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.