Asterios Re-Reviewed

So for this assignment, I decided to choose Asterios Polyp as my main reading.  Asterios Polyp is a graphic novel by David Mazzucchelli and it revolves the life of Asterios Polyp, a professor and an architect of Greek and Italian descent at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The graphic novel began when Asterios survived the fire that hit his apartment. With a limited things that he has, he  decided to leaves the city with greyhound to the farthest city that he could afford with his limited money. That he has at that moment. After that he decided to get a job at the local auto mechanic in Apogee, the furthest town that he could afford. Here in Apogee, he started to get his life back together while staying in the auto mechanic’ Owner’s house. Here he remembers all his past life as a professor and his love life with his ex-wife. In his past life, it told a story of his achievement as a professor and how he began to get to know Hana, his soon to be wife. In the beginning of his marriage life, it was all happy and romantic. Hanna, who used to be a new professor at the Cornell University, is now being more active in her studio where he works on her statue after her marriage, whereas Asterios still teaches at the university. Their marriage began to crack when Willy Illium began to offer Hanna a job. Astonished by her conceptual design, he began a partnership with Hanna which makes Hanna become busier as she gets more and more jobs. As she gets busier, their romance started to fade and thus they ended their relationship. His days at the mechanic, with the owner’s family and community really changed him; the pinnacle is when he had his own fight with “himself” that caused an accident which led him to be brought to the hospital. In the hospital he decided to leave the city to get back to his wife.

In my opinion, this is quite an interesting graphic novel to read. The struggle that Asterios had been through during his relationship really brings a more depth into his character even more. It seems quite a sudden change in the beginning when we see how pitiful Asterios is, to how he used to be when he still was a professor. It is quite surprising that the proud, confident, architecture become a plain, unmotivated character that we become to know in the beginning. However, as the story dig deeper into his past life, we come to understanding on why there is such a gap in his personality which is because of his broken love life who it seemed to be a perfect before.

Asterios Polyp is a very beautiful graphic novel, the way the artist draw each character is very conceptual. We can see that the depiction of Asterios was more geometry and Hanna is more of an artistic shaded style. I guess it is to depict the nature of each character itself. In Asterios, we can see that he is more about the order and he is quite stiff and arrogant as he feels that he is a genius and he is quite proud of it, that is why he is depicted as the geometry shaped as it is stiff, solid and never change, just like the personality of him. Whereas Hanna’s style depict the artistic style which shows freedom and beauty, which is why it suits her style. and what makes it interesting in this graphic novel is that as they get to know each other, both style slowly merge into one, showing that both of them acknowledge each other and when they were committed into a serious relationship, there is no difference between them anymore and it shows in the art which shows no different between them at all. However, as the story progresses, when they were in a fight, we can see that the style that connect them together stars to fade away and their own style starts to come in again, showing that they soon began to crumble and becomes their own identity again which shows that they are no longer together. It is quite an interesting concept because through their style we become to know what is going to happen even without looking at their dialogue. So in a sense, the artist really successful in explaining that overall, I feel this is like a new fresh approach in drawing the graphic novel, or maybe it is just work for this graphic novel but overall this is an enjoyable read.

The other thing that I really like about this graphic novel is the use of color to show the emotion throughout the graphic novel. Here we can see in the beginning of the graphic novel, the color used in the beginning was blue, to introduced the main character’s main color and all of the sudden, it was changed to a more gloomy purple to show the difficult life that he has as his apartment being engulfed by the flame. It is also present as he board into the bus which takes him into the furthest city that he could afford. In the beginning, it may all seems so gloomy until he got into his dream, where he met his “brother” of his. What really interesting is that although Asterios seems quite troubled by the presence of his brother, the color depiction of this sequence seems off as it uses a lot of yellow, which contradict to how he feels whenever he met his brother. The yellow tinted color also used in the Asterios current condition as he works in the garage. I can understand that the yellow color depicted in this scene means hope or happiness, as it shows how peaceful Asterios Life is after he got a job at the garage. However, what perplexes me is that the artist uses the same yellow color to depict Asterios trouble with his brother. It makes me think that the color used as an irony to show how miserable his life is because of his brothers that keeps popping out inside his head. Or perhaps, I think too much and it only used because it best described the dream color.

