Week 15: Revision of week 7

For the blog revision, I had decided to speak a little more about one of my favorite readings in the first half of the semester 
MAUS.  

I had never read any non-fiction comics prior to MAUS, and since reading it I've found it being one of my favorite genres of comics. The unique way Spiegelman depicts the heavy hearted topic of the holocaust is approachable and made me appreciate the comic even more.  If he had chosen to depict the characters as human instead of animals I would have been less intrigued and probably be more inclined to pause the reading after the more violent scenes. Even if this reading wasn't mandatory, I would've read its entirety because of how compelling and well illustrated the story was. I wanted to know what happened and I cared so much for the Vladek the mouse. The characters were beyond believable, and the transitions between the present time of the story and the historic flashbacks made the heaviness of the story balanced and bring a second interesting narrative between the cartoonist's relationship with his father. Though the style was charming, it did not take away from seriousness of the situation, and instead made the event more palatable for younger or light hearted viewers.  

The story played out as real life would and I was surprised and upset when Valdek passed away in Maus book 2, but I ended feeling satisfied as the book closed with Valdek reuniting with Anna. I enjoyed having an open window to these peoples lives and I loved being able to be sympathetic towards what are essentially drawings of mice, cats, pigs and dogs.  I had never read a biography told through a lense of visual fiction, but I would love to read to more books that take this approach. 

MAUS feels like an anomaly of comics to me. I'm glad it helped legitimizes comics for the skeptical scholars and I feel it did this because there were so many aspects that it had going well for it. For starters, it had a true compelling story that was told through live recordings so that the reader knows that the statements said are from a reliable primary source. The story told was of one of the most recent historic tragedies known to man which would entice most people to read whether fans of comics or not. The writer also told his perspective of being told the story by his father in the comic in such a fluid way that the readers also feel they are there in the room with Vladek and Spiegelman. The decision of portraying the characters as animals was another added layer to it being well received, and probably the reason why it is a recommended source of reading in high school history classes.  MAUS had all these different elements working well together making it for myself at least an instant classic that many others should read.  

Week 14: The Future of Comics

Webcomics is probably the majority of the comics I read. They are easily accessible and to my knowledge most are at no cost. With how the internet has evolved, it has provided something interesting to future of comics. Some of the new comics I had read from the resource page were Trash Mountain, Delta: First Word, and What Has Happened to Me. These had reminded me of some of the underground comics we had read earlier in the semester sharing crude imagery, explicit adult content, and political views. Now with how easy it is to share content with others, more "outside the box" and personal comics that would be rejected by publishers for being too risky can be shared with anyone with access to the internet. I think this new opportunity is advantageous to society because it allows different perspectives to be heard which can inspire and inform others to be more open-minded and keep creating original content. When the works of artists go through publishers, there are many filters to keep the company safe and viable which can dull the experience of the artwork and prevent the viewer from growing. I think it's important to expose yourself with as many different perspectives as possible to discover new ways to approach social problems. 

Now if the webcomic doesn't tread on controversial topics it can still be published to reach a different audience with little to no alterations. This was the case of my favorite webcomic Space Boy.

(the link to it is here https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/space-boy/ep-1/viewer?title_no=400&episode_no=1)

Space Boy follows a young girl that can sense anyone's personality and describe it through flavors, such as, hot chocolate (her father), mint (her mother), jalapeno (her best friend) and so on.  One day she meets one person whose flavor she cannot sense and tries to find the reason why. This new way of looking at personalities as flavors is what drew me into the comic and is the foundation of the comic's charm. The horizontal scrolling format of the comic is also used masterfully as the story develops and shows a new form of comics; one that feels more vast and unending than print.  Space Boy had grow a large enough audience to be published by Dark Horse comics. I own some copies and I do feel that its best format and experience is online, preferably on a mobile device.

Week 13: Reconsidering the Superhero

I have not read much of super hero comics even though they are a large genre of the world of comics, so large that people's first idea of comics will most likely be connected to super heroes.  Though I do not read much of the comics specifically, I do engage other media involving super heroes such as TV, films and video games.

For this week, I had read some issues from Black Panther: World of Wakanda.  I was intrigued by the fact that the story was female oriented and also focused on a lesbian relationship. The superhero media of today has acknowledged its lack of minority representation and has remedied this by having minorities play larger roles.   As a result, there has been a rise in strong female characters in this age of media while reconsidering the superhero.  In specifically Black Panther: World of Wakanda, characters that drive the majority of story are female.

Though I appreciated these topics being talked about and minorities being represented, I felt that the writing in the World of Wakanda felt forced and did not flow as well as it could have. This is similar to my feelings of the film Captian Marvel. What both of these shared is having strong capable women as leads but these characters were strong only because the plot requires it, and as a result, the strength they have does not feel earned or convincing. With World of Wakanda, I do not have trouble believing these are strong women, but the element that feels forced is the romantic relationship Aneka and Ayo have. It feels as if they are together only for the need of representation and no effort was given to build the relationship. Sometimes I feel as if mainstream media portrays these minorities for the purpose of gaining monetary profit rather than actual caring about the true stories minorities have to offer.

The Killing Joke Assessment

ASSESSMENT 

What is your reaction to the text you just read?

A bit confused and shocked. I felt the situations brought were interesting and weren’t typical from what I have seen in other DC media involving the Joker, expect in the most recent film Joker by Warner Brothers. It feels as if this is a stand alone piece from the DC universe and has no continuity with other storylines from the comics which explains the unlikely actions and responses of the characters like Batman laughing in the final. It feels like fantasy hallucination from the Joker. As if this is all in his head and Joker is still in the insane asylum. 

