Week 2 Revision

                For my final post, I wanted to revisit and revise my post about Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. I want to start off by saying that I don’t feel like I analyzed the comic anywhere near enough in the first post so this is something that I’ve been meaning to do. This comic is fantastic guide for comic book readers to view and understand why the artist of the comic might have drawn something in a certain way. It breaks down and explains important concepts that most comic book authors use to create a successful comic. Besides helping readers understand the comics that they are reading, Understanding Comics also helps new comic book artists become familiar with the conventions seen in modern day comics. The comic also teaches the reader how they, themselves see comics and read them.

                There are many important concepts within the book, such as the importance of how characters are depicted, and how important it is to understand the different ways of progressing from scene to scene.  The comic itself is easy to read, utilizing the same conventions that it is helping us understand. Its simplistic style and use of humor keeps the reader interested and aids to help the reader process all of the information that is being given.  I think that anyone who is interested in comics and has not yet read this, should do so. This comic has helped me to understand and analyze the comics that I have read over the course of this semester, as well as understand the thinking process that was involved with creating it. Understanding Comics stands true to its title. I am glad I was able to have the chance to read it.

Week 13

                This week I read Watchmen by Alan Moore and it was fantastic. I found the story very compelling and the setting just as interesting. The characters were great and unique as well. The comic was easy to read and follow along with and the colors and composition of each panel was amazing. The use of contrasting colors made everything pop of the page. I love that the author goes deep into the backstory of each character to show how they became what they are, why they have their flaws, and why the view of masked vigilantism has degraded within their society. I found the use of more adult themes appropriate to ground the story into reality. Rather than make the heroes flawless, and moral in every sense, the author does what no other super hero writer would do, and gives his characters quite disturbing traits, such being a murderer, a rapist, or even planning on committing genocide. This leads to another thing I found interesting, which is how the author pushed the boundary of what is considered good and evil, right and wrong. The story makes the reader question the morality of its characters and whether they should hate them or agree with their actions. If a man was to save the world, but in the process committed genocide, would we still see him as the savior of Earth? I think it is the way the author gets the readers to question what their reading, that makes comics such as this fantastic and worth reading. I would recommend this comic to everyone, whether they’re into comics or not. 

Week 12

                This week I read a bit of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.  I found it to be quite interesting for a couple of reasons. The story was told from the author’s point of view as a young girl growing up in the Middle East. Through story you get to see her point of view change about religion, the war, and people in general. I found it interesting to see how the main character changed as she got older and how her reaction toward the war changed.  Another thing that got my attention while reading was the cartoony art style that the author chose to use. I found it interesting because the way it was drawn looks like a kid could have created it. I think that the style gives the story a much more upbeat feel while talking about such serious topics, such as death, torture, and terrorism. I also liked how the way it was written made it seem like it was written by the author as a little girl. The violence in the story wasn’t over the top or graphic at all. Much like the style of the comic, the violence, such as people getting hit with clubs, was portrayed much like something straight out of a children’s cartoon. Overall, I enjoyed reading this comic. The style was simple and easy to understand, same as the writing. I found its historical content interesting and how relatable it is with the stories I hear on the news.  I also liked that it gave me a bit of a background as to what it is like growing up in Iran around the time the story takes place.

Week 11

For this week, I read A History of Violence written by John Wagner and Illustrated by Vince Locke. I chose to read this comic because I remember hearing of a movie that was made based off of it, going by the same title. I haven’t watched the film, but I figured that it had to be a decent comic if they made a movie out of it. I’ll start off my discussion of this comic by saying that I’m glad it wasn’t as graphically violent as what I read for last week, despite violence being a major theme in the book. The artwork in the comic was fantastic. I loved how the artist used cross-hatched lines to give the story an even grittier and rough feel. The story was amazing with the way that it set the mood for the entire book right at the beginning while introducing two of the antagonists. The first chapter was extremely suspenseful with each page wanting me to continue reading on, rising up to an equally suspenseful showdown between the protagonist and his family, and the main antagonist.