However, out of all the beauty of this graphic novel has given me, what really threw me over is the ending. Until now I still can’t accept the concept of the ending.  Everything seems to be just fine. Asterios reflect on his former days and seeing that he has made a mistake that he decided to get back together with his wife. His ex-wife also incorporated some of the her knowledge that she got when she was with Asterios and it seems that she tries to embrace all of her knowledge that she got from her marriage life. Everything seems like it can lead to a happy ending which is that they are getting back together. However, the artist  just slams us with the presence of the asteroids itself. Even though it didn’t show us the ending, we can assume that they are tragically died in the asteroid crash. This is the ending that I was not expecting at all. In the beginning we can see how pitiful he is as he sees his house in engulf in the flame and how he tries to turn his life around in the story, and throughout his journey to the fathest city, we can see how Asterios finally finds his answer to his life and from there we started to cheer for him so that he can win back his ex-wife heart. I would assume that finally all his circumstances might be better off towards the end as we sees how intimate Asterios and Hanna towards the end of ths story.  but in the end it was not the case at all, they are far from getting back on each other as they are assumed to be dead because of the crash.  

It kind of gives me the idea that not every story is a happy ending story but deep down I really crave for that happy ending. I have seen enough despair in his life that I really cheer for Asterios, and when it was shown that he is about to get killed, it just gave me a headache for a moment.  Is there a motive that the graphic novel artist wants us to learn from this graphic novel, like there are no such things as a happy ending, or not all things we could get, even how hard you tried, because your fate is in the hands of the man up there? or perhaps the artist is just want us to focus on the beauty of the journey of Asterios himself rather than the ending? it could be a possibility, judging on how fast the ending might seems and how the artist just slam us with the unexpected ending as the beauty of life itself the journey on what we have learned.

Overall this is an enjoyable read, though the ending kind of threw me off. But the journey of him in Apogee, reflecting of his past is really something that I really enjoys. The graphic is beautiful and though the ending might not be for everybody, this is still one piece of beauty.

WEB COMICS reading

To be honest, when I saw about the topics, web comics, I feel that I don’t really know much about this topic it is because I spend most of my reading comics on the web and I guess it makes it harder to differentiate the comics that are from the web comics or from the scanned comics for me. So I decided to give it a try from some of the recommended list and see if it piques my interest

For this week comic, I decided to read a web comics that are not from the recommended list as I find some of the list of the web comics are either too serious or to distant that it is impossible for me to relate. However, as I browse through a comic website, I stumble into this particular web comic by Sarah Andersen called Sarah Scribble. For some reason I find this comic is really relatable to me even though I am a male, and some of the context of this web comics are about the girl’s problem, however, other than the girl context, I find this comics is really funny and very relatable as I also had that problem.  

Here is the link of her web comics:

http://sarahcandersen.com/

Sarah scribble revolves around the artist life, Sarah. Mostly it tells about how she behave in the society and what is inside her mind as an awkward person. Some of the context that are portrayed in her web comics are her problem as a girl,  some of it are her relationship with her boyfriend and some of it are just her depiction of her quirky behavior. Although her girl problems that are depicted in this comics might not be relatable to me, her reaction towards the problem itself gives me a chuckle every time I read the comics. Other than that, because it is just a humor web comic, it doesn’t continue for a period of time which makes it easier to follow or to read. Aside from the context, I find that her style of drawing is really cute and interesting as it is simple and yet it depicts the awkward behavior really well I must say. I guess, that is the advantage of creating a comedic web comics as you don’t rely on beautiful drawings or intricate style, as long as you portray the character really well, you can make it as simple as possible, even better, I think the simpler the drawing the better the outcome as the reader can see themselves in the comics. it reminded me of the lesson that I read from Scott McCloud’s book on understanding the comics. it is said that the simpler the drawing or the more ambiguous it is the more the reader can relate as they can see their own life being portrayed into the comics.

