Revision of Manga Blog

Manga is a topic that I've always been very interested in. I've been reading it for as long as I can remember. It started when I was younger and watching anime on cartoon network. Sailor Moon and Pokemon and Cardcaptor Sakura were the ones that I would watch. Then when I found out that they made comic forms of all of those, I was amazed. Of course I didn't know that with a majority of animes, the manga came first... But I didn't realize that at the time. I was just reading them because I loved the series that I had seen on television and now was getting to read it with more interesting story lines and things that hadn't happened in the anime. What came next was realizing how much manga I could buy at comic stores and book stores like Barnes and Nobles. Once I found their comic and graphic novel section, I wanted to go there all the time. I started reading primarily shounen or shojo mangas. I liked getting to read adventures with a hint of romantic capacities between the two main characters. I would always wish that I was in such series and that's actually what got me to start drawing. I would try and draw myself as a sailor moon character, or a pokemon trainer.

By the time I was fifteen I had about 200 volumes of manga. I would collect series as they were released, wanting to know what was happening next to the characters and what sort of plot twist was coming for me. But now that I look back on it, most mangas are incredibly repetitive. Take InuYasha by Rumiko for instance. It was one of the other series that I read all the time. I loved the characters and what would happen to them. But taking a second glance, it's all the same. The characters fight some evil lackey and yet never defeat the main bad guy. They think they do, but it's just a fake. It's just the same thing happening over and over again. Pokemon is another example of that. They fight and overcome their adversaries, but nothing really changes. And maybe that's something that works in the series. People do like stability. But I feel it's just the author using the same devices over and over, just changing it slightly so that it's not exactly the same. I find that's the case in most shounen or shoujo mangas. It's not exactly that I have a problem with that. It can work. But it's just something that I notice.

That's probably what's lost my interest in reading most manga now a days. I used to read the mall the time, but now I don't really. Sometimes I'll get on mangafox.com or onemanga.com and see if there's anything I can pick up and read online. I do wish I had found these sites back when I was collecting manga. That really would have helped my parents with not having to spend all that money on me. Plus, I'm on my laptop quite often when I have nothing else to do. It's just so much easier reading through scanlation sites. And there's the added bonus of getting to read them when they're released in Japan. No longer do you have to wait for the next volume to come to the US. That would take so much longer than reading it online. The manga is usually released by chapter in Japan, so someone scans it and translates it and thus it's on the internet for me to read. Otherwise I would have to wait for all the chapters to come out in Japan before they put the volume together for the US to produce. Thank you, internet.

Although I do not read much manga any more, like I said before, I do keep up with certain ones. There is one series that I still occasionally buy in the store. This is Minekura's Saiyuki. The story is basically about four guys traveling and having to fight demons. It falls under the category that I mentioned before. It's the same plot basically redressed and redone over and over. But for some reason, I really just enjoy reading it. There are about three series within Saiyuki and I try to stay caught up on them. I would read them all online, but I find there a surprising lack of scanlations for a manga that's fairly well known. So because I like to keep up with the series, I have to buy them in stores. And I understand why some people say actually collecting the volumes are that much better... But I don't really care about that. Reading online saves me money and I still get the same story. So it works well enough for me.

I think the main reason why I keep up with manga is to see the development. Yes, the plots might just be redone multiple times, but it's amazing to get to see an artist's style develop over time. They might start off with weak drawings, but after continuing the story over years and years of chapters, their art can get amazing. Minekura is an example of that. Her style was rough and inaccurate when I first started reading Saiyuki. But now in her most recent chapters, it's a style that has become amazing and purposeful. Clamp has a style that I enjoy revisiting as well. Although their art hasn't really changed that much for me over the time of me reading their work, I find their stories to be the development I want to catch up on. I find them one of the few manga creators that can keep my interest by story alone. I don't see it very repetitive. And with all the work that Clamp has done, I like getting to see what they'll come up with next.

Manga is something I may be slowly growing out of, but it's made a big impact on my life. I would never have started drawing so much if I hadn't discovered it.

Webcomics

Webcomics are a form I regularly keep up with. To be sadly honest, I usually pick a webcomic because I like the art of their banner. And also, I find my webcomics through Smackjeeves. It's a good website for uploading your comics for free, and still getting a wide spread amount of people to read it. I am in the works on producing a comic of my own that someday I will put up on Smackjeeves. Although self owned domains and websites probably are more recognizable and well known, I think that Smackjeeves is a great place to start. It's very easy to navigate and you can add your favorites, which sort by newest update. It also recommends other comics for you to read based off of the selections that you have. One comic I recommend from there is called "Toilet Genie". There haven't been too many comics so far on Toilet Genie, but I find it interesting.

