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!