Week 9 Reading

X-Men: Dark Pheonix Saga

Getting to the end of this comic made me horribly sad. I found it really sad that there was no hope for Jean Grey being able to control her powers, or find a way to deal with them. The finishing of the story was incredible, and extremely well told. I don't even know what else to add to this because I am still lightly dumbfounded.

I Saw It:

The story was super well told and the art was very descriptive, especially during the macabre like scenes. This comic brought me to tears. The part that made me cry especially was the scene where the mother was not able to save her husband and children under their burning house after the bomb was dropped. I can not fathom what is must have been like to live through the hiroshima bombing, or to be a mother not being able to save her family. Like the author said at the end of the story, his comic is only a tiny part of the entire story. I am further separated from the event by only reading his point of view, not knowing much else history, and making my own connections about the story. Yet this comic moved me in a way that none of the other comic readings have before. The story was horribly sad yet lovely at the same time.

I would say this is must read for those who are able to handle the sad and gruesome story.

Journey

"Course... Some are bigger."

This comic was hilarious. That two page spread where you see Wolverine McCalister running through the prarie, and then soon after being tailed by this gigantic savage bear, made me laugh so hard. The art and facial expressions were great, and the story telling in the southern like speech was great. It was super fun to read. The only part that had me a little confused was the short introduction comic, but I loved the actual chase comic.

That two page spread.... priceless.

eh-eh-eh-eh-X-MEN!

I'm so glad I bought the rise of the dark phoenix book, it really was a good look into all the underlying storytelling that's going on in todays marvel saga. I've got to say though, I think I definitely would have enjoyed the pacing of the story a lot more if I was reading it issue by issue. The fact that it's all compiled into one book I think takes away from a lot of the experience that the writers intended. (Im of course referring to a ton of flashbacks throughout the book) Oh well, but who am I to complain? How else am I going to come across an affordable read of this renowned superhero saga in my lifetime? The characters are incredibly well developed. I didn't even think I would like a character such as colossus but he, and along with nearly every other individual, are suddenly so much more compelling to me. I have a feeling it's because that their is a narrative going on three levels describing each character: the caption box, the thought bubble, and the speech bubble. Each is used to capture the exact emotion and expression that each character goes through. At first I thought it seemed like a dated old superhero fodder with how much description was needed, but it really helps to flesh these guys out when you think about it. But yeah... I had to stop at the end of the required reading... just when things were getting good.

A success story was downright hilarious. I had actually never taken a look at it's artwork compare to other EC titles, and I was pretty impressed. The ink was handled in an incredibly stark and intuitive way, using lighting to enhance the mood and drama to it's peak. I really liked how the people were drawn too for some reason, sometime the gesture was what really creeped me out, like when the artist was hunched over his victim. And what comic artist could not love that detail put into those zombies. Also, it had a great juxtaposition of complementing text and image! This was a fantastic little read, and hopefully my future career will not follow suite.

Oh god Batman never brought me so close to tears as the crime ally story did. I've seen the first splash page for that story without color and I gotta say I wish I could see the rest. The color doesn't do it much justice, but the inking in that story is incredible. This was a story that really captured Bruce's character rather than batman, which is something that doesn't happen to often being that Bruce Wayne is a very minor character in comparison to his alter ego. It made me feel much more connected to the individual, and showed a side to batman that isn't seen all too often. I mean really, When's the last time you've seen the guy smile with content?!

Given my time parameters, the most I got out of Sabre was all of Don McGregor's intro to the book. Goddamn that man was passionate about his profession. All I can really get from it is a huge swell of inspiration. I could tell the guy went through a hell of a lot of blood and sweat just to get his stories out into the public like he intended them to be. He seems like a guy who wasn't going to cut any corners. No matter what people thought of his work, he knew what was the right thing to do for his stories. As for the comic, I got about five pages in and had to start working on my paper. But the character sabre; definitely equals a Dirty Harry and Jimmy Hendrix combination. Awesome.

Week 8 Reading;

I was pleasantly surprised by this week. I saw that the readings have been getting longer and longer, but the longest ones were the ones I read through the fasted because I enjoyed them so much.

X-Men: The Phoenix Saga

X-men was definitely the hardest to put down. I found myself to be on page 118 before I realized that I read a little too far ahead. Not that it matters so much, but I thought it was kind of amusing. The art and the story telling was great. I loved every panel of that comic. I had watched the cartoon show as a kid so I was familiar with some of the characters, though I had no idea there was an "old x-men" and a new set of characters. I like that this story keeps evolving with characters leaving, coming back, new ones showing up to fill in gaps and add in a new twist because of different abilities and powers available to the group. It's an interesting dynamic to the way the story is told.

