Web Comics!

For this week, I read Gutless, Mimon, and a little bit of bit of Barbaros. Even though they were short, I really liked Gutless and Mimon! Gutless had a very cool, modern, millennial look and feel to it, from the character designs to the story itself. I liked how the princess and the mermaid felt non-traditional it make things feel very fresh and original. I definitely plan to keep following the comic in the future. 

I had very similar feelings about Mimon, I thought the art was gorgeous, much cleaner and elegant than the rougher more painterly gutless. I love fantasy stories, witches, and media with great female representation,  and this had all of that. Another one I plan to continue!

I read a few barbaros too, but I didn't get very far. it didn't grab my attention like the former two comics did. The design of the monster character didn't really appeal to me, but to each their own I suppose. 

Other comics I've been following, I've been absolutely LIVING for Heavy Vinyl and Snotgirl. Heavy Vinyl is adorable and is turning out to be a really fun and fresh new look at queer media. Snotgirl is just a work of art, the illustrations are gorgeous and the story is taking a really interesting horror/thriller turn. I don't usually follow a lot of horror stories but I cant put this one down, I’m in too deep. 

Pretty Deadly? Pretty cool!

1) What is your reaction to the text you just read?

I've read segments of Pretty Deadly before, as well as some of  Kelly Sue DeConnick's other work. My initial reaction what a bit shocked, I usually don't read a lot of horror, and there were moments that had some pretty intense gore. I also don't usually read a lot of western comics, but I did like this more than most. I did feel a difference in the intended demographic of the story, perhaps because the heads of the creative team was mostly women. The illustrations were absolutely gorgeous, very gothic and poetic. It didn't feel like it was catered towards specifically male or female readers, it just felt like art and storytelling, if that makes any sense. The nudity between male and female characters is equally revealed, which is rare in most modern media. The "cool/badass" factor also feels pretty even. The most significant character so far, Ginny, has all of the presence of classic action/ adventure heroes, which is really refreshing.

2) What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect?

One immediate connection I made, was to Kelly Sue DeConnick's other work. I love her work on Captain Marvel, and Bitch Planet is especially significant. I had a really similar reaction to this, on how the artists and story handled nudity. In Bitch Planet, there was a lot of non-sexual nudity, which is super rare to see in comics. I'm not sure I've seen it anywhere else, actually. It was an element of the story and represented something, but the storytelling took precedence over pure sex appeal. In Pretty Deadly, there's literally a Sex Scene in the second volume, And though I do think that elements are intended to be appealing, again the storytelling, character development, and narration takes precedence. It feels more about setting up the characters and story, then showing them off.

In terms of personal connection, I've noticed in plenty of media recently that I do tend to relate to female characters more. It seems like the title character here is Ginny, and though we haven't met too many other characters, the ratio of male to female seems pretty even. Since I've just read the first two volumes of the series, there hasn't been too much opportunity for character development, and that's usually what really attaches me to a character. Ginny seems pretty cool and badass, but I tend to connect with more human/emotional characters. Perhaps as the story progresses, we'll see her humanity come out more.

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

Right now, the form of media what would stick closest to the story would probably be a TV series on Sci-Fi network. I see it in that sort of demographic, much like Defiance (also a sci-fi western) and some of the other sci-fi / western / fantasy programs. I do think that it would lose a lot of the vibrancy the comic has with color and style, most of that is comic-specific. The other form of media that might come close would be something like Lakia did in Kubo and the two strings, (stop motion animation with bits of CG) but since that studio mostly does children's animation, this would never fly.

Fun Home! (what it is, what it is)

I absolutely love Alison Bechdel, I've been a huge fan of her's for a very long time. I've never actually finished reading Fun Home though, so I was thrilled to see it as an option. I saw the Musical version of it last year and loved that, the music is gorgeous and its incredibly rare to see such young actors taking on high-level acting. I thought the comic itself was brilliant too, much more graphic then I was expecting. The musical is a bit more romantic about her experiences with Joan, and the first time she saw a butch woman, (Ring of Keys) but I really appreciated the humor that's exclusive to the comic.
I loved all of the pages with silhouettes, those stood out to me a ton. The story itself has so much heart, her relationship with her dad felt almost therapeutic to read. It made me think a lot about my own family, and my dad, and the mental illness and experiences of many of my close friends and family. "tragi-comic" is a really good term to describe it, since it is tragic, and dark, but also very poetic and clever.

