Nemo Revision

For the second week of class I read Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice, among other comic books. From just the cover I didn't think I would like it very much but once I got into the actual book I was surprised that I actually liked the idea quite a bit. I liked how it really played with the readers imagination, in Slumberland anything could happen. The adventures that Nemo and his friends went on were very whimsical and I enjoyed the transitions, they were very dream like and fit the story well.

The biggest problem I had with this comic book was that the characters were extremely flat. Nemo, the main character of the story, never really says much or does anything for that matter, he is just... there. The only time he actually does anything is it the last panel, when he wakes up, which I'll elaborate on later. Then there is his friend Flip who is the mischief maker of the comic, always getting into trouble some how. I would say that I didn't read enough of the strip to see changes in the characters but it was an entire story arch contained within the book so I am a little disappointed. It is based it a dream world so there is no excuse for the characters not to change at least a little. The shell of a character that Nemo is reminds me of the Twilight series and how Bella is just a shell for ever little girl to identify with so they can make money and it seems like that what the author is doing to Nemo so it is easy for little kids to identify with him. I can't really say it is a bad plan but for a more advanced reader it is annoying when you see Nemo for what her really is, it's kind of a let down. But the comic wasn't all bad, I did enjoy the large format not normally seen in comics these day and the ending panel of the comics.

One part of Little Nemo I found interesting and I feel the need to elaborate on is how the last plane of every comic is him waking up in bed. Each comic ends with Nemo waking up in bed, usually in a different way. There were a few comics in which he was falling in slumberland and when he would wake up he would be on the floor. I found this transition between the sleeping world and his reality very interesting because it kept s degree of continuity in the story but also added a fun panel at the end. This was a great way to bring the reader back to the read world and pull back from each story also. I think the transitions form different scenes and places within the book are done amazing and waking up has to be my favorite.

Perry Bible Fellowship

Ah finally, web comics, my favorite kind of comic right now and above all the others I love Perry Bible Fellowship. It is the origin of all my sick internet humor, I have always been drawn to Nicholas Gurewitch's sense of humor. I have been reading PBF since early high school because I had seen his comic linked on other sites that recommended it. after the first one I read I was instantly hooked. If I remember right, the first one I saw was Astronaut Fall which is where an astronaut falls to earth and a child eats the one flake of ash that is left of him thinking it's the first snow flake of the season. humor like this was very new to me at the time, most of the jokes in the online comics I was reading were about video games or were very corny but this was something completely new to me. Later I would start reading White Ninja too because it uses the same approach to writing jokes as PBF. The writing style of these comics is something that is still unique to me, and he manages to keep it in all the comics while getting amazing jokes it there. I can randomly click on the archive and I will always laugh. The art of the comic is nothing too special, it doesn't detract from the story and it doesn't scream over the story either. I would like to take this blog post to analyze why the writing style appeals to me so much.

The comedic value in the comics does not come from one line jokes or other traditional ways to bring humor into web comics that I see everywhere else. The situations that Gurewitch presents in his short comics are where the comedy lies and how his unique characters interact with the situations. Many of the ideas brought up are easy to identify and are often thought about but Gurewitch puts a new spin on them, he presents them in a new way that I dont think most people would ever imagine. This is where I find the true value of PBF comes from, the ability to take the ordinary and give it that extra push and turn it into something I find really funny. They also seem to have a cynical undertone to most of them which also makes the comic stand out for me. I have really taking lessons from this comic and apply them to how I see the world around me and I believe that is why I have a very unique sense of humor. Perry Bible Fellowship is by far my favorite comic I have read this semester.

Y the Last Man

I found this book before it was actually reccomened in the class at the beginning of the semester while looking at a list of comics that the author believed could not be made into movies because of how they are formatted perfectly. This book stood out on that list because I found the plot idea to be interesting, I think it is often a male fantasy to be the only male in a land of women but this comic takes a real look at how that is really not that good of an idea. I feel that Y takes a very real approach to how being the only man would work and I think that's a great concept.

