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.

Persepolis Review

So for this week, I decided to read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It is an autobiography of the author who lived through her childhood till her life when she is about to leave Iran for France. Her childhood life was filled with dark, scary life of the victim of the war. she is also the odd child as she lived through her live absorbing all the knowledge from her parents which makes her have a more mature point of view than her surrounding. The constant  fear of the becoming the victim of bombing of the war between Iraq and Iran and attacked from the Islamic regime afterwards made her parents sent her to Austria when she was in high school to live a better life. In Austria that she encountered cultured that is different than hers as she was raised in an Islamic society which prohibited some of the cultures she had encountered. There in Austria that she went through her phase that made her depress and decided to went back to Iran, hoping that everything would be normal again. Her journey back in Iran led her to a whole new relationship that by 1991 she married after 2 years relationship with the ex-Iranian soldier while she was still under study in the University for the graphic design. Her married life ended up in a disaster after a month and though they are still struggling with it, Marjane decided to ended it 3 years after and she moved to France to continue her studies

This autobiography graphic novel is really an interesting book to read. This is my first time hearing this graphic novel. After seeing how some of the classmates are really into this graphic novel it really piques my interest to give it a shot and I’m glad that I read it. I admit, it is quite some experience reading this. This certainly opens my knowledge on what is happening in Iraq and Iran. Well, I know some of the information but to be able to see from the perspective of the Iranian who had to gone through such a hardship really open my eyes to the whole war experience. Reading this graphic novel to be honest is quite a challenge because the context itself is really dark as it also talked about what is happening in Iran and Iraq and for me who doesn’t really have quite the knowledge of the background depicted in this story really makes me read the history before continuing the graphic novels which makes it interesting because now I gain more valuable knowledge about Iran and Iraq. The point of view of Marjane  herself is really interesting as she really live a rich life although she has gone through such an experience but I feel all her adventure Is really interesting and I actually glad that she made it into a graphic novel so that her knowledge and her influence can be reached to everyone.

Not only her point of view on certain things makes this graphic novel interesting, the art style that are shown in this graphic novels is really different than any comic I read so far. in a way it is similar with Art Spiegelman’s Maus, with his simplified and stylized drawing but in a way her art style is quite different than Maus as well. it is simple but the way each panel are portrayed is  like a modern art where everything is made flat and simplified. It is interesting in its way because it is simple and it is easy to read. Although the context is pretty heavy, the art style makes it easy to read which is really enjoyable for me, although reading the 2 books in one go really quite a challenge but enjoyable as the same time.

Overall. I really enjoys reading this graphic novel. The heavy topic and the complicated situation of her really gave me a challenge reading this as I am not really used to read this but overall, this is still quite an experience. I cant really wait to read her other works. 

Stereotype in Media

Looking back at all those stereotypes that are depicted in animation and gaming,  It really does feel very offensive. When I was a child, I was not fully aware of this matter as I was not really exposed to the culture yet, like African American is depicted as either a tribal man or a people with southern accent, or Chinese people are depicted with a protruding teeth, slanted eyes and a triangular hat. At first, I did not realize it at all because I thought they are just mimicking a person. However, as I grew older, I do realize that all these stereotypes are really weird and even disturbing  and it is a good thing that actually our society realize that and now, we can see the changes being made for a better like how the African American are depicted more realistic like in the series the boondocks, or how Asian are depicted better without all the stereotypical that I mentioned above with the more realistic in marvel all new Hulk, with the main character originated from an Korean American family.

It’s really nice to see how media evolves as people getting more aware over this stuff. How about the gaming? In the surface we didn’t really see a racial difference or stereotypical, but one thing really shown is how over exaggerated the proportion of the game character itself. One of the examples is the evolution character Lara croft in Tomb Raider. If we saw the first rendition of the character, we can see how exaggerated the body proportion is and that raise concern within female gamers community as it grew overtime. That cause the changes in the proportion of Lara Croft over time and for the upcoming Tomb Raider game, we can see how the character design evolved to a more tamed version but still shows how athletic Lara Croft.