Bone!

For this week's assignment, I read some of the "Bone" series, by Jeff Smith. This was a huge nostalgia trip for me, when I was younger I remember reading them and really really enjoying them. The creatures are so wacky and silly, the weird rat creatures having a huge love of cooking and quiche is so random but sweet. It's little touches like that, giving weird monsters unexpected human personality traits. Reading it now, I found it a little bit strange how he drew Thorn. I know they tried to make her appealing and sexy, but it seemed not necessary for this demographic. I still love the relationship between Rose and Lucius.

Battle Angel Alita

For this week's assignment, I read "Battle Angel Alita," by Yukito Kishiro. It's funny, I recently started following this podcast "Salt and Honey," run by two of my favorite current comic artist, (Sloane and Leslie Hung) and this was one that was recommended. Battle Angel Alita was very heavily influenced by classic Sci-fi and cyberpunk, which I'm a huge fan of. All of the shots and scenes that took place in space were really detailed and well done, super creepy and surreal. I loved how she was drawn and portrayed, she seemed really powerful and tough, but also reached points where she was almost abstract. Some of the horror was kind of hard to stomach at times. A bunch of that is too high level for me, but overall I did enjoy the story and art.

Current Favorites!

I didn't know we were encouraged to blog about comics we were reading independently!
Some of the ones I've been really loving lately, starting with Bryan Lee O'Malley's Snotgirl. I love the design and the aesthetic of it, Leslie Hung does the artwork which is absolutely phenomenal. The story itself is fun, dramatic, kind of like reality TV. I've also really been loving PaperGirls, which is a super fun sci-fi series about a team of papergirls battling cool monsters. Cliff Chiang does the art, and he's another of my favorites. (Especially his stuff on Wonder Woman.)
Another new series, which is super recent but so far fantastic, is Hi-Fi Fight club. It's about an all girl's fight club set in the late 90's in a record store. The protagonist is a young queer girl, which is really refreshing to see. So far I love it, I wish it had been around when I was a young teen.
I'm also really excited for the new Runaways series, I LOVED the original run, and am so stoked for the revival, and upcoming series.

Valerian

For this week's, I read the Comic 'Valerian,' by Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin. I saw the movie over the summer since I'm a big fan of that director's other cult sci-fi film, 'The 5th Element." I did really enjoy the movie, it felt really fun and kind of ridiculous in the same manner. This comic felt a little bit slower to me. The art was still enjoyable, the monsters were fun and silly looking. I didn't really like the way Laureline was drawn or portrayed, it felt very "male gaze" to me, without giving her a really interesting character. I really didn't like the bit on page 27, where he ran at her and kissed her after swimming naked. That felt pretty gross and sexist. I did think that the worldbuilding was really, really strong and that really sold me on making this an interesting and worthwhile read. 

Art Spiegelman

Maus, by Art Spiegelman was phenomenal. It felt like such a personal and original story.
I think the choice to use animals to portray the different nations made it easier to get through and digest, it allowed the story to really dig in and get graphics. It's an interesting concept to think about, because cats killing mice is something we accept in real life as part of nature. In the comic, all the animals possess human consciousness and mannerisms.
I liked how honest it was, it acknowledged that even within the Jewish community there were flaws in how the older generation perceived others. It put a new spin on a holocaust story, and made us think of the events in a different light, besides just looking at straight facts.
Even the title, "a survivor's tale" sets up some of the themes we find in the book, such as guilt. The bits of humor from the father gave the story some variety, which I was very thankful for.

In class comic

The mentor in the mason jar was a comic found in zap #7, and made by Robert Williams.  