The analysis of an odd male fantasy it a great jumping off point for a comic, it gets common ground with the vast majority of comic readers and pulls them in, one of the best hooks I have seen in comics. It the story builds off of this idea and how being the only male would work and presents it is a fashion that is not at all like the fantasy that most men would believe it to be, maybe because of how it happens or just because that is how it would actually happen. I feel the author sets a a great senaerio for how being the only male could be possible, without just letting it go to magic or some kind of wish/fantasy, which I think is much more challenging but also much more rewarding in the end because I feel it makes the story a lot stronger. It feels to me like an advertiser came up with the idea for this book because the introduction is so well thought out and it really sucks a male audience in, the author definitely knows what audience he is going for and how to lure them in. I was not able to get that far into the series but it was enough to hook me and I plan on finishing it during winter break

Sandman

I found Sandman at the top of a list called "comics that can not be made into movies" before entering the class and after reading the first few on the course resource list man I couldn't agree more. Sandman has such an interesting story that can not be fully explained and I feel that it is so well written as a comic that it really shouldn't though I have heard talk about it. I find the sequences of dreaming to be amazing and how could one really film that? In today's age of technology it is much closer than when the story was first written. The constant change of epic scenes would be amazingly hard to recreate and build for a movie. The transitions of a dream would also be an interesting feat to film, in the book things will just change, which appears natural in dreams but in a movie the viewer would notice such changes and it would seem very old in a constant motion where as the reader places what they know about dreaming in between the panels in the comic. I think the parts that are not shown are some of the most important parts of the is comic and it is why that a comic is a great medium to write a story about dream, you can read between panels. I feel that many of the time changes not only scene changes would contribute to making a film about the comic increasingly hard and would confuse an audience, many of the characer are immortal and appear through out different time periods which might be odd to a movie goes who does not grasp the whole story. Also the story has to be told in a two hour time period which would be amazing hard to explain all parts of this amazingly in depth and interesting series. In conclusion I agree that this comic would make a very difficult movie but at the same time I would love to see a team try to tackle this amazing project.

Love and Rockets

One of the more interesting reads of the semester, Love and Rockets by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez. It contains multiple story lines but the 2 main ones are Gilbert's Palomar stories and Jaime's Hoppers 13.
One of the most interesting things about Love and Rockets is that it is not written like most male comics authors write, it actually treats the woman in it like real people and they are also the main focus of most of the stories. The girls are not some kind of fantasy proportioned people who are just objects of lust but complex characters who do not have perfect physic. They actually change over time realistically and gain weight something that doesn't normally happen in comics which is pretty amusing. I found that the authors where realy able to appeal to both males and females with theses comics and judging by what I have read of them they are actually geared for woman, but I was still able to enjoy it even still. I found that realistic female protagonists are most common in works that are meant for women.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

Scott Pilgrim, one of the more interesting reads for me lately. It is about a 23 year old guy who falls in love with a girl but must defeat her 7 evil ex-boyfriends before he can date her. I instantly loved this comic for reasons I still don't fully understand.
One of the most interesting part of this comic to me is the fact that Scott doesn't know anything that is now presented in the comic. At one point he attacks his brother because Scott thinks he is an evil ex but then his brother yells at him. At one point him and his roommate go to pay the landlord and he tells them the lease is up, they some how forgot it had been a year. There are other times where Scott doesn't seem to quite know what is going on in the world around him and I find this an interesting way for the reader to relate to Scott because they have about the same knowledge of the story, any plot twist would be just as much of a surprise to Scott as it is to the reader. I also like that he is not phased by any of the crazy things that go on in his life, which a normal person would freak out about but in the comic it just seems so natural. I can't wait to finish this series, I am 4 out of 5.

Alan's War

After Reading Maus I was prepared for the worst with Alan's War but the resulting story I found not nearly as gruesome and a much easier read. Alan's War is about G.I. Alan Cope and how he deals with being in the war.

