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.