Week 13

1.     From what I had read in the “Killing Joke” I could see a reimagining of one of comics most famous figures into how we now see the Joker as we do in todays media. From experiencing any type of media that is about the Batman we can see how events in this comic the author takes a pivotal villain and make him that much more dangerous, and gives us a sense who this villain is that is and we see this version of this character almost every time he is portrayed in modern media. While I thought that the story was fairly interesting I was very distracted by some of the drawn elements throughout the entire circus seen towards the middle end, as much of it was nonsensical and not really important to the overall plot.

2.     I felt that this story’s most powerful elements were the psychological pieces that played into the character development. What was interesting about this was that most of the character development was mostly spent of the villain instead of the hero as with most normal stories, but it did come back to development for the hero as well as Batman had to come to terms with how he would need to handle his nemesis in the aftermath of this story.

3.     If I were to adapt this story into another medium I would probably try to adapt it to a more word based novel form. By doing this I could remove most of the elements that were very nonsensical and overall not important to the story such as some of the random Joker henchman or what ever they were. I could also spend more time delving into the psychological aspects of the character development for all of the characters instead of just the villain.

Week 12

For this weeks reading I read the issues of the re-imagined Ms. Marvel comic books. I thought this was a refreshing new way to look at comics in general. This book gives us an insight to not only life as a women, but does something that is very rare in mass produced comics, we see a look at women in a different culture, and religion. This alone makes it interesting as it gives us a new look at what it is like to be an immigrant or in the characters case the child of an immigrant. It is also is interesting to see how the women in a culture that typically suffer from gender inequality, live and act in a culture that is sometimes almost the exact opposite.

We also get a unique look into the life of a teenager in this demographic. This is also unique as we see someone who is caught between the strict traditions and religious beliefs of her family, and the pop culture of America which she grew up with and finds so interesting. This will probably help keep this series alive.

Week 11

For this week's reading I had read Phoebe Gloeckner's "Diary of a Teenage Girl", Jeff Smith's "Bone" and Kody Chamberlain's "Sweets: A New Orleans Crime Story". I found that these stories followed quite a different format than other more standard comics and graphic narratives. I could definitely  more easily call these works literature compared to other comics, though I can't really say why. Maybe it's because these works have stories that more substantial substance in their stories compared to some comics as many of them have a new story every other week. 

This is certainly the case for Gloeckner's work as it gives people not only just a story of one particular young women growing up, but gives a voice to many other young women who go through very similar situations, even if their not the same. This gives us kind of a glimpse of what traditional media would look like as contemporary literature, and how comics deserve a place in that setting as well.

Week 10

This week we looked at Japanese and Manga comics. For class I had read some of Osamu Tezuka's work. As I read them I noticed that something he liked to play with was gender and relationships, which is something that is still not commonly addressed in American comics. I also noticed that a lot of the stories were very outlandish and fantasy driven. I always had this kind of problem with Japanese work as I had like many other artists found the visual style interesting, but unlike other artists had trouble grasping their cultural influences within their work.

So for me there is always this kind of mental disconnect when it comes to viewing something from a completely different culture. Not to say that I don't find it interesting, but it takes more commitment to really completely understand the work itself.
I did find the stories interesting however, as outlandish as they were, because of how different they were from our traditional stories.

Week 9

For this weeks assignment I read some of Moebius's "Blueberry" comics. I found it interesting to see someone who is not an American write and produce classical American Western comics. But I think that the most stunning thing for me about this work was how the artwork was created. The vast whiteness of the background gave special emphasis to the characters that is normally not seen in a vast majority of comics.

I also glanced at some of the other comics that had been posted on the course resources page. While looking through some of these comics I noticed that some of these stories seemed to take a more serious look at issues within society than a majority of other comics. I think that because of this these other comics that aren't particularly from America were taken more seriously as a media outlet.

