Final Blog post- for comics homework that is.

Week 13

Scrooge Mc Duck:

I loved this comic. I thought it was great to see how this character developed into the cranky uncle I knew as a kid from the show Duck Tales. I know understand where his motivations and his temper come from. The Scrooge from the kids Tv show seems to stay very consistant with the original comic book character, which is really nice to see.

I thought it was hilarious when Scrooge was yelling at the lion when he was down in Africa.

Fables of Venice:

I didn't care much for the art or storytelling, which made me horribly sad because normally I LOVE stories that have to do with occult and mysticism. Somehow everything that the characters were talking about flew over my head and I had a hard time understanding what was going on. I'd have to try and dive back into it again if I really want to appreciate it.

Captain America:

This comic was definitely an interesting read. The story was kind of fun, that normal kitchyness you find in the superhero comics of that era. It's not something I would read on my own time but I could definitely see why people would like to read this comic.

Vertigo, First Offenses:

The Fables and Lucifer stories were my absolute favorites out of the bunch. All the art and the story telling was pretty enjoyable in this book. The only thing that made me disappointed was that each story ended after the very first chapter. I thought it was interesting that every story in this collection didn't have to do with any superheroes. A couple of the stories had a religious story influence, Fables had to do with the traditional Grimm's fairy tales characters, and two of the other stories were just.. strange. I don't know how else to explain those.

Binky Brown:

I thought this comic was an interesting insight to one younger man's experience about learning about sex and women. I know my introduction to the subject was quite different as a girl, though ironically it was a friend telling a dirty joke at a slumber party much like the little boy up in the tree with the main character. It was also interesting seeing the perspective of a boy who went to a very religious school. I couldn't find out whether this story was based on a personal experience of either the writer or the artist.

A little something I found

I happened to stumble upon this website while I was typing my research paper and I figured it wouldn't hurt to pass it on to all of you.

The website is

http://www.comicoo.com/index.html

It is a small comic database featuring some decent stuff such as

Daredevil v2
Sandman
spawn
star wars republic
street fighter
witchblade

I was mostly surprised by the size of the images

A sample from street fighter and spawn (click)

Week 12

Christian Archer

MAD: Superduperman
I really got a kick out of this book. While it was mostly playful and stupid humor, it was an easy read that kept a fast pace. I enjoyed the kind-of slapstick style of comedy that the writing and story uses, especially when superduperman gets captain marbles to punch himself in the face to end the fight. I also enjoyed the toony exaggerated artwork which helped keep each page interesting.

Bone vol 1
This was a rather fun read. 25 pages went by super fast. I couldn't help but notice that Jeff Smith really likes to draw beads of sweat. I counted 10 frames of it on the firs two pages. I think the overly simple characters give you more time to think about the actual story rather than focusing on the artwork in each frame. This was sort of like a breath of fresh air, good artwork is great, but It's not always necessary. I didn't really think much of the actual story line, but the cute characters and the silly humor made it enjoyable regardless.

Starman
I found this book to be slightly harder to get into. I thought the framing was kind-of weird in that I'd get lost while reading and have to try to decide which way it was going. I felt like there was too much writing at times and I ended up getting bored. The artwork on the other had is a completely different story. Very dynamic drawings with interesting characters. I enjoyed "A knight at the circus II" the most as there is one full page spread of him fighting off the circus creatures. There are a lot of single frame pages that allow you to slow down and enjoy the artwork. I enjoyed how the character changes throughout the stories as well. The first few books were extremely slow to get through, but I found at 5 and 6 it picks up a bit.

Sandman:

Week12

Oh man.