It all good until I stumble upon this pictured that are taken from bulimia.com. it is a series of pictures of a game character that are photoshopped that makes each character to have a plus size. To me this action is getting really ridiculous and I don’t think this is a healthy action at all. Basically what they are trying to do is trying ensuring that being a plus size is okay and the game creator should be ashamed by creating a very unattainable figure size to make woman feel bad. First I don’t think that this size is unattainable at all. If we saw all these figures we can see that they are all supposedly an athletic type I feel that by if we are to change the size of the figure, it would make it even more unrealistic for the sake of the game. They are athletic type because the game that are portrayed in this picture are supposedly for an action and adventure genre, if we were to make the woman figure in this game a plus size, would it be ridiculous because it will not fit into the genre at all. 

It is also usually the characters in the game are purposely design to be exaggerated for the sake of the appeal. The exaggerated figure are usually more appealing than a realistic figure. That is why we can see for the male character, sometimes it gets really ridiculously bigger and more masculine because the game creator wants to make it stylize and more appealing. if we look the picture below, we can definetely see how muscular these characters are. i believe that it is intentional to make it really muscular because the game creator wants to make the character more appealing and powerful, and what better ways than to make it more muscular.

same goes for woman,  the proportion of a small waist and big hips are sometimes used for the sake of appeal and changing it just because it is rude is actually a rude things to do. if that was the case, why there is no complaint from the man side about the unattainable size of the male character that are depicted in the game? If we sees the statistic of the average of the male in the US, it is not that different than woman but how come there is no protest against the size of the male character in the game? Is it because it is a normal things for man to workout? if that was the case, would it go the same with woman? Woman can workout as well to attain the size that are similar than one we always find in the game character. That is why in Comic con, we can see some of the people dressed up as the game character really well because they have attain the physiques that is similar than the game character they are trying to portray by working out or do a strict diet. There is no such things as unattainable body size, it is a matter of our will to make it like that and it is with workout. It is not a healthy attitude to blame everything on the society where the problem actually lies within one self.

I admit that I am overweight myself and seeing all those characters from the game really makes me worry about my figure, but that didn’t make me want to blame it on the game creator. As a matter of fact, it inspire me to workout to achieve the figure that I see on the game. trying to be healthy actually help me improve my work efficiency which makes me really happy. it really encourage me to workout even more.

In conclusion, though these awareness  throughout the media has been changed for a better over the time, there are some things that in my opinion that are getting out of hand. The racial awareness made a good progress by depicting character based on their traits and not by history instead of their history. However, The fat shamming that are depicted in this picture to force the game maker to make all female character to look like a plus size is not a  good way to promote healthy lifestyle.  Although the message might be good to be happy with what you have right now, to force one trait for everything else is not a good message.

Habibi Review

So for the extra reading, I decided to go and read Habibi by Craig Thompson. After reading Blankets, I was hooked by his story and his drawing style and I got really curious after the book was introduced in the class because I didn’t get a chance to read the whole book. So after some time, I finally able to read this graphic novel and I can say that Craig Thompson really did not disappoints me. Habibi is really a gorgeous book, talking about the relationship between Dodolah and Zam in a harsh fictional Islamic fairy tale landscape.

As any of his work, I always find his artwork to be very interesting. The clarity of the movement of the character is really strong that you can clearly see the action and the story right away. What really mesmerized me is background layout. I know, the first time I read Blanket I fell in love with his style and with his later book, Habibi, he really took it to another level. The detail of the Arabic art that was used all over this book is really beautifully done. The fine detail of each line really depicts the Arabic art perfectly. I can’t really imagine how long will it take him to draw one page of the title because as you can see, here in this image, you can see how much fine lines and details that he has to draw to achieve such perfection.

Not only his pattern art that stood out. His ability to mix the Arabic art to enhance the emotion of the story is really interesting. It is shown in this image below how we can see the Arabic words transform into an image of trees. The way he use the ink to blend those 2 elements is what really intrigues me.it must have taken him a long time to study the art of Arabic art and alphabet to be able to incorporate perfectly into his graphic novels.