It recounts all parts of the war for Alan. They don't skip any of the small things that, in the end, are what really matter. He details all of his experiences in great detail and it really gives you a feel for what is was like to be there in his shoes. I found his recounting to be interesting at first but the length of the entire book was too intimidating to finish, the story was good but not that good. I found that after a while it seemed to drag on, and it was a biography so lots of details had to be included but I ended up not being hooked into the book like I was with Maus. The entire thing seemed too generic to really read all of it, it got predictable but I should have expected that fro a biography but it was a little disappointing because just judging by the cover the book seemed like it could be really interesting. I dont think there is much the author can do to change this though being a biography and all which is unfortunate so I'd live it that if you want to get into the life of a G.I. in World War 2 Alan's War is a good read but if you are just looking for a new graphic novel to pass the time I would suggest looking else where.

Osamu Tezuka — Karma

I found the Phoenix series as a whole to be an amazing concept, I would love to read another volume that takes place in the future and compare the two. As I am unable to read another volume in the series I'll just do this review on Karma, which is based in japan in the 8th century.

This was a completely new manga experience for me, I have read a few in high school but nothing that was very deep. The complexity of this story blows most of the books I have read out of the water, I feel like there was a real story there. Most manga now seems too commercial and they all seem to use the same formula but Tezuka really makes something unique with his Phenoix series. Not only is this an amazing accomplishment for manga but he does it so early in it's development.

Persepolis

Persepolis is about a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. I read this book in high school but decided to go back and reread it because it had been awhile. I found that the book was still interesting to me which was surprising because I didn't really like it that much in high school.
I think the appeal came from the child's prospective on a very serious issue and how she had to deal with what was going on in Iran. It wasn't the kind of story you would hear about in the news but I think it was much more interesting because she told it as someone who was still innocent when everything around her was going crazy. I feel like a story must show me something new to hold my attention and even though I have already read this book it still presents a unique situation for a perspective that I could not normally see. I also find it a good read considering Iran recent elections and protests, there could very easily be another girl going through the same things right now in Iran and it is a great insight into how people there live. I never get to see that part of the world very close and this book is a great learning experience to teach people like me about the Middle East.

Complete Maus

I must say, of all the comics I have read so far for this class Maus has really been the most moving. I was expecting another story of the holocaust but Maus really turned out to be much, much more. The story is about Art going to talk to his dad and getting his story about the holocaust so he can make it into a comic book, the one you are reading which I thought was an interesting concept. It is a modern tale, told through the eyes of the author, which I think makes it easier to relate with. Art struggles to understand what going through the holocaust was like and I think that is something that everyone who didn't go through it feels. He also is very truthful in his writings, Maus has a very real feeling to it, because it is not just his father retelling his story but also how Art and his father don't always get along and how his father and his second wife Mala do not get along. Speigelman don't hold back on his details, he even includes how he struggled with depression while writing the book, which I found to be very courageous of him, it takes a lot of guts to put all this personal information into a comic.

My step-Grandpa Sam was also a holocaust surviver and Vladek really reminded me of him. He wouldn't throw away anything, My step mom had to spend a week at his apartment cleaning it out after he moved into an assisted living home closer to us. He also remarried after my step mom's mother died, and his new wife Gloria seemed very much like Mala, but I think they got along better than Mala and Vladek. Sam would only give Gloria an allowance that was very small and was very tight with his money. In many ways it seemed that Vladek was a very stereotypical holocaust survivor. Many of his habits made no sense to me but his life was so different from mine, so much harder that I don't think I'll ever be able to understand. I like to think that survivors don't want to to completely understand what they went through, it was just to horrible.