For quite awhile I was sure that Bone was my favorite comic at the age of 16. Then I realized I couldn't play favorites. Jeff Smith is just a downright fantastic cartoonist, he has a wonderful flare for believable dialogue and is exceptionally deft with the brush. Jeff also has an amazing understanding of comic's and cartooning given the fact that he combines character's that seem so different in style: his humans, the bone's, and the monsters showed off his wide understanding of character design. I'm not that familiar with pogo besides the swamp thing comic we've read in class, But I believe Jeff Smith had a strong care for the medium when developing his style from other comics such as pogo. Just like Chris Ware who studied Gasoline Alley

I own the absolute sandman in fact! rereading the stories were incredibly rewarding. And the art really began to pick up good at this point in the series too. Both stories, the collector and hob, are incredibly text heavy, but I believe Neil Gaiman understands exactly how to not distance the text from the artwork. The juxtaposition is very well achieved. Gaiman is a really good comics writer, and he knows exactly how the medium works with and without text. He cares about the culture of the DC universe as well. He always likes to elude to other DC characters within his stories, and manages to put them in a peculiar new light. You can notice Johanna Constantine in the story of Hob, a relative of John Constantine.

Starman was mildly entertaining. I found the art to be interesting but not necessarily in my taste. I don't really feel as if I got the best out of it though, from what I read the art seemed fairly distant from the story. I'm interested more in the development of the characters and the origin of how Knight senior was able to develop the cosmic rod. It was definitely something different though I'm sure. The writers describe the action in such an enticing and profound way. But that's what kind of sets me away from Starman though. I'm more interested in the writing and not so much with the art, because it feels much more like the images are used as a means for an end. That's not to say I don't think the art is bad, I just don't think they work well together. But that's just what i read within the first fourteen pages, I'm definitely still interested to see how it picks up, because I've heard some really good things about it.

The Court was frankly, just really weird. I felt like nothing happened in the plot. We were familiarized with the characters, but there was no twist, no payoff, it just kind of happened. Maybe Gaiman just wanted to write a story that felt like real life? which was interesting given the usually unusual ranges of subject matter comic generally write. But I finished and I just didn't get much from it. The art was exceptional, no doubt. All the scenes and monologuing. and imagery showed a good understanding of the medium. It's just that the plot took me by surprise in a very mundane way. Ha ha.

week 12 Reading

Sandman:

By far one of my favorite comics we have read all class. I've always been a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, so his story telling mixed with amazing artwork is just incredible. I like how the stories are not entirely episodal. It seems to focus more on different events that the characters have in common. I'm not sure if the series skips through time at all. I've only read a couple other chapters than the stories we were to read for class.

The collectors was an absolutely terrifying and wonderful story. I wasn't entirely sure what to think about it after I first read it and wandered around the dorm not doing much. On the other hand, the story with Hobb was incredibly sweet at the end. I hope I continue to see that character when I keep on reading this comic. I know I plan to.

Starman Omnimbus:

This was a well written comic. I thought it was interesting how the main character Jack was forced to take on the responsibility of being a superhero when for the longest time he didn't want to. He didn't take it seriously and poked fun at his father and brother who were both so gung-ho about it. I've never seen a hero before who was so reluctant to take on the role at first. It was hard to stop after only 14 pages. I wanted to read further to see how his character would develop as he started to accept his new role in society, even though it seemed he would be more of an anti-hero rather than a traditional super hero. The art for this comic was lovely. This would definitely be another comic I would recommend to other comic readers or someone who's never picked up the medium before.

Bone:

This was an absolutely adorable comic with a wonderful plot. I loved the character designs for the monsters and dragon. Ted and his brother were awesome as well. At the end of the 30 pages the part where the snow fell to the ground in one large blanket made me giggle. It reminded me of what its like to live through winter here in Minnesota. This comic would definitely be a must read.

Crime Stories: The Court

I was starting to like this story when the end kind of flopped. It seemed awkward. I didn't care so much for the art. There wasn't much character development. Sure, it was a short comic. That would be hard to do, but there wasn't something specific about any of the characters that grabbed your attention. Normally I love Gaiman's work but I wasn't entirely sure about this one.

