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.