Week 8

So when I'm asked about whether I believe that stereotyping is a necessary part of representation and character design in our popular creative media, I have to honestly say that it is not. But and this is a big but here, I do think that it is inevitable, and quite possibly unavoidable at this point. When I say this I do not mean that I think that stereotyping is ok, but I can't honestly say that we as a human species no matter what race or ethnicity we are can avoid stereotyping at this point in our evolution of society. I would argue that this tendency to stereotype might not be as prevalent in modern times if we as a people had stopped judging people by things like the color of peoples skin, or the way a particular group of people talked, two-hundred or even a hundred years ago. Of course this is not the case and based on a variety of recent current events it seems that stereotyping is here to stay.

This isn't surprising really, as stereotyping came to us as a survival mechanism, it helped us to avoid danger based on things that we previously had seen or heard about and gave us caution. The real problem that we have with stereotyping is that we started to stereotype based our differences as human beings and because we all adapted this survival mechanism all of us are to blame, whether we have dark skin, light skin, red hair, or any other trait that makes us different from each other. I have accepted that everyone eventually stereotypes someone else, as I know that I am guilty of it, and have had it happen to me on numerous occasions. For example because of my darker complexion, and darker hair, I am often mistaken as someone who is Latino, quite often a Mexican. This has happened all throughout my life and I have for the most part accepted it, and the only time that I get offended is when someone who is actually of latin decent starts speaking Spanish to me without even asking if I speak Spanish and it takes me ten minutes to convince this person that I am in fact not Latino, but German, and a little Native American (Which explains my complexion). So do I think stereotyping is necessary? Not particularly, but is there anything I can do to actually stop stereotyping? Not in this lifetime, till it is no longer a fact of life the only way to deal with stereotyping is to just take it in and prove the stereotyper wrong in as kind and polite a manner as is possible.

Week 7

Since their inception comic books have been striving to be legitimized, and with the introduction with graphic novels such as "Maus", and "I saw it", the first step was taken towards legitimization. I believe after reading both novels the reason for this is because for one of the first times since their creation comics had offered something that they had never or had hardly done in the past, they told historical accounts of true stories. This interested many of the different parties that had fought against the legitimization of comics, as comics had finally given a valid argument to those who opposed them  about their usefulness to society.

Up until that point most of comics were fictional and involved a variety of genres that ranged from very close to reality, to science fiction. Of course people had been writing fiction since we could create symbols, so why did comics have such a problem with legitimization compared to the works of other authors such as Shakespeare? A large argument the anti-comic books supporters have held even to this very day was that by giving us a visual comic books were taking away our ability to imagine what is being written. Granted their is some validity to this claim as my interpretation of some characters and situations are for certain different than what other people interpret, or even the creator themselves have created, but it doesn't mean that our imagination is hampered like the anti-comic people are claiming, it simply means that I have to use my imagination a little more to reimagine those particular situations in a way that I interpret them. 

This is why I believe these two Graphic novels began to push against this argument as it gave a potential purpose for comics, a it showed historical events from the eyes and mind of a witness. This gives the comic book legitimization as a historical document or account for some of the most important, and possibly devastating events that have happened in recent modern human history. 

Week Six

This week we exported the strange and nonsensical world of underground comics. These were comics that were written, published, and distributed with out the approval of any rating or approval system used back in that time. Because of this artists were free to explore taboo subjects in comics such as sex, war, etc. This also shows how anyone could write a comic if they so desired such as people do now on the internet, however it doesn't mean that they will of should be appreciated. This also caused a lot of the drawing to possibly be bad, as many of these people were not trained artists like those who did main stream comics such as Carl Barks, Will Eisner, or Jack Kirby.

I had read some of the Tijuana bibles, Air Pirates, and yellow dog comics in and out of class. I actually couldn't finished most of them because after reading only a couple of pages I was either extremely offended, angered, or confused beyond belief. For example a lot of these had scenes involving inappropriate sexual situations that not only were offensive to many but also glorified some of these acts as if they were all over our culture, which may or may not be true, which I found disturbing that people would think about it and actually write and draw about it. Like I said earlier though I can decide whether or not I want to read them and whether or not I want to appreciate them either so I do find that trait admirable.