Batman:

Batman was my next favorite and definitely my favorite batman comic so far. I LOVED the art, especially the use of color in and out of the panels. In this strip again, like Robin Dies at Dawn you see an incredibly tender side of Batman that completely balances out the ruthlessness shown to his enemies. He really is a dark knight, showing chivalry and kindness to those who mean a lot to him. I hope there are more stories like this one, art included. I would most definitely recommend this Batman comic to other readers if they haven't yet. The 12 pages goes by way too fast.

Creepy Archives:

This comic has a strange story. The ink work was incredible to say the least. This comic was definitely the classic EC macabre story from the documentary was watched about EC comics in class. The zombie artists' blood-inked picture was definitely a fun gruesome touch added to the end of the story. I wish that bit would have been left in color, or at least red. It made me think about artists I have come across on the web who do use their own blood for their artwork. Maybe that discussion should be saved for later but if there is anyone curious about it I can show you some artwork and ideology about working with blood as a medium you guys might find interesting.

Sabre:

I think I would have enjoyed this comic better if I could understand what was going on. There seemed to be a lot of plot holes in the story. I was able to read about halfway through with out getting a headache, but after that things were still not making sense. I flipped ahead.. and there were no clues as to answer my many questions about the story. I'll have to go back and re-read that just out of curiosity. I liked that the story took place in a V for Vendetta/ 1984-esque america. The fact that Melissa was a test tube baby brought up some interesting ideas about what it really means to be born with that kind of connection to your mother, not to mention Brave New World scenarios.

I liked both Sabre and Melissa as characters. I can't say why I was drawn to either of them, but from what I could put together from the reading, they were instantly likable, but strange. That is definitely not the most eloquent way of saying it, but this comic leaves me a little lost.

week7

So this week had some incredibly surreal stories. The Aliens surprised me in terms of how interesting the story got after the beginning. Sure it was dated and a lot of their ploys didn't seem to make sense given the technology they had, but it was still able to draw my attention with the looming motiff of accepting the unknown. That being said the art fit the narrative well: bizarre and eerie. What I noticed most was the overwhelming experimentation of color in the comic. Especially when the humans on the alien ship went through that hypatomic field thingy. I find it pretty commendable that this comic was written and drawn by Russ Manning. I'd suggest that people look up this guy and check to see just how successful of a comic artist he was.

The green lantern story also had an eye for peculiar adventure. I really haven't read a silver age green lantern comic before. I've known about him with my understanding of the justice league, but I think this comic really opened my eyes as to how weird his solo adventures were.

Blind man's bluff had a very abrasive art style, which turned me away from it at first. But as I got further into the story, I believe it really helped to convey the mood of tension and suspense throughout the story. It was a psychological thriller, and brought up an intriguing topic. The fact that the artist's newfound perceptions wasn't explained thoroughly enough upsets me initially. I can't decide if that's good writing or not. either way it was a freaky, intriguing, and, unbelievable story.

The disney comics were once again a pleasure to read. However the story featuring fethry was downright terrifying. Ducks hunting ducks? I mean come on even if they are domesticated? The character himself freaked me out enough. I definitely thought the story including goofy and the crow character was the most complex story out of the whole bunch.

Modesty Blaise is a comic that I highly suggest to be on the required textbooks next year. I can find no loose end to this comic that doesn't immediately fascinate me. I left a really longwinded review of why I found it so remarkable on the blackboard discussion, so I hope no one's too upset that I don't repeat myself or use copy paste. The best way I can put it is that I found it to be a landmark for comics. It proved that the medium can engross a wide enough amount of audiences as film can.

week 7

The Aliens No. 1
I found this book to be fairly interesting. I was intrigued by the peaceful solution the aliens and the humans had to split up their crews and head back to their respective planets. I was immediately thinking of possible betrayal situations etc. The art didn't necessarily blow me away, but I did find several panels to be very interesting I.E. the panel where the fanatic aliens try to gas the human visitors in "An Alien Welcome" or the few pages where the crew is stuck in hypatomic vibration and everything turns in to color blobs in "A Case of Nerves". I totally agree with what Lindsay said below about the character design and the space gumby comment. I like how the story makes you realize how primitive our instincts can be sometimes when we feel threatened.

Green Lantern
This book seemed to flow nicely while having very interesting and complicated artwork. While I had to get over my personal feeling that the green lantern is the dorkiest hero of all time (the dude carries around a battery to recharge off of? wtf?) I thought the story was very interesting. I literally laughed out loud when he took control of the sea beast and it grew wings and flew off into the sky. I tend to root for the underdog so I enjoyed the battle between Thraxton and himself, while the green lantern chose to rely on his brute strength instead of the ring's powers.

Week 7 reading:

The Aliens # 1:

I absolutely loved the art for this comic. The story telling was great and easy to follow *coughunlikekonacough* Half of the time I was expecting the aliens to turn around and betray the human beings, using them for some plot for planet domination or whatever. It was surprising and made me really happy when the aliens did turn out to be the good guys, except for those two paranoid ones back on the alien's home planet. In a time when comics reflected the fear of the unknown, it was nice to see something peaceful come out of it, unlike Challengers where they just kick the attacking threat's butt. I also really enjoyed the character design for the aliens. Those flat limbs were pretty funky. They reminded me of a space version of Gumby.