Other than the comics from Sarah Andersen, I really enjoy the web comics from Domics. It falls into the same comedy genre, but Domics is all about a pun comics which makes it really an interesting comic to read. moreover, i do like cheesy pun and that is why i really enjoys his comics. He also animate and puts his animations on Youtube and his video also is a mix of his cheesy pun jokes and also his relationship and his other job’s life which make it an interesting video to watch as well.

Here is the link of his work

http://domics.me/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1XB-jvmd9fXMzhiA6IR0w

Overall, I think this is the web comics that I really enjoy so far. it is interesting, funny, and easy to read which makes it an enjoyable web comics. i might be new to this genre but I hope I can find other web comics that are funny and easy to read.

Again I’m really sorry if I didn’t really read and review the web comics from the recommended list as for some reason I couldn’t connect or sympathize with the comic at all which makes it harder for me to give a review. I tried to read some of the works but for some reason it still didn’t really clique for me.

The Wonder Woman Graphic Novels Review

For the superheroes week, I decided to read the Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth. Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth is one of the many six parts of the graphic novel that are written by Paul Dini and Drawn by Alex Ross.

For this graphic Novel, it is a graphic novel that are mainly focus on the life of the Wonder Woman as she tries to be a great ambassador of peace while maintaining her status as the super heroes. Here in the stories, she began to realize that her job as an ambassador of peace is not as easy as she thought it would be. Because of her physiques and her ability, she was mostly feared by many sides, from politically powered person to a civilian. As she keep struggling to find acceptance, she finally decides to come to his friend, Clark Kent, AKA the Superman for an advice. Through their conversation she finds the importance to act as a human and not as a god who comes to judge and bring peace. So, following Clark Kent’s Idea, she begins her journey, blending in as a human, living their life, seeing from their perspective on what do they think of a heroes is and tries to help without revealing her secret. And after spending a lot of time, she finally able to blend Into society and able to save a lot of civilian, from that moment on, she feels that she can relate on humans more and able to do her duty right, to save the humans around the world.

This is a very interesting graphic novel to read. To be honest, when I hear the term graphic novel, this is more what I imagined more compared to the comic style. in this graphic novel, the drawing are more of a whole painting and each panel really represent on what Is happening in one moment. Instead of sequence by sequence that we always finds in comics. Not to mention, the illustration is beautiful as always, coming from Alex Ross. I always thought that he only does cover illustration, given on how intricate the rendering of each illustration is.  However, this graphic novel is really a masterpiece. His intricate drawing are being drawn on each illustration is really beautiful to look at. I wasn’t really expecting the rendering to be this detail and the rendering is really stay true to the atmospheric environment light which makes it more believable.

However, one thing that I really hope from this graphic novel is to have more interaction between the sentences and the graphic, something that we see from the contract with god by Will Eisner. They way will Eisner incorporated the drawing with the graphic is really great that it makes it one whole piece. However, in Alex Ross graphic novel, it is more of a separate piece, stitches together. That I’m saying it is bad, it is a really good graphic novel with a good illustration. However, I with both words and illustrations are more cohesive and I think this is going to be one of the most beautiful graphics novels so far.

Story wise, this is a very interesting piece. It is somewhat different than any other superheroes comics I have seen. With all of the actions portrayed in this graphic novel, the story revolves more about the inner struggle of the wonder woman, adapting into the society more than her act of heroism. In the beginning she always sees the society as the damsel in distress and act as the judgement, although the intention was good, she is not really accepted by the society as she was considered to be alien and the wrath or something, which is interesting. This is like another side of superheroes story. We always led to believe that when the superheroes comes and saves the day, the people will be very happy, however, in this story, it is the other way around, the people that she save, act as if she was the monster, although I can understand the reasoning behind it. I might be scared as well if all of the sudden some people can do what the superheroes can do. I might be freaked out as well. That is why I find this graphic novel to be very intriguing as it depicts a more realistic behavior of the society towards superheroes.