Week Five

For this week we were studying the graphic novel which was the extension and the next evolution of the comic book. We were particularly supposed to look at the work of Will Eisner and Craig Thompson. For this weeks homework I read Will Eisner's "Contract with God".  I was immediately interested at the title as I am a fairly spiritual person myself and have my own relationship with God that at times has it's highs and more often it's lows. I found it interesting to see how Eisner portrayed all varieties of people and how they lived their lives, in relation to how God had intended.

The real interesting subject of this week is actually the advancement of the graphic novel itself. It is interesting to what is essentially a book represented in the form of comics and drawings instead of just words, or even no words similarly to the "Arrival" which we read at the beginning of the course. Similar to comic books these larger extended novels also had a variety of subjects. Some like Eisner's "Contract with God" deal with interesting yet very unique concepts that were rarely even found in other forms of media at the time, and others could just be collecting a particular storyline in a comic book series.

Week Four

For this week we were introduced into the next advancement in comics which was the comic book. We learned in class about the advancement from the strip to the larger pamphlet or book comic layout. For homework I had read some Batman, Action Comics, and some of Carl Bark's work. In class I also had the opportunity to read some military comics and a Roy Rodgers comic as well. I wanted to read a variety of comics as at the time period we learned about was all about the variety from everything from comics made about movies and television shows, super heroes, adventurers, westerns, sci fi and real life things such as war.

One of the ones that really caught my attention was Roy Rodgers, which was based on the Roy Rodgers film and tv series. I was interested in it as it portrayed old western style living with fifties, and sixties modernity which was confusing at first. I was also interested in the discussion of comics censorship at the time which I found very intriguing. I found myself playing devils advocate as I believe each side of the arguments had some valid points such as I don't think younger kids should have access to comics that portray sexual situations or overly realistic war violence, however I don't think that comics should have been censored the way they were either.

Week three

For this week we were studying the comic strip and were asked to read a variety of different comic strips. I ended up reading Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, and some Little Nemo as well as some Mickey Mouse dailies. I chose to read Peanuts as it has always been one of my favorite comic strips growing up whenever my family had gotten a news paper, and I had also grew up watching the peanuts cartoons as well. After learning about Shultz and the peanuts gang I fell a little more in love with the strip. I had always connected with Charlie Brown in a lot of ways growing up, but learning that this strip was somewhat autobiographical made me feel more connected with the concept.

The other strip that I read that I think needed to be discussed was Little Nemo. After reading about three of these stories I was moderately annoyed with the comic. I was extremely confused at the beginning of each story as it had absolutely no continuation what so ever. After figuring out each story was about how a boy was having strange dreams I was slightly amused as it was an interesting concept, that quickly got boring and tiring. I was also a little appalled by the way the kid's parents treated him after waking up at the end of each strip, however I do believe that Little Nemo could benefit from some intense psychotherapy.

week one

For the first week of this class we were asked to read "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan. To me when I first read through it I was a little confused about what this book was about. I spent the entire first attempt of reading this trying to figure out what the author or artist was trying to convey with this work. I thought about it at first I figured it was about immigration, as it turned out to be, however I had enough self doubt in me to keep trying to over analyze every little thing about this graphic novel.  As I figured it out I felt that this kind of comic book while very interesting was not the right kind of literature for me.

Like I said I do think it is interesting just for the sake that it is attempting to communicate something from someones personal experiences. I however felt that this was asking to much for the audience to figure out. This feels weird saying as I know my personality type and I normally have no problem reading body language, but this has to much unfamiliar imagery such as the spiked tails in the first part of the book.

Week Two

For the second week we were instructed to read "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud. I was very amused by the style in which it was written, in which it was written as a comic. I thought that this was a genius way to write about understanding comics, by actually writing it as a comic book. I think that this is genius as it allows the reader to literally connect to the material and visually see the concepts that are being explained, which when you think about explains comics perfectly write there.

I was particularly interested in the section about the how we as people recognize cartoons, compared to other forms of art and drawing. It was really interesting about how it was explained how we attach emotions and identities to these drawings and characters despite the fact that they are non-existent in real life. I also strongly disagree with this as we as people make these creations using our emotions and hope to transfer these characters and their emotional connections with other people which makes these things tangible and relevant to other people in their individual lives.