As for reading, I picked to read Farley's "Electronic Sheep". Initially I notice the setup of the website was eye catching, starting with a page with a sheep on it. The page was set up like the old computers that were black and green. Although after that page, I started to dislike the choices made for the rest of the pages. It was rather boring and the art and toning techniques I find lacking... Afterall, you can tell that the line work was done and the rest was just paint bucketed in. There are spots where it wasn't fully colored... This page is an example of the inconsistencies. It bothers me artistically. But what I did find to bring my interest back was the fact that each page was only a panel usually, and there was narration text besides the comics. I've never seen that before in a webcomic. So it did keep me wanting to read on. Looking through the different stories in electric sheep, the art does take a turn in each. It goes from being black and white, to color, and even to 3-dimensional. I have my own personal dislike of 3-dimensional comics... They just creep me out. But moving on and focusing more on the literature of the comic, even though it's interesting, I'm not sure I like the narration on the side. If all you had were just the panels, you could still understand everything. However, with the narration, you know exactly what the author wants you to know. And yes, that is a good thing at times. However, I think I like getting to make up things a little more than Farley allows for you to do.

Alan Moore and Watchmen

I'm excited to get to listen to Alan Moore talk. I think he's a little bit crazy, but very intellectual. He has very strong opinions, but they're very interesting to listen to. I've never really gotten to listen to him before, but I have read Watchmen and I feel that his personality is reflected in the comic. I feel that if he were a character on Watchmen, he would be a mix between the main characters. I can see him as Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl, the Comedian... More so between Rorschach and the Comedian. They just have such views on the world that I can see Alan Moore believing himself. But the views are just very interesting. I loved getting to read the views of Rorschach especially. It was so negative, but I enjoyed it none the less.

I find it very interesting that Alan Moore has never really looked at any of the films based off his comics. I understand why he wouldn't want to see it, but none the less... I actually didn't expect that. I feel if I were in that position, I would be interesting to see how they reflected the book that I wrote. But at the same time, you might just be setting yourself up for disappointment. After all, films based off of comics can't quite ever be as great. You can capture the feel, but there's a certain depth that I feel can't ever be reached. It's the same way with films based off of books. I love Jurassic Park as a movie, but Michael Crichton's book was so much more amazing. But that could just be my love of Michael Crichton's writing speaking... Not to get off topic or anything.

Getting back on the topic of comics, I think that Alan Moore's position on superheroes is just something that no one else has quite depicted. His take on humanity is a view that I find very realistic. If superheroes were real, I could definitely see the Watchmen world to be what happens. That really could be the way that humanity reacts. People usually react negatively to things that they don't understand. Or others that have more power than they do. I appreciate that Alan Moore made his characters, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan, real people who want to protect justice for one reason or another. It just extends how realistic Watchmen could be. Watchmen and Batman are relative for me. They both show a super hero who is just a person in a suit fighting for what they believe in. No matter how flawed that belief is.

((P.S. Nite Owl is my favorite. Screw Rorschach.)

Arabian Nights

As for women's comics, I read "The Arabian Nights" by Lillian Chestney. The first thing I noticed was actually that the lettering was contributed to someone else. I'm entertained by this, because you never see anyone attribute the text to someone else on the main page like that. But then again, they had control of writing, so maybe they put it there themselves. But moving on, I chose this comic because I've always loved the 1,001 nights story. In my senior year in high school, we read several sections of "A Thousand and One Nights". I love Scheherezade is an amazing woman. She's clever and outwits the king to save her life. It's just so great that the king was going to kill her, but she got away by telling stories. Although it's pretty clear to me that after the first few days, he didn't really intend to kill her anymore. The king probably just kept telling her that he would cut off her head just so she would tell him more stories.

I can see why a woman would choose this story to illustrate. Women in art tend to want to prove that women are better than men. That they are smarter. So choosing this story to illustrate is a good choice. It's all about the power of women. Even in the stories that Schehereade tells are about the power of women. I know that Lillian Chestney must have had a fun time illustrating this. It makes me wonder who really wrote "A Thousand and One Nights". No author has ever been attributed. And it's most likely that there were multiple authors, as it's believed that some stories were added on later, such as Aladdin. Without a time machine, I doubt that anyone will ever know who wrote the stories.

After reading parts of "A Thousand and One Nights", I think that Chestney did a good job of taking that story into her own hands. She kept true to the story and made the right characters stand out. "A Thousand and One Nights" is hard to read. You need to pay complete attention to it and take a lot of time with it. It's clear that Chestney fully understood it and developed it into a successful comic.

