Bottom of the Ninth

Visual arts professor Ryan J. Woodward (BFA ’03) stepped up to the plate to create a new kind of app that blends two of his favorite worlds: animation and graphic novels. At first, Woodward admits, his idea for an animated comic book seemed like nothing short of science fiction—something as impossible as the moving photos in a Harry Potter newspaper. But after spending some time with an iPad, Woodward realized that his science-fiction dream was more realistic than he’d imagined. After what he calls “the most intensive six months” of his life, his animated novel, Bottom of the Ninth, was complete. The innovative app augments a classic comic book with touch-activated animated film to tell the story of Candy Cunningham’s debut as a rookie pitcher on a futuristic baseball diamond.