a fallen-over lamp. But it was still meaningful for me  because it was the first time I had ever really been in an actual police investigation environment, and it was weird and new because it was much more intense than what I had seen on TV and other media before. Once I thought of this story as the basis for my web comic, I started drafting the comic with a “Panel Planner,” which was a tool given in class to help us with designing panels. There were two design choices I made in the web comic that I feel have real meaning behind them. The first design choice I included was softening the words and people. My webcomic is highlighted in rich marker strokes, but I kept the characters and the words they were saying in pencil, to make them stand out against the marker. This is because I want people to focus on the words and characters more while reading. The second design choice is background details. I chose to show details about how I felt in the moment and other specific choices by using the background to represent that. In a moment of high stress or fear, the background is less detailed, focusing more on the person and their emotions. In moments of calmness and happiness, the background is very detailed, focusing on not just the characters, but also the setting. In the web comic, I also wanted to make sure I was balancing words and images. Even though some say words are more important than images, I wanted to make sure I put equal amounts of effort into both. But, there are some panels with no words, usually the panels with more detail in the images. This is to show balance. I feel that the themes in this web comic relate to Persepolis because Marji feels moments of fear, in dangerous moments, but also in moments that feel smaller and less important. I feel that fear is a thread that runs between my web comic and Persepolis, but in different situations and quantities.