Eightball

I had to catch up on reading after missing class last week. I read "Eightball" by Daniel Clowes. I chose this because it was recommended to me. I read through "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron". Now that I've gone through and read it, I don't exactly know what I can say about it. It's just so strange. Although I wish that it had been continued from the 'to be continued' point because I was curious to see what was going to happen from there. But basically that is a very strange comic. Although I didn't get to read much into it, I'm assuming the man in the bathroom stall is the reference to eightball with all the questions people ask him. I had been wondering why the line in the men's bathroom was so long, so I'm glad that it was explained.

I didn't get much of an understanding by reading the short 14 page exerpt of "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron", so I looked it up on wikipedia. I had absolutely no idea that the woman in the movie was his wife. I was wondering why he would possibly be that obsessed with her. But I sort of just thought that he was somewhat dominatrix obsessed or just thought she was pretty. But no. It was his wife. At least it makes sense as to why he was so obsessed with her. I like having explanations for the things that I read. Although I don't understand a majority of the comic. Why would his friend be treated for an infection in his eye socket by taking out his eyes and putting two crustaceans in instead? What would make the crustaceans stay there? And wouldn't they die in there? But they were still moving. I don't know, it was confusing. And then there's the strange woman that the police pick up, thinking she's a prostitute. But she's got three eyes. I just don't know. It makes no sense to me. But it was none the less interesting.

Eurocomics

So I've read some of TinTin before, but other than that, I've never really paid attention to European comics. But I wish I would have before now. Because now that I've read "The Nikopol Trilogy", I want to read more. For anyone who hasn't read that, I think they should. It's a great graphic novel made up in three parts. In total, it's about 175 pages of science fiction that I'm very glad to have read. Something about it just really grabbed me from the beginning. Maybe it was my fascination with Egyptian Gods. Or science fiction in general. They're two things that always draw me in. So it probably sparked my fascination with it from the start.

My interest in Egyptian Gods and science fiction weren't the only things to draw me in. The style of the comic did the job as well. For instance, the color palette were strong. After studying color for a while, I understood what was going on. The author, Enki Bilal, chose to go with a muted palette. And it fits the futuristic vibe that he gets. I can imagine this is what 2023 is like. Although I don't know how all the aliens would get here about 13 years from now. But who knows! Maybe Bilal was right. And where were the Egyptian gods from 525 BC to 2023? Just hiding in their mechanical pyramid? Waiting until they ran out of fuel? That would set the comic up at least. Not that I'm getting off topic or anything.

Back to things that caught my attention. The way the text was formed. If someone was walking up a hill, their text would be slanted above them. In one scene, their are airplanes flying around and if one's upside down, the text is upside down as well. It goes wherever the speaker goes. Something about that is just great. Just the attention to details and different ways of twisting the standard form of a graphic novel. The characters that Bilal created were great as well. All the Egyptian Gods had a personality. There was a telepathic cat, Gogol. The governor and the people that surrounded him and of course Nikopol, his son and Bioskop the reporter. It gives them all an importance for the graphic novel. Nikopol might be the central character, but he's not the only important one. Everyone else that gets an importance has a connection to him in some way.

Bilal was very creative in not only connecting people, but in his future. I loved the fact that cats can now be telepathic. Or that you can now kill people in hockey games without getting in trouble. That now chess an boxing is mixed together. Bilal took what he knew and twisted it to make it much more interesting and fascinating. What else can I say about Nikopol? I don't really have anything to complain about. It bugged me slightly that the text changed to fit someone's accent so you had to work harder to figure out what was going on. However, other than that, there's nothing that I can say that's bad about this comic. I'm definitely going to have to look for the movie Immortal and watch it. Even if it's not as good as the comic, I still want to see it! Science fiction mixed with Egyptian Gods is something I definitely want to have more of!

Manga

I have read manga since I realized it existed. It started with Sailor Moon and Pokemon. That was how I first realized that manga was around. Little did I know how long it had been around and how many series there were out there. Once I found the manga section at Barnes and Nobles I started buying them and reading the series that I found interesting. Usually I read shounen or shojo mangas. I remember reading parts of the InuYasha series by Rumiko and I would pick up anything that Clamp had done. Piece by piece I gained over 200 volumes of manga. Now, with my family moving, they've got to figure out what to do with all the manga. And I still do read manga online. I wish I would have realized how many scanlation sites there were back when I bought all of that. It's much easier to read all of them online than to go out and spend all your money buying them.