Another thing that I really like about this graphic novel is the story itself. I really like how he really studied the teaching of Islam to make this graphic novel even more believable, just like how he incorporated the teaching of Christianity in his graphic novels, Blanket. Here you can see how Craig, incorporated the Qur’an and another Arabic alphabet teaching into his story with his explanation of Dodolah emotion and thoughts through the teaching of Qur’an. He also used the Arabic alphabet in the section, where Dodolah first learned Arabic and how she taught it to Zam. It is really interesting as I read because, not only I get entertained by the stories, I also get to learned the history of Islam, Qur’an and Arabic letters. As I was raised in the Christian family, learning other religion for the sake of knowing it is really an interesting journey. I guess, it is the same with Craig, as we can see in the book how He also not only mention Qur'an verse, but he also took some of it from the bible as Both Qur'an and Bible are telling about the same stories with some difference. so for me who are more accustomed to the bible teaching, it is really interesting to find out how similar it is the Qur'an to the Bible

Overall I really like this book. For me, this is his greatest work yet. We can see how his art has become more matured and more sophisticated compared to his previous book, Blanket. It is still a beautiful graphic novel but the art in Habibi really exceed the one in blankets in my opinion. Overall, I really like this book and I can’t wait for his next breakthrough.

The Underground Comix

So for this week, I read some of the underground comic and after some of the comic, I can say that this is quite an experience. I don’t even know where to begin. It seems that every elements that are projected in the underground comics seems very different than comics that were distributed in mainstream bookstore.

First off, the art, I realize that each book, there are several artists contributed in the making of this comic.  I realize that each artist has their own style of drawing but in this comic, I feel that there are a lot of varieties in the art style which may make people thrown off at the moment. Some of the drawing goes from a really simple style like Felix the cat’s simplicity to a more complex rendition and some of the story are used a photo as the story telling images.  I’m not really sure how to react because, it might be considered as an art but for me as the general reader, I was thrown off by it. it is because of the uncanny valley effect where the pose seems cartoonist but since the subject use a photograph as the character, everything seems a bit off. And another thing that makes me confused is how some of the artist uses a widely known character in the underground comic. I am under assumption that the underground comics are some sort of Indie Company who tries to publish their own creation. However, using a well-known character like mickey mouse with a a mature theme makes me wonder if they ever got sued because of that. Just to make it clear, I do not hate the style that the artist uses, as a matter of fact; I’m quite enjoying it to be honest. The variety of the art itself really tells me that there is a lot of ways in telling a story and you don’t have to conform to the mainstream style like a marvel drawing style to deliver your stories. Even a big company like Marvel embraces the drawing changes that each new generation brought in.

Another thing that makes the underground comic different than the mainstream comic is the theme. I should have known what to expect when I heard the word underground. The theme must be something that is unusual, and true enough, when I read the comic, some of the recurring theme in this underground comic collections are  sex, drug and political issues. One of the example would be in the air pirates, where mickey says, “ The whole world thinks I’m Cute… so why won’t Minnie F*** me”, when I heard that I was in disbeliefs. Probably because I grew up watching mickey and read the comic book and here as I read this, It reminds me of the past, however, since this is the underground comics and when the artist use my childhood character to say a different context like sex, it threw me of guard.  I guess this is really what makes it an underground comic. The subject matter depicted in the comic book is very adult and that is why the publisher decided to sells it in a selected market and not the mainstream comic book store where the subject matter depicted in the mainstream comics are more targeted towards general audience.

Overall, this is like a roller coaster ride for me. Some of the reading, I was okay with it and the others needs time to chew on it. this is a different experience for me and I guess it is good in a way because I have never being exposed to this kind of material and now I know some part of the history of the comic book, which is fun actually.

Will Eisner and Craig Thompson Graphic Novel

So for this week reading, I decided to read Will Eisner’s most famous graphic novel, Contract with God. Will Eisner is considered to be the one of the earliest cartoonist to work in the American comic book industry. He is also one of the cartoonists who pioneer the term graphic novel. His famous work including the spirit, his early adaptation of comic before he tried the new approach, which is, A contract with God.

This is the first time I read a graphic novel and so far I had a blast. This is like stepping into a new territory for me. Will Eisner really bring a new format of reading novel.  In a way graphic novel for me is like a mix of comic book and novel. You get the novelty, the complexity of a novel; on the other hand you also get the simplicity of the reading from the comic, by explaining it through images, and not just words.