Week 10

Chris Archer

Vignettes:

Swamp thing:

I Saw it:
I talked a lot about I saw it in last weeks discussion board, but I thought this was one of my favorite comics yet. I went into it with a shitty attitude of "oh great another Hiroshima bombing story", and found myself rather stunned by it in the end. The artwork of the melted skin on the victims was what really got to me. I thought about what I was like at that age, and how scared I would have been were I in the writers shoes. It was really hell on earth. I've seen a lot of pictures of the Hiroshima bombing, but for some reason this book made me feel worse. I guess I was wishing it could just be a comic and not real, but knowing it really happened made it hit so much harder.

Raw:
Dead things..... uuh I guess I don't have a whole lot to say about this one. It was short and sweet to say the least. A few of the panels cracked me up, like the one pointing out that he chose to wear his regular old suit after all.

The Andy Griffith Show....Now this I found hilarious. I half expected the real andy griffith, having the nice artwork and all. Then it turns into this racist nightmare lynch mob gone wild.

Iron man:
I really enjoyed this book. The dark battle going on within tony stark is one that I think some of us might be quite familiar with. I found it interesting that instead of putting away the iron man suit he actually abandons his civilian ties, only to fail as well as a superhero. I foresaw that entire train crash/spill situation the second I flipped the page. I greatly enjoyed the artwork in this book as well. The scenes where hes sweating bullets really pull you into his fear. Also the writing is well done. Its dark tone gives his struggle with addiction a sense of a downward spiral.

Derek Skar

Dead Things:
For this comic i though it was really really dark and disturbing in a way however the writing made the characters seem as though they were written as kids. Th respective was really drastic and i liked that because the background played a huge roll in the comic. Another thing i really like were the reoccurring patterns. Maybe because i took the patterns class last year i tend to look for that in artists woork.

Iron Man:

So first of all i had no idea that the Iron Man touched on the issues of alcoholism. I really liked the art and the contrast used. The dramatic perspective did corner iron man in the frame alot. Story wise it fallowed up the first half well. It was sad in a waythe question becomes "How long can a hero be a hero"

Week10

What a tear jerker of a week.

Vignettes was a great read. In terms of a cartoonist biography, I'd have to say it's one of the most expansive ones I've come across. I was fairly impressed that this was all one artist cartooning these comics, his style tends to shift so dramatically throughout what kinds of stories he's telling. for instance Valentino I think made a very wise choice in making the death of his grandmother text dominant. A depiction of the drama in the style of his first narrative, the day at the beach, would have ruined the display of emotion he wanted to convey within the story. I respect this work a lot, because it shows that Valentino has a great understanding of how we perceive the images in comics. His diverse auto-bio comic's are very thoughtful, and know exactly how to look to be understood.

I've read the Anatomy Lesson prior to this class but was once again a pleasure to revisit. In fact I've learned more about the art and writing from reading Alan Moore's writing for comics and from understanding the art process between the penciler and inker. The original inked pages are lavish and all around really professional. I've learned that Stephen Bissette is a very messy penciller, not giving much thought to tiny details that an inker needs to focus on, but pays more attention to lighting and gesture. The original pencils aren't in the least bit traceable into inks. Hoever John Totlebon has an incredible talent at recognizing how to transform Stephen's pencil drawings into stark black ink. Alan Moore Is a incredibly descriptive writer, like Stan lee, he loves to imagine how a sequence of words can roll off the tongue. I don't see the writing of Moore's becoming one with the art, the division I think is apparent between both forms of communication. I see it more like a dance between the two.

Iron Man demon in a bottle I thought was really well written. I think it explored the concept of a heroes mortality to a great depth. Who is a hero but one that fight's against overwhelming odds for some set ideology? What if the only enemy he faces is himself? I found Tony's behavior relating to people such as Jarvis and Shield to be incredibly compassionate. He seemed to not want to blame anyone but himself for the dire predicament he was in. All blame is a waste of time, it won't help you progress at all. I thought it also had an incredibly good climax as well, All blame, even if self inflicted, is a waste of time.

Read Yourself Raw had three incredibly diverse works.

Dead things was interesting. I might even call it cubist given the representation of the characters. The drawings were odd, but as I became used to how surreal the imagery was, the story seemed to flow pretty nicely. Despite how jumpy the plot was.

