Webcomics: Rayne Zaayman-Gallant

Each student’s work is released in four instalments over four weeks. Check back next Friday to read the following part.

This webcomic explores sensitive mental health issues, including suicide.

Inspiration

Rayne’s web comic is called Metamorphosis and her interplay of colours is used to convey deep emotions and feelings. Sadness, hopelessness and brokenness are seen in shades of blue; hope and happiness are shaded in light, bright and yellow tones.

She used the imagery of a caterpillar slowly changing into a butterfly to symbolise the metamorphosis of the two characters on the bottom of each page.

Metamorphosis is about young love, mental illness and how two people deal with their mental health in different ways.

In Rayne’s own words: “My family is my greatest priority and when my brother told my parents he had thoughts of suicide, it touched me deeply. A person suffering from mental illness can be overcome with feelings of grief, sadness, and loneliness and usually struggles with the ability to communicate and share this pain with their loved ones.

The aim of my webcomic is to not just inform people who do not suffer from depression what it can feel like to have depression, but also to inform the people who suffer from depression that there is a way out of this darkness, and that they do not need to hide their emotions or suffer alone."

Biography

Rayne is a South African-born graphic designer presently undertaking her Masters in Comic and Graphic novel design at the University of Dundee. She believes strongly that with love, faith, and hope, one can start the healing process.

The webcomics published across our digital channels have been created by University of Dundee’s Masters in Comics and Graphic Novels students.