So, though I don't read manga as much as I used to, I still do catch up on the ones that used to interest me. For instance, there is still one series that I buy in the store, which is Saiyuki by Minekura. I don't know what it is about that manga. I think it's just one that I will never get tired of. When you've stuck by a manga for 27 or so volumes, you want to stay caught up. Although the 27 volumes haven't been finished in the US, so that's why I keep up. For some reason, none of the scanlation sites really keep up with the newer volumes of Saiyuki. But I think one of the reasons that I stay dedicated to this manga is because you can see the development of Minekura's artistic style. Here's a scan of the first volume, and here's one of her newest updates. There is such a difference in style, and I love looking back at it and seeing the differences. Sure, it was the story that interested me at first, not the art. But I still love looking back and seeing the development.

There's another manga that I actually just read over the weekend. "Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle" by Clamp. I've been reading it for a while now, since it was first released in English in 2004. I owned the first few volumes, but the rest I read online because they've been keeping up with the scanlations as they're released in Japan. Over the past few days I had the chance to read up on the chapters I hadn't read before. Which also brought me to the end of the series. It was completed just recently. And I've got to say... I wasn't a big fan of Tsubasa. It was all very, very confusing. If I tried to explain what had happened, I couldn't. There was too much going on and it kept going in circles and circles. And as for the style of art, well.. I've always adored Clamp's art, but this one was different. It wasn't the art that bothered me, but the toning. They had very messy toning that made it hard to tell what was going on. Here is an example. Their line art would be fine, but they add in this gritty toning and swirly energy waves everywhere. It just makes things even more confusing. I stuck with the story in hopes that I would understand what was going on eventually. But even after it's ending, I don't.

When it comes down to it, I won't stop reading manga. Or things like manga. I've sort of moved on to webcomics, but they're like the scanlations of manga I've read anyway. So it's not going far from my roots in manga.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes have always interested me. I just don't understand what people come up with for their images. And the lack of observation is why. Or for the ones that do use observation, they can still choose to depict them in unnatural ways. It's engrossing to see the work that people can come up with depicting stereotypes or working with them in a number of ways. People can just not think about what their doing and just follow the stereotypes that were handed down to them, or they can use it for a number of other reasons. They could follow the stereotypes to make a point. To make a social commentary. Stereotypes are used so commonly for social commentary. For myself, for my illustration media class, we have to find a black and white image of a face and we can add a caricature to it. I found an image of Michael Jackson when he was in the Jackson 5. I sat down with my sketchbook and started to figure out how to make it over exaggerated for a caricature. I chose to make his afro incredibly large. And as to be expected, I exaggerated his nose as well. (Since he had one back then). Part of me, while I was drawing this, was wondering if I was doing something that was too stereotypical. People tend to overexaggerate hair and nose for African Americans. Their teeth as well. Take Fat Albert for an example. We watched it today in class. A lot of them had afros. Pretty much all of them had huge teeth. It just fits the stereotype for African Americans.

Women and men are stereotyped all the time. And it's pretty much always the men that do it. Their depictions of women will have large chests, thin waist, wide hips and skinny legs. They basically always have long hair, large lips and the women are always looking as sexual as possible. Take the Bond movies for example. Has there ever been a voluptuous woman as his leading lady? How about men. Has there ever been an average looking James Bond? Men can be just as stereotyped as women. Although I do think that the women stereotypes happen more often. It's all thanks to the standards of beauty.

A reference that I just found the other day was on the website called Dump.com. One of the images has cartoon character versions of popular websites. It includes facebook, myspace, twitter, wikipedia, deviantart, youtube and google. Here is the link for the image. It's not only people that can be represented in stereotypes. Even websites can be represented in such a way. And it works. You can see by looking at that image that it's stereotyping the connotations and feel of the websites.

Over the weekend, I read "The Golem's Mighty Swing" by James Sturm. I actually quite enjoyed the comic. I've always found antisemitism to be a topic that I want to know about. The comic focused a lot on that. The part that stood out the most to me was during their games later, when they have Hershl as the Golem. The Golem is used to get more people showing up to their games. But people aren't coming to watch the game. They're coming to see the Jews. For example, the crowd throws rocks at the manager's younger brother, Mo. They're trying to knock his hat off so they can see his horns. The whole 'Jews have horns' idea is just funny to me. We talked about it in a past English class in high school when we were reading Dante's "Inferno". My teacher told us about how there was a mis-translation in the past where Moses had horns when the translation was really supposed to be translated into "a ray of light". So I find it funny when people think that Jews have horns because of it.

Stereotypes will never go away. They've been around forever and I don't believe that they will ever dissipate.

