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…

Promethea

            While reading Promethea by Allan Moore, I noticed several prominent symbols throughout the comic.  The first symbol I noticed was the scepter with the snakes, similar to the medical symbol.  The girl’s father at the beginning of the story summoned the staff while giving his daughter time to flee, sacrificing himself.  One of the gods that meets the girl in the desert holds this staff. Later, we see that Promethea (the girl) and all other reincarnations of her wield a glowing magical version of the scepter.  I assume that the scepter is representing that whoever is holding it is protecting someone else, such as the father protecting the girl, and writer that turns into Promethea protecting the former Promethea.  Another symbol that I noticed was the ankh, the Egyptian symbol for “life”.  One of the gods that meets the girl in the desert wields a staff with an ankh on the end, and later in the story, you can see it again on Promethea’s armor.

            I was able to connect with a bit of the story, remembering studying ancient Egypt in middle school; I recognized a lot of the symbols and gods. I recognized Hermes with his winged helmet as well. I can connect with the main character a bit with being in college and writing term papers. Other than that, there isn’t much more I can relate to in this comic.
            If I were to adapt Promethea into a movie, I would probably leave out the scene with “The Five Swell Guys”.  I think that the audience wouldn’t understand it and it doesn’t really fit in the serious theme of the story.  Another change I would make would be with the two gods meeting the girl in the desert.  In the comic, I’m not sure whether or not the gods are supposed to be conjoined.  In the first panel with them, their arms are confusing in that they are going through each other’s torso.  In a later panel, it looks like they are conjoined on at their shoulder down to their hip. This was really confusing me when trying to figure out who was holding what staff. I wonder why the artist made them conjoined, If the reason isn’t important, I would have them as two separate gods. These are just some of my thoughts while reading Promethea

Maus

This week I read Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman.  I have heard of this comic before but I have never gotten around to reading it.  I thought it was going to be just another story of a holocaust survivor, just with cats and mice, and for the most part I assumed right. What made this comic stand out from other holocaust stories is the way Art Spiegelman drew it and told it.  I thought that the comic was expertly designed with the way that Spiegelman used his line work to get across emotions and mood in the story.  Characters emotions could be seen though beads of sweat on their faces when they are under pressure, as well as stress lines that can be seen under the eyes of all of the prisoners in despair.  You could tell the disgusting conditions of the Nazi camps by the way fumes were drawn emanating from the prisoners outfits and barracks within the camp.

            I found it interesting that Spiegelman portrayed the different races as different animals with Jews being mice, Germans being cats, and the Polish being represented as pigs.  Although Spiegelman did this to make it easy to distinguish the characters in the story, apparently making the different races look like different animals in the story was criticized for promoting ethnic stereotypes.  I liked how Spiegelman showed that the mice were trying to hide their identities by wearing pig masks.  I found the comic easy to follow with it panels being placed in an easy to read manner with not much text per page.

            Before reading, I assumed that the book was a fictitious tale about the holocaust, except the characters were animals.  I did not realize that the comic was about the author’s father telling the story of his family and experience of World War II.  The story was interesting and disturbing.  I would definitely suggest this graphic novel to anyone who has not read it.

Week 3 Assignment

This week I drew a comic about a kid talking to his stuffed animal and believing it is real. The inspiration for this comic was inspired after reading of a couple of Calvin and Hobbes comics.  Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson, are hilarious and very sophisticated, with something that almost everyone can relate to.  The character of Calvin is a clever and witty child that loves to go on make believe adventure with his stuffed animal tiger named Hobbes. I think that the exaggerated expressions and gestures of the characters really add to the story telling.

Calvin sees Hobbes as a real tiger that converses back and for to him, but his parents just see Hobbes as a stuffed animal. I figure that Calvin talking to his stuffed tiger is representing his wild child imagination and not the fact that he might have schizophrenia, which would be rather dark for comic targeted toward people of all ages.  I enjoyed reading about the adventures of Calvin and Hobbes and found them to be very inspirational.

Week 2 Assignment

This is my short comic about a sniper shooting a walking skeleton in the head. From reading Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, I learned of the different importance between realism and simplification in comics, as well as learning about icons and abstraction. I learned about the different transitions from panel to panel such as moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, and aspect-to-aspect. I attempted to use words as sounds effects in my comic, but after re-reading the instructions for the assignment, I took them out.  I learned of closure in comics, and instead of having my comic end with the bullet just whizzing through the air, I gave it closure by having the zombie get shot through the head.

Wordless Comics

At first I thought I was just looking at a series of random images, but as it zoomed out on the picture of the family, The Arrival by Shaun Tan started making sense to me. The story slowly progressed through series of images closely related, such as one showing the family of the main character, then the next picture is zoomed out more revealing that it is actually a framed picture of the family, and then after that it shows the main character wrapping the picture in a cloth. It continues to follow this pattern throughout the story. The characters expressions and gestures also influence the mood of each scene. Flashbacks are represented in a different way. When the story goes into a flashback, I noticed that the pictures get darker and grayer, possibly representing how the past events were dark and depressing times.  The darkness connecting with the past events is shown in the one picture where the giants with vacuum machines are sucking up the townsfolk and their faces are covered in shadows. The sky around the town is dark, and the city is blanketed in darkness in the wake of the giants. The darker images also seem to represent negative moments, such as when the main character is on the boat, alone, without his family. When he gets off the boat, the images start to get lighter again.

Some events are repeated in the story, such as him arriving to the city in a flying box, and then later his family arrives in a similar box. At one point it shows the main character gesturing someone to look at a map so he can get directions, then at the end of the story, a woman is gesturing to a map, and the main characters daughter gives her directions, so I though that was an interesting way to tie up the story. I also noticed that each chapter separated the days that each event occurred. One thing that I am unsure of was the period of time between each chapter. I am not sure if each chapter happens months apart, or if the main characters family meets back up with him only a week after the first chapter.