I found the second chapter just as interesting, revealing the backstory to the main character. I found it helpful how the author chose to have it go in and out of flashback and present. This allowed the reader to know what was going on while the main character revealed his past to his family. I did have a little trouble for a few seconds when it switched back to the present for the first time because the transition wasn’t too smooth, but after a second or two it made complete sense. I’m not entirely sure how I would make the transitions clearer but that was the only fault I had while reading the comic. Overall, I thought it was an interesting and intriguing read.

Week 10

This week, I read Battle Angel Alita “Last Order” Volume 1, #1-6, by Yukito Kishiro. While reading this comic, right away I noticed that it contained a lot of graphic violence, blood, and gore. I usually don’t mind the violence and a little bit of blood, but severed limbs flying around and people’s heads exploding with their eyeballs flying out, isn’t usually my cup of tea. Despite these complaints, I did read through all the readily available sections of this comic from the course resource page.

I have always been a fan of sci-fi and fantasy stories, so that could have been what kept me reading.  Despite the gore, I somewhat liked the story and wanted to figure out what exactly was going on in this dystopian world. I found it interesting in the way that action scenes were drawn, the way that the artist used long sweeping lines to portray how fast the characters where kicking, or swinging a sword; It really helped to add to the action and create intensity in the scenes of combat. One other thing that I noticed while reading this series is that crazy people in manga are always stuffing their face with junk food at random, and usually inappropriate times. The mad scientist near the beginning was eating flan while creating the cyborg girl, then the scientist’s assistant is seen throwing popcorn in his mouth while discussing the death of his companions, as if he doesn’t care about them at all. I paralleled the food eating concept to that of “L” from Death Note in that he always is seen eating junk food, and also comes across as strange and not normal. I found the comic easy to read, already being somewhat familiar with reading right-to-left in Japanese comics such as this. Overall, I liked the artist’s style in how he uses shadows and silhouettes. His characters were easy to read in the way that the artist drew their gestures and facial expressions.     

Week 9

                This week I read Stories from Heavy Metals by Moebius. While reading, I was drawn to the imaginative landscapes and narratives. I also found the narrative troubling however, with the way that most of his stories build up, and up, and then turns 180 degrees and ends abruptly. Some stories, this type of story-telling worked, but in others it just left me with so many questions. The first story alone left me with a ton of questions, such as, what is up with those naked guys and why did that one naked guy kick the guy wearing clothes? Do they not like clothes that much that they resort to such hostility? Why is that caped guy walking around a dead pterodactyl and, why did the pterodactyl come back to life after the other guy fixed the machine? Could it be that the repair man is inside the pterodactyl, repairing the machine that keeps it running? But then how can he see the pterodactyl on his computer screen? Those were just a couple of my thoughts while reading the first story.

                Overall, I really liked his art style with and his heavy use of bright contrasting colors. I found his settings to be eerie and rugged, making them look dangerous and harsh environments. I liked that his work makes the audience contemplate a deeper meaning within most of his stories, imagine what type of world that his characters are living in, and think about how they can relate the scenarios to the real world.  

I first noticed racism in comics while reading Winsor MacCay’s Little Nemo.  The black characters in his comics were overly stereotyped, with lips that covered half their face and heavy use of Ebonics.  While reading some of the more modern comics, such as Mama’s Boyz by Jerry Craft, you can see that much of the stereotyping in comics has been done away with.  Characters are represented more realistically with less exaggerated features. Some television shows, such as animated series like The Boondocks and Black Dynamite use stereotypes and overly exaggerates them, leading the shows to be more satirical and humorous.  I don’t think that stereotyping is a necessary strategy to represent characters.  I think that comics shouldn’t have to use stereotypes, but in the case with The Boondocks, the use of stereotypes makes it much more hilarious.

I remember in middle school I was stereotyped, a pretty bad stereotype too.  I was the quiet guy who didn’t talk to anyone and sat in the back corner of the class drawing and not paying attention.  Everyone thought I was going to bring a gun into school and shoot everyone. Some people joked about it, and some people just ignored me, I tried not to pay attention. It probably didn’t help my image that most of my drawings were of swords and other weapons, sometimes chopping people in half. I also shouldn’t have drawn a guy getting shot in the face with a machine gun on the back of a test. I remember being called to the principal’s office and him telling me that I should try drawing flowers and cars instead.  Eighth grade wasn’t too fun…