Overall, I find this graphic novel to be an interesting graphic novel to read. The mesmerizing rendering of the superheroes is really what hooked me in the first place. Alex Ross is a great artist and I can wait to see what other project he has been working on and I might use it as my extra reading for this semester

Transmetropolitan Review

So I tried to read the Transmetropolitan today and I think this is an interesting comic to read. For sure this comic is different than what I read so far. I guess the idea of cyberpunk itself is quite new to me and it is quite refreshing reading this comic.

Throughout the story that I read so far, it seems that there are some symbols that are being portrayed in this comic. The more apparent is the new culture of merging the alien body into human body. I believe it symbolized the new culture that are starting to happen and the effect of those new culture is the banishment in the society. That is why we can see how a lot of people started to protest to demand an equality for their future. It is somewhat similar to what really happen in our society where in the beginning we can see a social segregation between a white people and a black, African American society. Forgive me if I’m wrong but as far as I remember, there are time where the African American are considered a low society that they are at the brink of being driven away by the white people society that make them feel that the society needs to changed and need to able to embrace them as equal. I guess that is what the artist tries to symbolize in this comic. Although the personification in this comic seems bizarre, but the reaction that we gave in this comic is awfully similar to the reaction that we sees where there is social segregation.

For me, I can see the connection between I and the comic because that is what I feel coming to Florida for the first time. Being an Asian kid in a pretty small city in Florida. It feels that I was being watched with these weird eyes. maybe I am just being paranoid but it is just what I feel for some reason, maybe because people here hardly sees Asian or other races because when I come here in Florida, all I can see is white people everywhere. It is so different when I was in Seattle where the society there are pretty diverse. However, as I come to Florida, everything seems different and I guess that is the reason I got this weird feeling.

Pretty much, I feel that this is quite an interesting comic to read. It is unique and I think it can be benefited from the indie cartoon. I feel that we hardly get any cyberpunk cartoon style and I think this can be potentially be a quite successful. If the artist decided to retain the style. I really like the style in this comic. It is grungy, dark, and appealing in a weird way. I’m not sure what kind of changes that needs to be done because this is quite an interesting story and art style, so I hope if this is brought to another medium like the animation, I really hope that the style remains dark, and stylistic. I was imagining a combination of 2d and 3d, what I mean is like the 3d animation in a form of 2d style. It seems that style has been quite popular in nowadays. If we sees the walking dead games by tale tell games, we can see how cleverly the production team combine the 2d style in a 3d world.  That Is the style that I imagined to be for this comic. I think it will be quite an interesting piece to watch

This One Summer Review

So I tried to find another graphic novel to read and I stumbled into this graphic novel, This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki. I didn’t know that this is supposed to be the featured reading for the week until halfway reading this graphic novel. The thing that hooked me at first was the beauty of the graphic novel itself. The line drawing is simple and yet elegant to look at and for some reason I just decided to give it a shot.

The story revolves the life of Rose and Windy. Every summer, Rose and her family always spend their summer holiday in their summer cottage at Awago. In Awago, she had a childhood friend whom she always spends most of her summer time with. Though they always do that every summer, this year it was different. For some reason, this year Rose must have to face the fight that her parents have. Not only that, the fight is getting intense as she spent more time in the cabin. There was a moment that the fight gets heated up that Rose’s dad decided to take some time off the cabin and decided to be away for a few days. Not only that, not only her dad, her mom also, because of that fight, went through a withdrawal that really complicate Rose’s situation. Not only that, both Rose and Windy  are on the middle of the teenage romantic situation as Rose and Windy always goes to the DVD store where the group of teenagers always came by.  With all of these new experience on the parent fighting and the teenagers romantic love that ended up with a tragedy of the pregnancy, towards the end of her summer vacation, Rose realize that both the adults and the teenagers are also have a lot of problem and Rose and her family left the summer cottage.