Barefoot Maus

Well. That is not exactly my ideal way to wake up in the morning. "Barefoot Gen" is so depressing. Every time something happy happens, you know something bad is just around the corner. Once the boys got the money they wanted... I knew something was going to happen. Once they bought the milk, I thought to myself "...The baby's going to be dead." And of course, it was. It was a general movie at first. It just seemed to be in the style of generic anime, but the topics were much more serious than most animes I've viewed in my life. It was interesting to think about. I remember learning about Hiroshima and Nagasaki when I took a history class and it made enough of an impact on my mind to be able to remember it so well. But seeing it, even through an anime, made more of an impact. Just because it's in an anime, doesn't mean that it didn't get the impact it was supposed to.

As for "Maus", another way of impacting people through animals and graphic novel. Some people might think that it's meant to humor the readers a little, but I don't think it does. I think that the choice of animals makes it all the more interesting. I question the choices that were made. The Jews were represented by mice. Is it because of the animal in general? Mice to many are just annoying rodents that no one cares for. Vermin. Did Spiegelman do it on purpose? I'm assuming so. It's depressing to think about how the jews were seen like vermin to the leaders of the Holocaust. Spiegelman's father was the center of the graphic novel. It must have been hard on him to reflect back on the things that he had gone through. Reflecting back on the bad things that you've gone through can never be a fun thing to do.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to ever read that again. It was enough the first time around. I think it's personally one of the graphic novels that you only have to read once to make an impact on you. It's not like Shaun Tan's "Arrival". It's not something that has some attractive form that makes you want to go back to it. It's not a pleasant story. Nowhere in the story do I think "Yes! I love that!" How could you love "Maus"? It's very well done and gives you a glance into the eyes of someone who went through hell. Even through the form of a mouse. Besides, there are a lot of people out there who love animals. For example, you might watch a movie and with humans dying in it, you pay little attention. But they kill a dog and you're sad. I'm an example of that. In "I Am Legend" I cried when Will Smith had to kill his dog. I'm more sympathetic to animals than humans in fictional things. And "Maus" isn't really fictional. It's just the way that it's represented. You might be more upset if you see a mouse getting tortured than a human. Now that's not necessarily how all people feel, that's just my view personally. I might connect more. But another reason is that he needed a new way to depict the Holocaust. The story has been told over and over again. But has anyone told it through a mouse's point of view before? No. Curiosity ensues.

Something else I enjoyed was how the mice were all represented as the same form. They all looked the same, but there was a change of clothing. That was the only way you could tell them apart. It was a clever way of getting through that. One could say that the choice was to unite the Jews in general. Or their could be the fact that the Germans saw the Jews as all the same. Their individualism didn't matter. No matter what they looked like, it made no difference. They still died. So I find it fitting that the mice all basically looked the same, other than their clothing.

"Barefoot Gen" and "Maus" relate to each other in many ways. They are both stories of the second world war, although on the opposite sides. Depicted in different ways, both "Barefoot Gen" and "Maus" are more about suffering and the nature of war. There are always struggles with power. Someone wants control and fighting ensues. Peace is harder to achieve than war.

The Beatles and Underground Comics

The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" is amazing. I've seen it a few times in the past, but no matter how many times I watch it, I love it. It hurst my eyes actually whenever I watch it. It's rather unpleasant in a very good way, I think. If that makes sense. All the colors, styles and patterns used are all conflicting. But that was the purpose of the movie. That was the look they wanted. I would have loved to listen in on the production of this movie. Hearing them discuss their plans for the movie would have been so funny. I can just imagine them throwing out the idea of the Blue Meanie and shoes with wings bouncing up and down. Something about it just always interests me to watch though. It's just so... Different. Different than anything else I've ever watched before. Still to this day I've never seen anything that was even similar to The Yellow Submarine. And maybe that's just because I haven't really seen many movies from the late sixties. Still, The Yellow Submarine will always be something that stands out in my mind. My eyes are still trying to adjust after seeing all of that.

As for Underground Comics... I don't even know where to start with this topic. There is just so much to discuss. It's something I haven't really read any of before. I read some of Mr. Natural by Robert Crumb, but that's the only involvement I've had in underground comics. For today, I picked a random comic without looking in the bin and I ended up pulling out "Gay Comix", published in 1980. It's got several different stories done by several different artists. The stories are about different men and women in gay situations. The first story, for example, is about a woman who was married. She and her husband grew tired of each other and he left her. She started trying to date, deciding she was bisexual. She goes through a lot of people who leave her, until she finds one woman and tries to be less uptight and tells the woman that she loves her. The comic ends with them together. I think out of all the comics in it, my favorite is the back cover. On the back, there are two men roller skating and holding each other. Then there are two women and their daughter with her dog. The daughter coms up to her and says "Mommy.. Rusty an' I just saw a man an' a woman doin' something strange in the bushes!" I find that entertaining. How the girl doesn't understand why the man and woman are together. At the bottom of the page, Roberta Gregory - the artist - wrote "Here's to a gay new decade!". So from what I can tell, she wanted people to be more open to gay sexuality. Based off of the comic, she wants the new decade to be more open and hopes that homosexuality will be a huge thing. I have to say that I rather enjoyed reading the comic. It was fun. Underground comics are definitely something that I have more interest in now that I know about them.