What connections were you able to make with the work? Discuss them.

The story tries to explain how anyone can end up as terrible as the Joker if they were pushed enough. If they had just “one bad day,” they would be doing the same heinous crimes. The recent film Joker also plays with this message along with talking about the struggles of mental illness. Doing this tries to make the viewer sympathize with these violent characters giving them a understandable sad backstory. They are just like anyone else, and shouldn’t be outcasted by society when their upbringing could’ve happened to anyone. Everyone is capable of harm as they are capable of doing good.

What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium. What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

Watching Allen Moore’s perspective of trying to make his stories be best experienced through comics makes me think that if it was adapted into another medium there should be changes so that it doesn’t copy the original text exactly. Give the viewers a new experience. Creating this story into an interactive game where the player is the Joker would be interesting. It puts the player into the villains shoes and could maybe emphasize the writer's point of how easily anyone can be a villain. If the player is the villain, a more sympathetic and empathetic response would be given to the material. 

Week 12: Women in Comics

For this week's reading I had read the beginning of Fun Home during class and had decided to read all of This One Summer and the short women-centric comic strips from Buzzfeed (link: Here).  For this blog post, I will be exclusively talking about This One Summer.

 I really enjoyed This One Summer. Delving into the lives of young adolescent women brought a small form of nostalgia to me. Remembering my naivety and innocence when I was young always brought a smile to my face. I've usually enjoyed stories telling the age period of when children are trying to grasp how the adult world works. I found the relationship that Rose and Windy shared compelling, realistic, and relatable. I especially enjoyed reading when they would have small spats, like when Windy kept saying "kidding" or the more interesting conversation of Rose's views about the older women surrounding them.  As a child, its hard to completely understand the situation that adulthood brings and This One Summer really shows that perspective.  Rose's naivety keeps her from fully understanding the arguments that her parents have and the pressure that Jenny has to go through. Rose refers to the teenage girls as sluts and she includes her mother when she questions why women can't just handle their own problems. This is a recurring subject that Rose interacts with as she views the women that surround her, even the helpless women in the horror movies she watches with Windy influences her to have a negative perception of adult women.  She begins to build frustration against these women without completely understanding their situations, however later on she forms a small understanding of the internal struggle these women deal with (like Jenny attempting to drown herself in the ocean and overhearing her mother's miscarriage story).

For this reading, I had decided to look online and read some reviews. Most of the reviews that gave poor ratings had issues with its foul language and had complaints that the material wasn't suitable for their children who they purchased the book for. One of the aspects that makes This One Summer great is that the subjects it presents are a realistic representation of the lives of these adolescents. The topics that are brought up about womanhood maybe too intense or go over children's heads. The book is more suited for adults reminiscing back towards their adolescents rather than for actual adolescents, but I would suggest having older children read this while having a conversation with their parents about what they read. It would be an important influence on them to be exposed to some of the struggling situations pertaining to womanhood.

Also one final note that I would like to mention was that I thought the art work was fantastic!

Week 11: Comics as Contemporary Literature

Reading the recommend text Asterios Polyp this week gave me a new perspective of a comic's ability to expand its narrative. David Mazzucchelli crafts this piece with beautiful stylistic voice and a compelling story dealing with perceptions of life. The aspect I admire the most is his attention to different fonts and speech bubbles used for each character. They are each unique yet still fit within atheistic of the comic and shows how far character designs can be shown outside of the character's physical appearance. I feel Mazzucchelli really expands what a storyteller can do through the medium of comics and uses its full potential. Along with having a well composed aestheic, Asterios Polyp has a compelling story that is best told through its visuals. The book focuses on the unique perspectives each person can have while telling the life story of Asterios and Hana. 

While reading this I found myself enjoying it and finding it refreshing from the standard of format of comics i'm used too. I see this as work of art and I love seeing the attention to detail in the stylization, compositions, and writing of the comics. Though the book is mostly about Asterios, I feel Hana really shines throughout the story. I felt her character to be more relatable personally, not only as an artist but also being timid and shy. Her quote "Just because somebody's quiet doesn't mean he doesn't have an opinion!" really struck with me and I think few people realize this point.  

Week 10: Manga and Japanese Comic Tradition

For this week I had read Budda by Osamu Tezuka, Rama Book 1 by Rumiko Takahashi, and Cinderella Boy by Makoto Yumeno.

While reading and learning about manga this week I was surprised to learn how segregated the genres of manga were. Of course manga is for any age group to enjoy but having them separated by gender and age is unique to what I have seen in American comics. Finding out how large the manga market is and the acceptance of it in Japanese society also shows me how differently comics are perceived in American society.

There's a discernible difference between manga and American comics. The most obvious difference was that manga are traditionally black and white and comics are in color. However, a volume of manga is much longer than a standard issue of a comic. Also the demand for manga seemed to have a larger demographic than comics which is the result of the different cultural perceptions of illustrated literature. From my experience, comics and manga had preconceptions of its readers being immature or childish, and as a result these media were not as respected as regular books. Even though I was never shamed by my family for my interests, I always felt this pressure from classmates at school. I still struggle with bringing up my interests with others for fear of being seen as immature.

Of the manga I read this week I found Budda to be the most interesting in terms of story and art style. The design of the characters were charming and felt as if they had some influence of classic Disney characters. The movement and the expressions were fluid and not as stiff compared to Rama and Cinderella Boy and its story line was more serious in tone. Rama and Cinderella both slightly failed to keep my interest because their storylines felt surface level and the characters weren't compelling enough to convince me to read more.