Someone’s VES thesis was a graphic novel. 1. Who is this person? 2. How do I meet them? 3. Why the hell am I in Gov? FML

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Last Friday, I had the honor of seeing such thesis and the wonderwoman who created it in person. As part of Dunster House’s Senior Theses Series, Mariah Bush, a senior VES concentrator, presented in front of a 20-odd person audience Elite, a graphic novel about a group of elite superheroes that was inspired by her time at Harvard. (We would inspire a superhero story, what with our fighting Gov, Math, five thousand extracurriculars and a horrifyingly non-existent dating culture at the same time. Duh.)

After a good 10 minutes struggling with the JCR door, I finally managed to get in by realizing that I was, in fact, supposed to pull. Just in time to see someone take the last piece of Finale dessert. Great. But I digress.

Usually, a thesis isn’t the kind of stuff that generates excitement. Conan O’Brien wrote a thesis during his senior year at Harvard concerning the use of children as symbols in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. In his words, “nobody is ever going to care.” That is perhaps putting it a little too harshly. But as I stood outside of Dunster JCR and saw a guy presenting his research project on a bug-eyed insect, I felt like going home (or more precisely, back to my comfy chair in Lamont, where I was cramming for my HAA 1 final the next day).  I’m sure it is all hard work that might potentially turn into something monumental, but it definitely isn’t the stuff I would joyfully jump out of my Lamont chair the night before a final exam and take a shuttle to see. (But I’m also a humanities nerd who’s too lazy to walk to Annenberg, let alone Dunster House, so what do I know?)

(Image: Mariah Bush ‘10 with her senior thesis, Elite – A Graphic Novel)

Mariah Bush had a similar, thesis-dreading thought in mind as she declined Princeton’s admission offer and enrolled at Harvard. Eventually, she did a thesis anyway, but she wanted one that normal people would want to read. And read we did. The novel gathered a really positive response from the crowd, as people flipped through the pages and were captivated by crimson-wearing, crime-fighting and apparently elitist superheroes. Fun stuff.  Getting the proposal passed wasn’t easy. Nobody has ever done it before, and by her own admission, even her thesis adviser didn’t know a whole lot about graphic novels and comic books. Days of photo-taking and wrestling with Adobe Illustrator later, Mariah completed the project and get her own graphic novels printed.

(Image: Elite – A Graphic Novel by Mariah Bush ‘10)

The verdict: Is it a masterpiece, a la Maus? Not really. Will it change your life? I don’t know. But Mariah deserves mad props just for being a 21-year-old with innovation and guts. It’s not easy being different, and it’s definitely not easy pulling off being different. She did. The graphic novel is short, but without a doubt a fun and interesting read. It’s Harvard’s first, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it set the bar really high. Voice approves!

ETA (05/13/2010): The original version of this post lists Mariah Bush as 22 years old. She’s 21.