Cartoonist Track - Mr. Natural

So here's my attempt at making a comic that relates to Crumb's "Mr. Natural". Initially I started out trying to draw characters in a similar style to how he does it. Mostly simplistic with line work. He has variation in line from the main outline to details throughout the page. I came up with two characters, one asking the other about his life. I tried to in a way parallel Mr. Natural and Flakey Foont. In one comic I read, "Mr. Natural & Flakey Foont Thinkin' About Death 'N' Stuff", Flakey tries to talk seriously to Mr. Natural, but Mr. Natural just sort of gives him short answers. It seems he's just humoring him. So I tried to give my comic a feel like that. Where one character is trying to talk seriously, but the second just has fun. I didn't try to do backgrounds like Crumb, however. He has a much more linear way of working backgrounds with line work and detail. I wanted to change that just a little to add my own style to it.

Contract With God

I read Will Eisner's 'Contract With God' and I've got to say that it was definitely something that made me grin as I read. I couldn't help it. All the irony added into the graphic novel was just simply entertaining. The man makes a contract with god as a child going to America. He makes a life for himself, in charge of a synagog and a child placed at his door. As he grows up, his child passes away and he finds that God broke his contract. So he 'argues' with god and throws the contract written on a rock out the window. He starts becoming a business man, buying and selling property with the deeds of the synagog. Eventually, he asks the rabbis to make him a new contract with god. Thinking he's a good man, they agree and write him up a new contract. He dies shortly after and a child outside finds his contract that he had thrown away so many years ago. The child signs the contract himself.

Everything that was written I could see coming. It was an obvious thing. I think I just personally search for ironic situations in stories. So it made sense to me that everything that happened went as it did. As for Eisner himself, I think I greatly enjoy his sense of humor in his writing. It's almost tragic all the things that he puts this man through, but by the end, you just can't help thinking 'he deserved it.' Not at the beginning. It didn't seem like his daughter deserved to die. But once he grew up and started abusing his power, it just made sense that he would die. It was something I knew would happen to him. With the attitude the main character portrayed, it seemed fitting that god would be vengeful towards him.

One thing that really interested me was how the words on the page became an art form in themselves. They could become different artistic forms that worked with the page more than a simple speech bubble with words in it. I remember on one particular page, the words formed into rain drops. It just seemed that they interacted more with the pages than usual comics that I'm used to reading. It gave off more of a mood than most words usually do. Eisner knew what he was doing and clearly was an excellent story teller and artist.

Carl Barks, Tintin and Betty Boop

What can I say about those three subjects? They're all interesting in a variety of ways. To the point where I'm not even sure where to begin. I'll start with Betty Boop. When I was young, I had a Betty Boop doll that I would carry around with me everywhere. I think I actually watched some of the animations. I must have since I was such a big fan of her. But as usual, I never noticed all of what was going on when I was that age. Now that we've rewatched some of it, I've got to say one thing: Wow. Betty Boop is very dark! I never noticed it before. It's definitely more mature than I thought it was. For one thing, the song that the ghost sings to her. "Minnie the Moocher." I've heard that song in multiple places. While with Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman uses it in "The Forbidden Zone". During that time, he is playing Satan and sings that song. The film was in 1980 although I didn't discover that the movie even existed until my roommate watched it a week ago. Where I'd heard the song the first time was in Family Guy's "Blue Harvest", their spoof on Star Wars. As Peter (as Han Solo) and Chris (as Luke) try to sneak onto the death star. It's amazing how much one song and reference can get around. I owe it to Betty Boop for bringing it up again so I could research it out of my curiosity.

Just like Betty Boop, I knew about Carl Barks when I was younger too. I was a huge Disney fan and Donald Duck was great. I read a story that was composed of eight pages called "Gyro Gearloose in Grandma's Present". It's about Gyro, and inventor. He goes to 'grandma's' farm to board for the Christmas vacation, hoping to get away from inventing. But in the end he creates a machine that can use dirt to produce anything on the farm. So nothing would be needed. No use for pigs, cows, anything. It was pretty interesting. I'd seen him in the old television shows and decided to read about him. It was pretty interesting to read. I noticed that the color palet was rather limited. Every single panel on all eight pages had a blue background. Whether it was sky or a wall, it was blue. And the ground was always white or yellow. If it's inside, the color is white. If outside, it's yellow. It was printed in 1956, so it's not a surprise that the color palette is minimal. It seems like that comic is generated to a much younger audience. It has easier concepts to grasp.

