Week 9: Wide World of Comics

For week 9 I had read the 1st issue of Young Blueberry. 

Learning this was written by a French author from the 1960s was surprising. Moebius wrote about topics specifically towards American culture and history, telling a story during the times of the American civil war. The origin story and portrayal of the outfits and scenery was believable for 1860s America and the author did  a good job creating a convincing story for an adult audience to read. Comparing this to American comics coming out during the same time, Moebius's work deals with more serious topics and the color palettes differ from the bright colored superhero comics of America. I think, overall, comics in Europe specifically France have always appreciated the comic medium and is held with a greater respect from adults than in the United States. 

The comics released in Europe during the same time as America have considerably more mature content and was created for adults to enjoy. The perceptions of comics in America were that they could be only enjoyed by youth during this time, and this reminds me of the perceptions of animation in America today. I feel there is a wider acceptance of the potential and appeal for animation towards for everywhere other than America. Ringling is even taking away their traditional animation courses soon. Of course this doesn't mean the animation industry is slowing, but it makes me sad to see these techniques be rarely taught in America.  In France, there is an animation school called Gobelins where traditional 2-D animation is still appreciated and taught. Their student thesis films are fantastic, and I think the culture there is generally more accepting of drawn media.  

Week 8: Stereotype and the Ethics of Representation

 I had the opportunity to engage in some of the suggested readings and videos this week:

King 
by Ho Che Anderson

March book 1 
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Lighten Up 
by Ronald Wimberly

Born Sexy Yesterday 

Damsel in Distress Part 1-3

Regarding Will Eisner's beliefs on the necessity of using stereotypes to convey narratives quickly. I believe while this practice can be useful and I, myself use to believe these were necessary, I now think that this method can be considered lazy and insulting to the readers.

Letting readers interpret for themselves what certain characters are made to represent is one of the unique characteristics that makes storytelling valuable. Engaging readers from different perspectives allows the story to transcend from whatever the author had in mind for it. By forcing readers to interpret a character or story line one way through the use of stereotypes, limits not only the reader but the reach of the story and even slows the growth of newer innovated stories.

I noticed while reading King and March I was not greeted with the same stereotypes I am subconsciously used to in media. This was likely due to the fact that these were non-fiction tales but it shows that stories can be well understood without the use of stereotypes. People are capable of understanding the writer's intent without the handholding of stereotypes and using them seems to show a lack of effort from the author. Which leads me to the short comic Lighten Up where speaks about how darkness of skin tones effects the readers enjoyment of a comics. End result: no one cared. None of the readers noticed that the skin tone was darker than the comic art director wanted and the performance of the comic was not affected.

Stereotypes in comics, animation, and games are not really benefiting the audience. It gets the viewers used to seeing these same story tropes and doesn't let the audience be as engaged as they could be. 

Week 7: MAUS and legitimation of the Graphic Novel

The way Spiegelman presents the heavy hearted topic of the holocaust is honest and approachable. 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.

Week 6: Underground Comics

Being able to read underground comics gave me some good insight of the time these comics were published and distributed. These comics spoke loudly about rebellion and were unhinged in their content as if the writers and artists were screaming at the social and lawful restrictions of the time. This is reflected in some of the nonsensical and violent ZAP Comics.  The art style in some of these sections cluttered the panels and seemed to be a means to tell a story of experiencing the artist's self expression then an actual narrative plot. A lot of Underground comics also dealt with highly sexual themes such as the Cheech Wizard and Tits and Clits. Most of the comics that dealt with sexual themes drew idealized women, but this was not the case with the Feminist comic Tits and Clits where the comics where written and drawn by females. The Tits and Clits approached sexual themes while keeping the body types realistic and displayed lots of LGBT representation during a time where that would not be talked about in comics freely. The comics never had color which was one of the characterisctics of being underground, not having the printing facilties or enough funds to have the comics in color. However this did not seem to stop their influence or importance. These comics talked about drugs, sex, sexuality, violence and what seemed whayever else overground comics were afraid to approach. These were the empitimy of true self expression and showed some of the reality that the people of the time were feeling which overground comics tried to censor.

Week 5: Will Eisner and the eminence of Graphic Novels.

A Contract with God uses a lack of color with pen and ink hatching that help set the tone and theme of this graphic narrative: cold and dreary realistic depictions of life. The novel strays away from some classic characteristics of a comic book and from my impression is arranged like more of a children's storybook at times. In some pages, the words take up, as much space as, if not more than the artwork it's paired with. Other pages only depict a single moment while most comics use as multiple panels to move the story. Maybe this one page effect is used to emphasize the emotions of that scene or wants the reader to pause at that moment.
It should also be pointed out that the words themselves are treated as art to help emphasize certain aspects of the story. Some will be bolded and larger, and others would have a different type of calligraphy to help display the emotions the characters are feeling. Sometimes the placement of the words would be also embedded in the walls. I like to think this visually represents how the text is of equal value to the artwork of the story.
Though it's targeted towards a mature audience, it is not as heavily word based as the EC or batman comics I read last week. It appeared to me that when comics first gained more popularity, they needed to be more literary based to be seen as acceptable for adults to enjoy. Will Eisners' work shows that heavy amounts of texts isn't needed and a engaging story can still be told through the power of well made illustrated works.

Week 4: The Comic Book

Batman Issue #1 1940

The most noticeable thing while reading this first issue of Batman was that almost every panel had a narration bubble explaining what's happening. The comic was very text based, but not as much as EC Tales of the crypt we had read in class.  This got me thinking that maybe to show that comics were for adults there had to be more text involved for it to be acceptable.

Another aspect I noticed were that the colors are bright and minimal. I was thinking this is due the lack of color choices for printers at the time, but perhaps the creators wanted the comic to stand out. The backgrounds can be as simplistic as one color backdrop and other times the backgrounds are more realistic. I don't know if this is because of the artist lack of time or the creators wanted to put more emphasis on the characters actions when there are no backgrounds.  Detailed backgrounds are mostly made for an establishing shot or when they are necessary for understanding the context of the story.  These are rarely used during action and fighting scenes between characters which adds to my earlier point of choosing where to put effort to best tell the narrative. It's interesting to see this and then think about the comics of today where there is attention to detail for the backgrounds to be used to tell something about the owner of the house or room the characters are in.

Uncle Scrooge 1974

This comic also uses bright limited colors like Batman. Interesting to see that two comics with separate themes can share the same use of colors. One, a lighthearted comic about the daily lives of ducks and the other about an individual with a dark past fighting crime. Carl Barks uses similar word bubbles as in Peanuts or other classic comic strips, but the backgrounds are way more detailed compared to Peanuts showing more of the suburban area they live in. This shows how the comic book steps it up a bit more visually than most of the comic strips of the newspaper.