Overall, this is quite an interesting graphic novel.  The story line is quite unique as it is more complicated than any other graphic novels that I read, in a way I guess it is more mature or it is just more of a slice of life. The interesting part is that since the main protagonist is supposedly Rose and Windy, the story of the supporting character like the parents and the bunch of the teenagers themselves are more interesting. I guess in this sense, we get to see the real drama from the points of view of the adolescence because aside from all the drama that is in the novels, Rose and Windy seems very oblivious about all that except for the parents fighting since it involves Rose herself. However, that did not stop them for having fun watching movies and do a lot of stuff that kids always do. even towards the end, it seems that Rose and Windy keep being passive towards the whole situation itself. What they do does not really change the situation to the better except for one of the teenagers who almost drowned by the sea because of the suicidal thoughts. Overall, the kids do not change a thing to the whole situation which is not a bad things to the novel. Because of that, I can see the real life of the adolescence kids, facing a real world situation I guess that is the beauty of it. It make us realize that there is more to the world than our own little world.

Overall this is an interesting read. The story might not had the satisfying ending like how the story usually flows, but it gives me another perspective on how to tell a story which is interesting. The drawing is beautiful and it is simple which makes it an easy read. I really enjoys this novel and I can’t wait to read other novel.

Asterios Polyp

So for this assignment, I decided to choose Asterios Polyp as my main reading.  Asterios Polyp is a graphic novel by David Mazzucchelli and it revolves the life of Asterios Polyp, a professor and an architect of Greek and Italian descent at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The graphic novel began when Asterios survived the fire that hit his apartment. With a limited things that he has, he  decided to leaves the city with greyhound to the farthest city that he could afford with his limited money. That he has at that moment. After that he decided to get a job at the local auto mechanic in Apogee, the furthest town that he could afford. Here in Apogee, he started to get his life back together while staying in the auto mechanic’ Owner’s house. Here he remember all his past life as a professor and his love life with his  ex wife. In his past life, it told a story of his achievement as a professor and how he began to get to know Hanna, his soon to be wife. In the beginning of his marriage life, it was all happy and romantic. Hanna, who used to be a new professor at the Cornell University, is now being more active in her studio where he works on her statue after her marriage, whereas Asterios still teaches at the university. Their marriage began to crack when Willy Illium began to offer Hanna a job. Astonished by her conceptual design, he began a partnership with Hanna which makes Hanna become busier as she gets more and more jobs. As she gets busier, their romance started to fade and thus they ended their relationship. His days at the mechanic, with the owner’s family and community really changed him, the pinnacle is when he had his own fight with himself that caused an accident which led him to be brought to the hospital. In the hospital he decided to leave the city to get back to his wife.

In my opinion, this is quite an interesting graphic novel to read. The struggle that Asterios had been through during his relationship really brings a more depth into his character even more. It seems quite a sudden changes in the beginning when we sees how pitiful Asterios is to how he used to be when he still was a professor. However, as the story dig deeper into his life, we come to understanding on why there is such a gap in his personality which is because of his broken love life who it seemed to be beautiful before. Asterios Polyp is a very beautiful graphic novel, the way the artist draw each character is very conceptual. We can see that the depiction of Asterios was more geometry and Hanna is more of an artistic shaded style. I guess it is to depict the nature of each character itself. In Asterios, we can see that he is more about the order and he is quite stiff and arrogant as he feels that he is a genius, that is why he is depicted as the geometry shaped as it is never changing, solid, just like the personality of him. Whereas Hanna’s style depict the artistic style which shows freedom and beauty, which is why it suits her style. and what makes it interesting in this graphic novel is that as they get to know each other, both style slowly merge into one, showing that both of them acknowledge each other and when they were committed into a serious relationship, there is no difference between them and it shows in the art which shows no different between them at all. However, as the story progresses, when they were in a fight, we can see that the style that connect them together stars to fade away and their own style starts to come in again, showing that they soon began to crumble and becomes their own identity again which shows that they are no linger together. It is quite an interesting concept because through their style we become to know what is going to happen even without looking at their dialogue. So in a sense, the artist really successful in explaining that overall, I feel this is like a new fresh approach in drawing the graphic novel, or maybe it is just work for this graphic novel but overall this is an enjoyable graphic novel