Then look at "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets". Children would not be the general audience for that. They could read it, but they probably wouldn't understand it. Unless you were actually in the time when Tintin was printed, because then the Soviet Union would be a current issue for you. But by the time I would have read this as a kid, I wouldn't have understood it. The comic is set up by Tintin trying to get to Moscow. But the Soviet police keep trying to stop him. He's put in jail, a torture chamber and more. Each time, he escapes and runs away. He puts on a number of disguises and gets hurt quite a few times. He gets in a car crash, he gets beaten up, and yet he always seems perfectly fine just in time for the next accident. He finds stolen goods that Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky had been gaining and tries to get back to Berlin to let the press know. The secret police still tries to stop him before he can get it out, but he manages to get back to Berlin. It's definitely something I wouldn't understand if I had read this before. And I have read it before too. When I was a student ambassador in France in 2005, I stayed with this family for three days and they had Tintin's comics in their house so I read them. And I wasn't fluent in French, but I knew enough to understand the gist of what was going on. I'm not sure which one I read, but I think it might have been Tintin in Thailand. But overall I find the comic a very interesting read.

It's amazing how each time I read a comic in this class, I understand it more than I ever could have when I read it previously. It seems like all comics are much more mature and sophisticated than I noticed.

McCay, Herriman and Schulz

Winsor McCay is someone who I will never forget. When I was young, I had this long video about dinosaurs made up of several different scenes. It was called "Dinosaur Movies" with Don Glut as the host. "Gertie the Dinosaur" was one of the shorts in the video. I'm not sure what stood out so much for that video, but I will never forget Gertie. Something about it just fascinated me and out of that whole video, it's the most memorable for me. I know Gertie isn't his most famous work, but out of everything he's done, that's the one that I will never forget. Although now that I've read more and seen more, I've got to say that Winsor McCay is an amazing man. I very much enjoy his work and his personality even more. It's entertaining that in his videos, he showed other people's reactions to his work. In the "Little Nemo" animation, I think it's very funny that the other comic artists just laughed at him until they proved him wrong. It was like everyone was always doubting him, but he would always prove them wrong. Something about that just humors me. His personality combined in his work is just a great thing that I'm glad to have seen. This might be a strange parallel to make, but he reminds me of Elvis in a way. They both were heavily controlled by their agents or managers. They were kept from doing their work freely; Winsor for his animation and Elvis for his acting.

As for "Little Nemo", I had the chance to read some of it. I read excerpts of it and I really do enjoy it. I wish I was that kid. Nemo becomes the center of some strange world and all the other characters are centered around him. I know that it's recommended that you don't focus on the style, but I really do enjoy that as well. I can definitely see the influence of Art Nouveau. I've always found that a particularly interesting art movement. It's great that McCay can just draw you into his world. You really feel a part of slumberland. As if this could be your dream. And it really could be! I didn't think I knew "Little Nemo" until I got to Ringling and heard about it. But when I was looking up information on it, I found images from the movie and now that I've seen that, I remember. I have seen that movie. I remember the floating bed that he was on. It really did scare me when I was little. That black goop (I have no idea what other word to use for that) that was always following him and trying to get to him. It was a freaky movie to see back when I was young! But the comic itself is something that I really enjoyed getting to read. The concept behind the comic is something that is very enjoyable, no matter what age you are.

Over the past week I also got to read some of "Krazy Kat" by George Herriman. It's not exactly a comic I enjoy too much. I do like the love triangle going on, and how Krazy Kat never is determined as a male of female. They say both, so it's a bit confusing. Although usually all you hear is Krazy Kat instead of he or she. But other than the love triangle, I didn't really get into it too much. It just reminds me of a strange version of Tom and Jerry where the cat likes the mouse, but the mouse still attacks the cat. It's just sort of strange. But I didn't really read too much of it, so maybe I just needed to give it more time.

I also read various "Peanuts" comics by Charles Schulz. I've always enjoyed these comics. I like the fact that although it is something I read when I was little, I can still read it and enjoy it. It's not just for children. It's actually a much more mature comic when you go back and read it again. It has many concepts in it that a kid wouldn't understand. For instance, the website I read them on has a different comic each day. The one posted on the 11th was originally dated from September 14th, 1962. Linus and Charlie are talking bout Charlie being slow in reading. Linus tells him that it could be because of "mixed brain dominance". I would definitely not have understood this when I was little. I had no idea what that was or what ambidextrous meant. It's a very intelligent comic for little kids to be reading. Of course they end it in a more comical way by Linus saying "If this is true, we can rule out poor vision as the cause of your slow reading." and Lucy steps in saying: "have you ruled out stupidity?" So it has a mixed balance of adult and childish humor; something I wouldn't have ever noticed when I was younger.