In Maus Vladek recounts his story, that includes more than just the holocaust, but also his life before the war broke out. It starts out before he even meets Art's mother Anja, when he is in Czechoslovakia buying and selling textiles. Later his cousin introduced him to Anja when he went to visit his family, and they stated talking on the phone and sending letters. They eventually got married and her father was very wealthy so he help Vladek start his own textile factory. They have a boy named Richieu but after this Anja becomes sick and depressed and Vladek takes her to a remote sanitarium and when they come back a few months later much has changed. Thier factory has been robbed and Jews are being persecuted. Vladek then gets drafted, then captured by they Germans and put in a POW camp. he is then released from the camp and sneaks back to his family. They are then relocated to the getto. When this happens they decided to send Richieu to live with a friend but the Germans are taking the Jews around where the lives to she poisons herself and the children. Vladek and the family move from different hiding places trying to evade the Germans but are ratted out by one of the people that they help. Vladek and Anja then spend much of their time moving around and hiding with different people until they are captured and sent to Auschwitz. There Vladek and Anja get separated but write letters to each other and another prisoner carries them. In Auschwitz Vladek works as a tinsmith and in a shoe shop but is then sent to do black work, hard manual labor. It is almost the end of the war and all the prisoners that are healthy enough to make a trip to Switzerland are sent to exchange for German POWs. On the trip they are stopped in a train yard for days without food and many people die here. then they are released and are free to go. After this Vladek and other get captured by German partols but the patrols flee each time. Eventually they meet the American soldiers and they help the Jews with food and health care. Vladek then returns to his hometown, Anja is there and they are so happy to finally se each other again. This is where Vladek stops his story, but while this is going on another story is running parallel to it, the one in the present day for Art.

It starts with Art going to his father house to get the story from him about his life and living through the holocaust. It shows the struggle Art goes through with his father and their clashing personalities. Also Vladek is having marriage problems and Mala his second wife leaves him and takes the money from their accounts. Art has to go help his father and Vladek eventually goes to Florida to she Mala and they get back together. Then Vladek has some medical complication and has to go to the hospital in Florida and Art flies down to see him, the 3 of them thne fly back to New York to go to a hospital there and the Doctor says he will be ok. Later after the first volume of Maus comes out Vladek dies and art has a hard time getting over his fathers death but with help from a theripist he finishes the second volume and puts out, what I would consider one of the greatest graphic novels I have ever read.

Underground Comics

This week I read a couple Underground comics. The first one I started to read was Air Pirate Funnies. I couldnt even get past the first story in this comic, it was just so hard to read and all over the place. I was really struggling to stay focused and by the time I finished the first story I had no idea what I had just read. I really did not enjoy this comic, the text and images were just so hard to understand that it really put me off.

After my failed attempt at reading Air Pirate Funnies I moved on to another underground comic, Four Sketchbooks and a Table of Useful Information. This wasn't much of a comic but more a collection of sketches from artists and at the end it does include a table of useful information, mainly conversions. I actually like this one quite a bit, I found many of the drawing interesting and I love looking through other artists sketchbooks. Sometimes there would be short comics in the sketchbooks but it was rare, mostly they consisted of drawings. Spain's part of the book was by far my favorite because his art style felt very contemporary. This comic, as a whole though I would still not consider very good, compared to the other comics I have read in this class, I just dont see the appeal in many of the underground comics but I guess that is why they are underground comics.

A Contract with God

A Contract with God by Will Eisner is a collection of short stories including "A Contract With God", "The Super", "The Street Singer", and "Cookalein". Each story has to do with different residents of a tenement in New York City. The first story, "A Contract With God", is about a man who looses his adopted daughter and creates an apartment empire. The next Story, "The Super", is about the super in a tenement who is hated by the residents and he ends up killing himself. "The Street Singer" is about a street singer who is also a drunk he ends up getting a gig but can't remember where it was because he was drunk. The last story, "Cookalein" is about a family who goes to the country for the summer and how everyone is cheating on each other and their sexual lives.

One of the most interesting parts of this graphic novel was how the panels are set up. Eisner doesn't stick with the normal layout of panels used by many comic artists of the day. Many pages are single panels but instead of out lining them he leaves the edges open making them feel less condensed. He can make big panels and use white space because he doesn't have to fit his entire story into one comic strip, he has an entire novel to tell his story.