However, what really threw me over is the ending. Until now I still can’t accept the concept of the ending.  Everything seems to be just fine. Asterios reflect on his former days and seeing that he has made a mistake that he decided to get back together with his wife. His ex wife also incorporated some of the her knowledge that she got when she was with Asterios. Everything seems like it can lead to a happy ending which is that they are getting back together. However, the artist  just slams us with the presence of the asteroids itself. Even though it didn’t show us the ending, we can assume that they are tragically died in the asteroid crash. This is the ending that I was not expecting at all. In the beginning we can see how pitiful he is as he sees his house in engulf in the flame and how he tries to turn his life around in the story. I would assume that finally all his circumstances might be better off towards the end but in the end it was not the case at all. It kind of gives me the idea that not every story is a happy ending story but deep down I really crave for that happy ending. I have seen enough despair in his life that I really cheer for Asterios, and when it was shown that he is about to get killed, it just gave me a headache for a moment. Overall this is an enjoyable read, though the ending kind of threw me off. But the journey of him in Apogee, reflecting of his past is really something that I really enjoys. The graphic is beautiful and though the ending might not be for everybody, this is still one piece of beauty.

Manga!!

So for this post I decided to read Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahasi. The manga is love comedy story between Ranma, an accomplished martial artist and the daughter of Ranma’s father’s friend, Akane. Aside from the comedy, there is also an action genre being played in this manga as all the main characters are quite an accomplished martial artist. The main trait that makes this manga unique is the ability of a person to change into something else when they were exposed to both hot water and cold water. In this case Ranma is able to change into woman when he is exposed to cold water and when he is hit by the hot water, he turns back into normal. This particular trait is not only limited to Ranma, several main supporting characters also had the same trait as they were happen to go to the hot springs where the source of this weird things happen. One of the examples is Ranma’s father who is able to turn into a giant panda, Ranma’s rival who can turn into a small, cuddly boar and many more.

In my opinion Ranma  is a very entertaining manga. The characters are well drawn, the design is very appealing and the story is really simple, even though it use a very unique concept. To be honest, when I read this manga, I often forget that the artist behind this manga is a female artist. Not to be prejudice or something. It is because the way the story portray and the character design of this comic is something that female artist usually explored. When I see a female manga artist, I always assume that the manga will be like shoujo manga where the drama is often more emphasize and the story. The character design that is often portrayed in her manga is interestingly different than other female manga artist as usually, the male and female protagonist is usually made more charming or like a supermodel. Here in Rumiko Takahashi’s work, the character design for most of the character is simple and also beautiful and they are not in a way a model beautiful.

For the genre itself, I have seen quite a number of female artists doing a shonen manga but I feel that her approach is really unique. I feel that she is one of the female manga artist who does the full frontal comedy and she did it quite well as well the way she approach comedy is more of an over exaggerated situation like Akane and Ranma kick one of the upperclassmen right in his face in a comedic way. This kind of exaggeration comedy also found in her other works, like Urusei Yatsura where the main protagonist trying to get rid of his rival by blowing the bazooka and in the end, the situation become really chaotic, in a way it is funny to see all their reaction

Overall, I really enjoy her works. It is charming, simple, entertaining. The romantic is not that complicated as the one we always seen in shoujo manga and all of her works is really funny which makes it easy to read.