I found it pretty hard to read, actually. It's a lot messier and very busy to look at on the page. I think that may have been the effect the artist was going for. The images were pretty gross to look at, especially towards the end. The one panel  I liked was a simple silhouette of the main character against the moon. 

I think I would have liked the comic more if things were spaced out more, and given room to breathe. Parts of it were hard to read, for this reason. 

It felt like it was trying to be edgy and go for shock value above all else, which I'm not crazy about in general.

Underground Comics

I wasn't a huge fan of Robert Crumb's "Mr. Natural." I didn't find the style super appealing or humorous. I'm guessing the sexual content was intended for humor over pleasure since it felt incredibly profane. I wasn't a fan of the content involving the 'Baby," even if portrayed as fully grown. I really just found that section uncomfortable and excessive. Perhaps it was intended to be a parody on other comics, or satire, or just offensive, but I had a really hard time finding the entertainment value or purpose. I wasn't crazy about the art style either, it felt reminiscent of much older cartoons but didn't exactly feel tasteful.

 Other comics that I looked at were "Gay Comix," which seemed to have a number of artists and stories. Parts of this I did enjoy, it was really cool seeing queer artists expressing themselves. The note at the beginning mentioned it was a place for expression, without fear of being politically incorrect. Even with that, it felt much cleaner than "Mr Natural." The very first comic shown was very interesting to me content-wise, there isn't a lot of media about being bisexual, and especially at that time, I imagine it must have been pretty out there. It had a nice auto-biographical feeling to it, and I like that it ended on a nice note, after everything. I really enjoyed seeing the different styles and perspectives, while not every story really grabbed me, they worked well together and complimented each other.

I also read "Tits and Clits," which was a similarly organized in terms of multiple artists, stories, and perspectives. I liked the "Pastoral Interlude," comic, and I absolutely loved the "First Love," comic. That's one that I think I'm going to remember for a long time, seeing a comic, even just a 2-page spread, where the subject was simply "self-love and care," was unexpected, especially surrounded by all of the profanity from other comics. There was nudity, but it felt more natural and almost romantic. I loved it, I loved how simple it was but it said a lot. 

The humor here felt much more bearable then "Mr. Natural" too. The bit about the 'vibrator cozies" was pretty funny and silly, it felt like the artists were going for actual humor, as opposed to just shock value or offensiveness. The "sex rolls" bit was also pretty funny.

The selections this week, "Blankets," by Craig Thompson, and "Contract with God" by Will Eisner are both more serious works then we've looked at previously. Both use very graphic, harsh inkwork, which reflects the style of the story and writing. Blankets really stood out to me as original, with the more "indie" style characters and edgy story. I loved the patterns and detailed ink-work. The style almost reminded me of scratchboard, it made me wonder if it was done digitally or with pen and ink. Some of the panels were so full of emotion, you could really feel what the characters were feeling, and sense their anxiety. The composition and exaggerated features and proportions of the characters made it really visually interesting, and really refreshing from some of the previous comics we've looked at. The character's profiles, for instance, were sharp, clean, angular and specific, while the shading and textures were kept rough, which had a really great effect. When he saw his girlfriend sleeping, the illustrations felt so full of love and care, with romantic swirling lettering. When he first tells her he loves her, the use of type and lettering is so clever and lyrical. The use of white space, especially towards the end of part 2 and part 3 felt significant, especially in contrast to how hectic other parts of the comic were. It gave us room to breathe and think.
Contract with God was different from a lot of comics I've read, featuring full-page illustrations more so than traditional comic panels. The linework felt much cleaner than the previous comic, though was still kept loose and free.

Tin-Tin comics are so pleasing and calming to look at, and provide a really nice mix of simple and stylized character designs, and more detailed and intricate environments and interiors. In "Explorers On The Moon," the backgrounds have so much detail I wonder if they were referenced from photos at the time. The human characters are so simple, with the iconic dot eyes and rosy red cheeks. Its the perfect sort of comic for someone who loves adventure and exploration. It does feel very heavily marketed towards boys, I didn't notice any female characters. I also noticed the tracing technique that was probably used, to quickly copy the same character multiple times.