Andy Griffith terrified me. My Dad and Grandmother like that show a lot and I've seen quite a few of the episodes, so I was lucky enough to be the demographic to get the brunt of the joke. I found the stipling to be done really

Canal Street was a very interesting style as well. It gave the same effect that dead things gave for me because it made me used to the surreal.

Week 10 Reading

Swamp Thing:

The story telling in this comic is absolutely wonderful. I'm really starting to appreciate Alan More as a writer. Yes, I read V for Vendetta and I vaguely know the story of Watchmen from the movie (because I'm sure they are not exactly the same) but wow. The concept of the story was fascinating. I've always thought that plants had their own sort of consciousness, so it was fun reading a story that had that same idea. It was really interesting how the plant "remembered" having certain types of organs so it just tried to make them itself of out the different plant matter even though the organs did not do anything. I know there have been recent experiments done so show that plants retain some sort of memory especially after they have been hurt or neighboring plants have been destroyed. Makes you wonder what kind of memories the swamp creature had aside from what it picked up from the man he thought he was.

I would definitely recommend this reading to people who haven't read anything my Alan More yet. So good.

Iron Man:

Iron Man was a fun read as well. It was nice to see the delicate emotional side of the douche-baggy Tony Stark character. It's only his outer shell that it made of iron. Iron Man in an interesting character because he is not imbued with super powers, unless you count his incredible creativity and wit super powers, but he also does not have the same hell bent fury for revenge like other "normal" superhero characters such as Bat Man or even V. He's a privileged guy who ends up wanting to do good because he know that he can. Sometimes the responsibilities overwhelm him, like it showed in this comic and he was dealing with it in a deconstructive way, like most people would. The superhero needed help from those close to him. We haven't seen much of that from the comics we have been reading in class and I really like that.

Read Yourself Raw:

Dead Things- Really super sad. It seemed like a comic made by a little kid story wise. The art was interesting as well. I wasn't really sure of what to make of the ending. It was just... weird.

Andy Griffinth- Wtf? I'm definitely lost with that one. I'm sure its supposed to be some kind of play on the show, because normally it's such a wholesome show.

Canal Street- Also a very strange comic, but I liked how the string events while this man was getting breakfast led you to feeling as swallowed up by the hubbub as he was.

Week9

The Dark Phoenix Saga was pretty good. The last half was exceptionally well written. I found the narration to be even more lengthy than in the first half, but it pulled off it's narrative amazingly well for the all the time and size constraints of a monthly series. The art I believe also got exceptionally better given the complex and alien subject matter. Given the premise that this series was written around the same time as watergate I could read into this story for numerous metaphors. Like relating this to a kind and gentle superpower (such as America) being corrupted by esteemed business men seeking power for the sake of power.

Will Eisner revolutionized american comics. Not even in terms of artistry, which is obviously breathtakingly spectacular, but in the terms of how the art form was presented. A Contract With God was published as a graphic novel, although not a new concept, it really did lay in the foundation of how comics can be seen as esteemed and high art, and also in terms of high literature. A contract with god is the perfect blend of prose and art in my opinion, Eisner made it his profession to try to replicate the human condition and he displays it with a masterfully acquired grace.

I Saw it! was a real treat to read. I had never read any of barefoot gin, so I wasn't aware that this was based off a comic artist's life, but good lord this man went through a lot. And to still acquire this much skill as a cartoonist? It's really commendable. The inking style and screen tones applied to this story really separate it from the rest of the readings, I also liked it because we're finally able to get into some real manga, that is to say comics published in Japan. It was interesting to read because the narration rarely seemed to hold a constant sad reminiscence. it was always read as what the artist was going to do next in his life after something horrible happened to him. He wasn't just wallowing in sorrow from calamity, after calamity after, calamity. The only point he really seemed to get caught up about was when his mother died. In literary terms, the climax is really well presented despite the constant turmoil Keiji was facing.