Reading graphic novel from Will Eisner is really such an experience. The clarity of the drawing is what makes it really easy to read. The way he use the ambience to clarify the emotional state of the character is really clear. I guess what makes his work as a graphic novel different than the other comic is the way he use the panel. There is a lot of freedom in each panel that makes his work stands out. I guess the way he draw each panel itself is what makes A contract with God is so much different than a comics. The sentences that explains the story also drawn in such a way, that really enhance the mood of the story. We can see it in the beginning of A contract with god where we can see the main character is walking in the middle of the rain. The sentences “ All day the rain poured down on the Bronx without mercy” are also drawn to look exactly the same with the drawing. This is also what makes it different than comics. In the comics, you can see how the words or dialogue are seems to be drawn just for the sake to clarify what is this picture is all about. Here in this graphic novel, we ca see that the dialogue itself is also used to enhance the drawing itself. It has a similar approach to a story book where the word itself is also part of the art whereas the comic book, the word used is seems to be drawn separately and not further enhance the complexity of the drawing.

After reading Will Eisner’s work, I tried to read another well-known graphic novel artist work, Blankets by Craig Thompson.  Overall, I feel that the format of his graphic novel is no different than Will Eisner. The freedom in using the page to illustrate what is happening and how to make it even more dramatic, The way he use the panel to illustrate the mental stage of the main character. In will Eisner, A contract with God, we can see that he tried to convey the emotion through the environment state. For example in the first story, where the main protagonist was in distress and threw the stone, the environment changed into a blazing thunderstorm as if the nature really understands him.  In Craig thompson’s graphic novel  however, the emotional state of the main character are usually portrait in a very stylized form to give the idea that all of these are only happen in the main character’s mind. Like of the example would be the scene where the little brother was thrown into the extra room that is very stuffy, the room was drawn as if that room is like the monster cave where there lived a big mouthed monster which is only a foldable bed in reality. It is really interesting the way Craig Thompson depicted the mindset of these kids.

Another similar approach that I notice from both Craig Thompson and Will Eisner is also the way they use the background around the character to depict the emotional state of the main character is pretty similar. While in Will Eisner, he use a lot of vertical lines or any other one way lines to give a more dramatic over the emotional state of the main character, Craig Thompson’s approach is broader with the use of the pitch black background  and almost simplified line drawing of the main character, giving a good negative space to see the emotional state of the main character better. He also use the same approach as Will Eisner with the line direction, but I feel that Craig Thompson has evolved the style much further. Maybe it is because as graphic novel evolve over time, the style is also evolved. So here in Craig Thompson, depiction of main character emotional state is also the evolve version of Will Eisner approach. The concept is the same, but the style is really different as Craig Thompson’s work is newer.

Reading these two graphic novels is really a new experience for me. At first, I assume that when I was assign to read graphic novels, I would have to read a long passage, just like a novel. However, as I began reading this graphic novel, my perspective was changed. Who knew that reading graphic novel is fun. This is really different than what I had expected. I hope I can read more graphic novel if I had more time.

MAUS review

So for the comic reading, I decided to read the whole 2 volumes of Maus. It is a true story of a Jewish people  named Vladek who survive the endless nightmare during the Nazi reign. The author and the artist of this book is none other than Vladek’s son, Art Spiegelman, a cartoonist who was born after the world war 2.

The whole book told about the Art’s journey of interviewing his dad past life during the Nazi regime. While he is interviewing his dad, he also tell his own journey while he is interviewing which makes this book really interesting because not only we get to see the horrible tragedy that Vladek had to endure, we also get to see another story from Art’s point of view of his dad who had a bad remarriage with a woman named Mala, who is also another German Nazi survivor. It is interesting because these two stories really what makes this books feels personal  as we get to see both Vladek and Art’s feeling about the situation.

While I was reading the comic, it got me thinking on how can I survived if I was in this position. When I was reading Vlade’s journey, I can’t really imagine how much suffering that he has gone through. However, what makes me really admiring him is how strong he can be during this time. I bet it would traumatized him for life but, he found the strong will to live and with his wits and abundant skills, he could passed by many trials. *spoilers alert* Even when the hope seemed lost, when he was brought into the concentration camp where  Vladek heard that when you were brought into the camp, it is basically a game over for you. However, I find it interesting on how what he learned throughout his life become really useful skill to survive in the harsh environment. It got me thinking about myself on what have I done until now that might be useful in the future. Of course I’m choosing the major that I am interested in but aside from that, is there anything else that is useful.  After reading this, it made me think over my life and got me thinking on what kind of skills can I do to survived.