Oldies

I really cant describe Calvin and Hobbes without the word 'charming.' They really embody quintessential childhood nostalgia, and appeal to younger and audiences for their clever and whimsical stories and style. My mind jumps instantly to the times when I've looked after that age group, specifically younger family friends who's brains operate in a similar vein of imagination. Somehow, the stories tap into something thats universally relatable.
Krazy Kat seemed much less accessible to me, and a bit dated. They didn't hold up as well as some of the other cartoons, perhaps because of the style and more realistic stories. It does feel really reminiscent of some old Mickey Mouse cartoons, probably because they were for the same demographic.
Peanuts is another favorite that i think holds up quite well. Theres something pretty funny about cynical kids, talking dogs, and just the right amount of more mature adult humor. I really liked how Peanuts would use darks to totally block out dark color, it make things much more interesting and visual to look at.

"The Intensity of the Presentation V.S. Story"

I found both of these concepts interesting, in Scott McCloud's "Making Comics." In the section entitled "Writing with Pictures," he goes into depth about how the organization of how the panels are presented can play a huge role in the comic's genre. Action sequences tend to have dynamic, faster paced panels and sequences, while 'daily gag' style comics can be much more simple and basic, often relying on story or clever wordplay, characters, jokes and puns. Whether we see the sequence up close or pulled out can totally effect the mood of the comic. I would guess that it might have something to do with how the comics are produced.
Daily newspaper comics are on a much shorter production schedule, since they were pumped out as quickly as possible. They had to be snappy and to the point, but interesting enough to catch the eye of a random reader, glancing through the funnies. Meanwhile, the dynamic staging and style of faster paced action comics, which makes me think of the superhero genre, are competing with a multitude of other comics on the shelf. Its much more of a visual contest, to which cover stands out the most, and who's pages are the most eye catching to a kid quickly flipping through them. Each target a pretty different demographic, but still manage to find an audience and remain interesting.

Max Ernst and Deadly Roosters

The sequence starts out tamely enough, with a figure leaping back from a small rooster. In the background, we see a figure crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, but no foul play is seen.

She knows though, that the roosters bring bad luck, so she was trying to steer clear. When it brought about her death, the rooster came back and began to haunt her mortician, and followed him home to haunt his family, and possess him which turned him into a where-rooster. Wherever he went after that, he brought death and tragedy, and the spirit of the rooster began to drive him mad. His family, his work, his wife, all suffered from his tragic luck. In the end he hoped to pass on the curse to another victim, with hope that it would free him and turn him human again.

The Arrival - Shaun Tan

In Shaun Tan's graphic novel The Arrival is a gorgeous mix of whimsical and surreal fantasy and very real themes, still relevant and applicable in our world. The feeling of traveling to a strange and bizarre new land, with different creatures and customs was captured in his signature whimsical way, though the topic was still fairly serious. Themes of immigration, industrialism, and feeling homesick were just as prominent as the striking visuals and playful creatures and cities he created. I've read some of Shaun Tan's other work, and this story had some of the most realistic characters I've seen from him. It also felt like it was targeted at an older audience, since most of his other stories have been aimed at children, though still maintain interesting themes for all ages. The wide shots really stood out to me, out of context I could see them standing independently in a gallery. I’ve noticed in Shaun Tan’s other work, (The Lost Thing and Tales from Outer Suburbia) also uses strong themes including our connection to technology and the balance between work, large industries, and technology v.s. more organic nature. I’m not used to reading comics that are wordless, I can only think of a few others that fit that description. I do get the impression that the choice to keep it silent was intended to make the reader really think about what the story meant to them. Since we don’t have a clear sense of who the main character is, we can imagine anyone in that position. I felt that made it that much personal to the reader. Since he was traveling to a fantasyland, the story could also take place anywhere, since it didn’t seem culture specific. I thought that comparing the family to the family we see in the end was a really interesting choice. It felt like bookends of the story, opening and closing in a way that compared the two felt significant. Even the tone used felt warmer, and learning to learn, live, love, and grow in a new world left the story on a more optimistic and progressive note.