Understanding Comics

While reading "Understanding Comics", I found myself very interested in what was written inside of those comic panels. Of course when I first picked up the book to read, I was thinking to myself that I wasn't going to like reading this. I thought it would just be something I had to do because I had to. But now that I have read it, I have to say that "Understanding Comics" really did it's job to help me think more about what I was reading. I never thought about comics so much. I just read them and enjoyed the story line or the art work. McCloud made me rethink most of what I had perceptions of while reading or looking at comics. 

Like a lot of readers, I was one of the ones who would read a comic sometimes based on art. More often than not, I would see a comic that I didn't particularly like the style of, and I would put it down. "Watchmen" by Alan More is an example. I picked it up after seeing the movie, and I put it back down. Something about it just made me want to put it back down, even though I knew it was going to have a very interesting story line. McCloud points out that the content of the comic is much more important than the craft. It's true. People don't always focus on what they should. I paid more attention to the styles than the ideas. That's something I really need to start working on. 

Comics envelop the viewers. That's another point that McCloud brings up that I never noticed before. When you read comics, you're not just looking at images and text. You're completing it yourself. You're adding all your sensed into it. It's mostly not even from the panel. It's the panel-to-panel relationship. When you look from one panel to another, you complete the story in your mind. You imagine what's going on between those two panels. Who would have thought it took so much of your mind to read a comic? You see the words and you see the text. But what you're really doing is adding those together along with the rest of the panels to create a moving story line in your mind. You are left to complete the work. It's amazing when you think about it. Thinking about it, the viewer becomes the most important element in the comic.

A very important element to the comic is the writing. I always see the writing and the drawings to go hand in hand. But writing is a completely separate aspect to the comic. Before really thinking about it, I never really explored the fact that the writer and the author don't have to be the same people. I knew they didn't have to be and weren't all the time; but as someone who read manga all the time, a good amount of the artists do their own writing as well. It was just a preconceived notion in my mind that most artists did their own writing. But they are completely different aspects of a comic. Writers can be just that. They don't have to draw as well because a lot of comics rely on writing just as much as drawing. 

I could go into more things that Scott McCloud made me think about, but I would just keep going and going. Comics are amazing and "Understanding Comics" really opened my mind to see them more as an articulate form than I had before. I am more involved with comics than I ever could have known. Some people don't like listening to McCloud, but I personally believe that his points are more important than anything. The comic isn't about him. It's about the points he makes; and those points were things that I will always think about from now on when reading comics. 

Notes on McCloud's Understanding Comics

So I know that it wasn't a necessity to write about what we read until class time, and I'm not writing my actual post until then. But I wanted to put my notes so I would have them in class.

• Description of comics: Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence
• Comics is a medium.
• Comics are not defined to techniques, styles, mediums or ideas. 
• Comics versus films: Space vs. Time
• Humans are self centered and see themselves in everything
• We become things. (Example: If there's a car crash, instead of thinking the car hit the car, you think 'he hit me')
• Concepts happen when physical form goes away and idea comes in.
• Words are the ultimate abstractions
• Writing and drawing are completely separate forms of art
• Comics can leave you to finish the form. (For example, if you only see a head, you assume the rest of the body is there)
• The breaks from panel to panel are two separate ideas that the eye transforms into a single idea
• There are six connections that can use as little or as much of the eye and brain's closure

1. Panel - Panel (Uses little closure)
2. Action - Action (Again, little closure)
3. Subject - Subject (Takes more attention)
4. Scene - Scene (Transitions)
5. Aspect - Aspect (Different aspects for elements of place, idea, mood)
6. Non-Sequitur (No relationship between panels)

• Comics are a mono-sensory medium
• Symbols are visual metaphors 
• Lines can be used to depict senses (Such as someone smelling based off some lines)
• Backgrounds can set moods
• Comics = 6 step path

1. Ideas - Content
2. Form 
3. Idiom - Styes or genres 
4. Structure - Piecing it all together
5. Craft 
6. Surface - Production values, finishing

• People rarely focus on ideas or form
• Core question about art - Why am I doing this?
• Color depends on the purpose or moods you're setting
• Isolation - No one can know what it's like to be you
• No one will ever read a comic like you do
• They'll never have the same experience
• To understand comics you must clear your mind of preconceived notions and start from scratch
• Pay more attention to the ideas and form than anything else
• Comics contain the viewer involvement and identification while having the realism to capture the visible world

Aaaand those are my main notes from reading Understanding Comics.