What really interesting in this comic is also the portrayal of each race or ethnicity with an animal. For Jewish, it’s a mouse. I guess it is to represent that they are the victim here while the German are portrayed as cats, which we know that cat like to hunt mouse and here, the author makes it apparent so that the reader know what is happening and can be sympathize the Jewish people who lived during Nazi reign.  But what really intrigue me is how the artist portrayed polish as a pig. And in one of the story he said that the polish is a capitalist or some sort. So I guess the polish are portrayed as a capitalist pig?? I don’t really know how to react with that.

Other than that., I really like the style that the artist used to draw this comic.  It is very stylized, simple, and clear. Even with the thick line, I can still read it easily. Even the words are not that much which makes it easier to enjoy the drawing and following the stories. However, i was quite surprised when i realized that this book is considered to be a graphic novel. with all of the consistent panel and serious tone, i always treat it as comic. I did not expect this to be graphic novel other than the sophisticated story telling. I mean, i we compared to Craig Thompson's approach for graphic novel, He make sure that the panel itself is an art, even for the sound effect was drawn in a way that it doesnt really distract us from the object, but instead enhance it. however, in Maus, the sound effect was drawn in  a way that it is similar to comics in my opinion. I guess, this is what makes graphic novels different than the comics, i guess it is because the use of language in Maus seems more matured than the one that i always read in comics.

Reading Maus has been a wonderful experience. I always wanted to read this but I didn’t get a chance to. I know the context because my friend recommended this book to me a few years ago. It’s just that I didn’t have time and interest back then because all I care about back then was reading Japanese comic. Now, after being exposed to the world comics and graphic novels, I tried to give this a go and so far, I did not regret it. these books is a wonderful read, it made it easy to learned about the history during the Nazi Reign, maybe not that detailed but I got a better understanding on what is happening. 

Donald Ducks Comic

As the comic strips slowly gains in popularity and evolved their form into a legit comic book, many company and artist tries to explore a new way to make full use of the new format.  Some tries to make a longer story that exceeds 1 comic book. Some make use of the large panel to show more detail of the drawing or because they want the reader to focus on that picture first, or maybe to emphasize on the establishing shot.

I remember one of my favorite comic when I was child was Donald duck by Carl Barks. I really enjoy the simplicity of their story and their adventurous journey on each book. Each story is also really short compared to any other comic books and there are not a lot of words in the comic. That is why it is really easy to read quite fun to read in in the free time. The character also a well-established character as I was grown watching a lot of Disney cartoons.  

It was really a fun read even until now. I still enjoy the journey of the Uncle Scrooge, Donald and the nephew. However, as I was beginning to read more and more comics, I realize that the older comics don’t seems to have a lot of variety in their panel. It was pretty even from the beginning until the end. The only panel that is different than the other usually the beginning of the story where the panel is bigger, but throughout the the story, the panel pretty much stays the same.

 I can understand if maybe during that time they still need time to adjust to the style since the comics was publish during the transitional period between the comic strip and comic book period. However, as I browse through his work until his latest work, it seemed that his panel styles are barely changed a lot. It is pretty similar with Tintin comic by Herge. Their even panel sizes seemed to be their trademark since, just like Carl Barks, the template of Tintin comic barely changed. it makes me wonder, what would happen if they decided to change the style of their comic book, to follow the trend. Take the marvel comic for example. 

As we compared the 2 images of the captain America comic book, We can see that there is a changed in their panel style.  that is why it makes me wonde,if Carl Barks considering changing his styles to cope with the trend, will it make any different in the popularity. We know that Donald duck has been pretty popular across the country. However, it makes me pretty curious whether the changes will make Donald duck gain more fans or lose more fans. However, I don’t think those Ideas will be made possible as the creator itself has passed away and I guess it would be rude if we tried to changed the legacy that he has created for us.