Green Lantern:

Wow... I have to say, the art for this comic was incredible. The fight scenes especially. They were very believable because the movement looked awesome and cinematic as well. Who doesn't want a power ring like the green lantern's when it can even conjure food? That would make every college here incredibly happy.

I don't even know what else to say about this comic. Just... Wow.

Best Crime:

This was a very strange crime comic indeed. The part where Teddy and her husband have a psychic connection made me laugh. I didn't quite understand how Teddy could understand what was going on while being def and mute. I did think it was interesting how the artist character was more tortured when he got his sight back again (from a bullet grazing his temple? how does that work?).

Modesty Blaise:

By far, one of my absolutely favorite comics read in class. Oh my goodness do I love the story, the writing, the art, the characters themselves were all stunning. I'm glad this comic wasn't forced to be censored for the general public. This comic was definitely a huge contrast from past readings such as John Carter, Batman or Captain Marvel. I really love Modesty as a character because she reminds me a lot of Wonder Woman, but with a little bit of Batman's vengeance and crime fighting.

Modesty Blaise is definitely my recommended reading for the group. Bad Suki was a heck of a lot of fun to read. I'm sure all her other stories are just as well done and thrilling.

Week Six, Or How I Learned to Love the Camp

(Ooops, typed this out last night but forgot to post it!)

The readings this week were very enjoyable, for various reasons, and also very important for various reasons.

Let's start with MAD. I find it interesting to put these MAD comics in context of the Lawsuit readings from earlier on. Obviously this is not the same thing, but the comparison is interesting. I mean, they are lampooning the TOP DOG comic characters of the time, and perhaps of all time. They made a point many times to assure you this was a lampoon (not a spitoon!), as if that was ever unclear? Apparently there was never any legal issue, as parody is a different ballgame. All that being said, I found them to be pretty funny some of the time, but it was maybe like 1 in 5 jokes that worked for me. I laughed every time BatBoy deftly missed with the lasso.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOOOOWNNNNN!!
So. Challengers of the unknown is super campy. At first I just thought it was really bad. But then! I was won over somewhere in the ULTIVAC story. Maybe it's just that I love stories about living machines, or giant robots? I don't know. I mean, the writing was really bad. Like, really really. I don't think I have seen more plot holes ever. BUT! That's okay, because it is amusing and funny. Further than that though: Why is this reading important? Well, I think that it typifies a certain kind of story popular at the time. Or at least runs along many currents that were a hit back then. In any regard I went from being repulsed by this to finding it very amusing (Probably not for the reasons it was intended.) Also, Jack Kirby is the King of Comics.

Robin Dies at Dawn! This was bizarre. Also, it was interesting in the context of seduction of the innocent. I hope I'm not stretching here? I mean, as far as 'evidence' the Robin/Batman gay thing. I mean, Batman is so broken up by the fact that he could MAYBE cause robins death, he breaks the vow he gave over his dead parents? Instead of just letting Robin not be in harms way at all? And continue crime fighting himself? Also there was the whole tentacle monster thing, and Robin comes to his rescue, just as he had hoped (I hope I'm not reading too much into these.) Regardless, there were also parts of this that were very funny (read: We're gonna kill you by strapping you to a balloon!) At any rate, it was a good story to read as a barometer of the time; It certainly shows off the storytelling trends, wants, and fears of the time just via contrast.

KONA: I may be alone in not finding Kona that enjoyable. I think we all know that it was poorly written, but I may be alone in thinking the visual beauty didn't make up for it. You all seemed pretty stricken. I mean, yeah it's beautiful, but who cares? I have no idea what is going on in this and it seems pretty boneheaded (I don't mean to be rude.) It is similar to CHALLENGERS, in that it has that pseudo science thing going, along with the supermasculine hero who fixes major problems, etc. But! It is written even more poorly. So why bother? Maybe I'm being very harsh. Either way I was not fond of this, but I know it is important because there were many stories like this popular at the time.

War Comics: These were interesting for several reasons. One, they were very down to earth in a way these other stories were not; they're very realistic. Two, there are similarly very much darker than these other stories. People have drawn comparison to the EC stories, in particular with Souvenirs, which I think is fair. Souvenirs tries to teach a moral lesson in the EC way, that is, for an example of the wrong to get it's just desserts. The dogfight comic was different. It was more a commentary, in the end, of the mindlessness of war and the inherent atrocities and, perhaps, the worthlessness of valor. Or at least, it felt that way to me. Also the art on both of these was very good.

I give my vote for WAR COMICS to be the reading other groups have to read.