I enjoy how expressive his characters bodies are portrayed, they show an amazing amount of emotion. I think this is the best part of any Eisner comic, he can really get his emotions across and he doesn't just use facial expressions like most artists but he uses their entire body to show emotion. My favorite use of this is in the first story when Firm yells to God "We had a contract!".

Jack Cole and Plastic Man, Asterix the Gladiator and Chasing Amy

I really enjoyed the humor in this book, it was very much my style in that way. Art wise it seemed like just the average costumed hero, nothing special there. I found some of the stories to be kind of dry, nothing was very interesting, they were very basic to me, the only thing that made it more than average was some on the humor included in it.

I also read Asterix the Gladiator this week, which was a little more interesting to me. The stroy was more refreshing because I never really got to see the other side of the story of Rome, it was always about the Romans in the movies and this was a nice change. I found the characters to be unique and all interesting in their own way. The art style was also more interesting to me that Plastic Man.

This week I also watch the movie Chasing Amy. I really love Kevin Smith films and this was no exception. I had seen it once awhile ago but I had forgotten much of the story so it was nice to go back and watch it again. This is a movie about a comic book creator, Holden, who falls in love with another comic creator, Alyssa. soon after he starts having feeling for her he finds out she is actually a lesbian. This is very hard for him to over come and he ends up telling her anyways that he has deep feeling for her. They start to date but Holden soon realizes he can't deal with some of Alyssa's past sexual exploits and goes crazy. At the end he proposes having a 3 way with his friend Banky then Alyssa leaves him. My favorite part of the movie is actually the very beginning when a fan is calling Banky a tracer, I just love the dialogue there.

Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice

For the second week of class I read Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice, among other comic books. From just the cover I didn't think I would like it very much but once I got into the actual book I was surprised that I actually liked the idea quite a bit. I liked how it really played with the readers imagination, in slumberland anything could happen. The adventures that Nemo and his friends went on were very whimsical and I enjoyed the transitions, they were very dream like and fit the story well. The biggest problem I had with this comic book was that the characters were extremely flat. Nemo, the main character of the story, never really says much or does anything for that matter, he is just... there. The only time he actually does anything is it the last panel, when he wakes up, which I'll elaborate on later. Then there is his friend Flip who is the mischief maker of the comic, always getting into trouble some how. I would say that I didn't read enough of the strip to see changes in the characters but it was an entire story arch contained within the book so I am a little disappointed. One part of Little Nemo I found interesting and I feel the need to elaborate on is how the last plane of every comic is him waking up in bed.

Each comic ends with Nemo waking up in bed, usually in a different way. There were a few comics in which he was falling in slumberland and when he would wake up he would be on the floor. I found this transition between the sleeping world and his reality very interesting. I think the transitions form different scenes and places within the book are done amazing and waking up has to be my favorite.

Understanding Comics! A response

I finally finished reading "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud today. I must admit I was not expecting such an in depth analysis of comics. I had never really thought of them as a medium as Scott builds them up to be. I found his explanation of how words and pictures must work together to form a comic interesting. He talks about how the two mediums must interact and be aware of one another in a way that otherwise is not done. I find a lot of the things he touches on in this book can be applied to other mediums of art as well and not just comics which makes the book helpful to any artist reading it. Besides helping me understanding comics and other forms of art, after reading this it really made me want to start a comic of mine own. In middle school and early high school a drew a lot of comics and made a few web comics and after seeing how much more you can do with them I am seriously considering making a new comics as a side project while I am here at Ringling.

This was truly a great read for the first book in this class, even if it wasn't the most enjoyable it gives everyone i nthe class common ground on some of the major theory behind comics. I think that explaining the medium by using it was a great idea. This gives Scott the abality to really demonstrate what he is trying to say.

So this is the new year

I am finally back at Ringling and classes start tomorrow, I cant wait. I still need to get all of my room stuff sorted but man am I glad to be back. I'll also be using this blog for my Literature of the Comics and Graphic Narrative class so... yeah. I am off for now