For this week, we are supposed to read a comic strip for the assignment for the week. This is one of the assignments that I really like because I enjoy reading comic strip. I mean generally I really like reading comic, Japanese comic or manga exactly but for some reason I really enjoy reading comic as well, especially after my eyes were open with more comic strip like Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes.  It is simple, short and entertained. I remembered when I was a child I really can’t wait to read Ferd’nand, a comic strip by Henning Dahl Mikkelsen or Mik. It is about a life of a father that revolves around his family. It is short, funny and the most interesting part is that the comic doesn’t really have a balloon speech.  So the whole stories are being told in a pantomime manner which I really appreciate now as I learned to draw properly. It takes a quite an experience to masterfully obtained the skills. Here is one of the examples of his work. It is really interesting on how these four panels tell the whole story and the humor.

 

 

So for this week, I am reading several of the comic strips like the little nemo in the palace of ice, Calvin and Hobbes and the Peanuts. Overall, It is a enjoyable read. I got to see more kind of comic strip than what I have read when I was a kid. What piques my interest is the Little Nemo’s adventure by Winsor Mckay. So far, I only know him as the pioneer of the animation with his story of Little nemo that are supposedly based on his comic strip. However I have never seen his comic style until now. After reading some of his little nemo adventure, I become quite enjoying his comic strip. In a way, his comic strip story is really relatable to my experience every time as I woke up from my sleep. Sometimes I get a pretty whimsical dream that really affect the way I thought every time I woke up, even after waking up, the dream effect still lingers in my head that It will take time to get me into the real world sometimes. The chasing and the fall are really the one that really hit me because I usually had that kind of dream which makes me waking up in the middle of the night.

Not only that it is relatable, I really enjoy his imagination of the dream world. The whimsical world that is different on each short story really what makes me wonder how he got all of his inspiration. With the weekly printing for over than 20 years really leave me in awe. Even the whimsical world even that is related to everyday accident you can find when you woke up, like a blanket falls, or being shocked after something scary happen. 

Overall, I really enjoy the Little Nemo. His whimsical setting really what makes me interesting with the comic. The character might sounds a little bit too neutral when it comes to characteristic compared to other comic strips. However, the setup of the world itself pretty much covers the lack of characteristic and emotion of some of the characters, especially the main character, Nemo. I guess pretty much the reason there is a lack of emotion or characteristic is because the main character is always being dragged on, which is quite makes sense. Overall, I really like this week reading and I can’t really wait what kind of comic am I going to read next week.

Scott McCloud on Understanding comics

When I read the “understanding Comic” by Scott McCloud and his Ted talk, there is one topic that really pique my interest, which is how we often fill the gap in each sequence of the comic in our mind, and how the in between panel within the comic represent time. It didn’t really occur to me at first because I guess I automatically doing it my head and now it become more apparent and I can see how many artist really utilize it to shorten their sequence or even prolonged it.

The genre that really makes full use of this idea is usually action or sports comic. Normally, the artist uses a pretty much even pacing in their comics especially in the dialogue heavy section. However, I realize that in action or sports manga, they really make a full use of the sequence. Some parts really slow and the next, it become faster.one of the example of the faster sequence is in this comic, ace of the Diamond, a baseball comic that is released in 2006

These 8 pages depicted on what happen during the last 2 innings. Though 2 innings seems like a lot of time has passed, the artist drew just the key moments in each panel which makes the timeline becomes really short. In this case, the artist only drew the sequence where the pitcher threw a strike pitches or a very effective pitches and the batter who unable to respond to the ball or fail to give a good hit. He did it with both teams which show how these 2 innings has been an intense innings where the pitchers are very aggressive that made both teams unable to score in baseball match.

However, there is also some artist who tries to play around with the idea of timing and pacing. In the Ted talks, Scott McCloud mentioned that there are several artists who tries to invent a way to read the comics, which is really interesting because they provide a new way to enjoys comics.  However, I believe there are a lot of varieties that the artist can invent to give a new sensation of reading comics. In this example that I have taken from a comic called, One-punch man, the artist experimented on the timing of each panel.

 

In this example above, the artist decided to use experiment on making a sequential drawing each page, which is unheard of in the comic history in my opinion.i guess, it is pretty similar with one of the example that Scott McCloud showed, the Creepy Casefiles of Margo Maloo, but this artist, Murata Yusuke, make it even more prominent. In a way, the artist tries to reimagine this sequence as if the chapter itself will be published into a cartoon. That is shown in this gif that is taken from forum that got really interested with the artist work. Here you can see that the gif itself moved like it is an animated