This poster print entitled, “Choose Your Own Misadventure” was featured at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts’ 2016 “It’s Alive!" exhibit. In this piece, I blended inspiration from the "choose your own adventure" genre books I loved as a child combined with my passion for horror media to create "Choose Your Own Misadventure."
Using the format of a visual map, I traced the paths of characters as they experienced various forms of calamity.
Ghosts!
With each step, I incorporated literal tropes often repeated in horror films, such as "jump scares," abrupt audio and visual cues intended to jolt the audience. I featured examples of this scare tactic in the panels, "cat scare" and "crow scare."
One panel bids the viewer, "choose your weapon." As the final, or story-ending panels indicate, the choice is rendered futile. Baseball bat, samurai sword, or table fork? Ultimately, one's dismal fate is made clear. The objects exist as mere artifacts of the genre and offer no paths to safety.
By presenting the recurring themes of horror in a whimsical style, this piece engages the viewer through entertaining tableaus while still confronting them with the darker elements of the genre.
Choose Your Own Misadventure inspires laughter and invites reflection regarding one's intellectual and emotional responses concerning the horror genre.