Lauren's Literature of the Graphic Narrative

When I opened   The First Word of Patrick Farley's Electric Sheep comics , I was expecting a standard webcomic. I was very surprised that instead of formatting itself as a "normal" comic,   The First Word  is a sidescroller that uses simple lighting effects and motion design. This was entirely new to me–I thought standard webcomics were considered fairly modern, but this felt like something completely different. I enjoyed how Farley seemed to be playing around so much with new media to explore what a comic is. It really opened me up to think about what new possibilities might be with merging traditional storytelling and technology. The transitions were especially amazing to me, like the stream of different animals evolving. I did think Farley went very over-the-top with the lighting effects when sex came into play (I found the comic hard to take seriously at that point), but overall, the use of art was definitely something to study. One area where the comic fell s

This week I read the first issue of  Watchmen by Alan Moore. I was surprised right off the bat by how dark and overtly political the comic was. Right in the opening scene,  Rorschach talks bitterly about "the accumulated filth" of the city drowning in blood. For a comic from as big a publisher as D.C. to display such cynicism, I can definitely see how Watchmen expanded the genre in comics.  One thing I really enjoyed about Watchmen that I don't see in other comics is how dark the humor is. As we see in the beginning of the comic,  Rorschach often delivers monologues via a diary he keeps. This is often where Moore's sense of humor can be seen. In one scene, for example,  Rorschach spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about how many kids his neighbor has and how she is probably abusing welfare–it's funny because of how small an issue it is that  Rorschach is devoting his energies to.  Rorschach also comes across as a bit comedic to me because of how

Answers to the in-class reading questions. 1. What is your reaction to the text you just read (Batman: The Killing Joke)? I enjoy comics with more of a serious tone, and this was one of them. While I've seen the Batman universe portrayed pretty grimly, however, I was shocked by just how dark The Killing Joke gets--Gordon is dragged naked by a collar and is shown nude photos of his daughter after she was shot. This was much more sexually explicit than I am used to seeing with big name comics like Batman, too. I've seen sex scenes in these comics, but not sex used as the disturbing element it is in The Killing Joke. 2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story with which you were able to connect. One thing I enjoyed a lot about The Killing Joke was the pacing and the switches between the present and the past in the Joker's life. The comic set up a good mystery within both timelines that really drew me in and made me want to kee

I chose the graphic novel  This One Summer, written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, for my reading about women in comics this week.   This One Summer struck me with how effectively it deals with the awkward transition phase of the early teenage years. The comic shows a version of everyday life that selectively focuses on the subjects it wants to deal with, like sexuality, seeing parents as flawed, and wanting to be older but not really knowing how. The art style suits the message well too, with the lines drawn as rounded shapes to make the comic feel friendly overall, but still using shading/tones and skillful acting to show more emotional moments.  One thing very unexpected about  This One Summer  was actually its reviews. I checked the reviews because I was interested in how others might react to this somewhat controversial book (an early teen slice-of-life with some very mature themes). I was surprised to find that many people didn't like the

This week I re-read Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli. I read the Asterios Polyp for the first time almost by accident--I was waiting for someone in a library and grabbed it to pass the time, and was very surprised at what a great work it is. I enjoyed re-reading it with a more analytical mindset. One thing I found unique about  Asterios Polyp is how well Mazzucchelli visually shows the psyche of characters. When characters fight, they begin to become more visually different and more in their own worlds of thinking the less they are in tune with each other. Without the narrator expressly telling us, we understand how the characters are feeling in relation to one another. This way, the writing and art can work together to keep us very engaged because we are not being told the same thing twice--we're learning something new from both the writing and the art. Showing the raw lines of the characters helped nail down the existentialist nature of the comic as well--people are visual

This post I re-read Bakuman, a semi-autobiographical manga about two boys trying to make it big in the manga industry, written by Tsugumi Obha and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. Re-reading Bakuman was especially interesting for me because the first time I read it was early in high school when I was having big dreams and thinking about going into art school, and now that I'm reading it again, I'm a junior in illustration starting to actively look for jobs and internships. One part of Bakuman that I can especially relate to now is when Moritaka and Akito move from being the "big fish in a small pond" as the best creatives in their high school, to being a part of the "real world" art industry and having to make it among professionals. I was the best artist in my relatively small high school as well, and though it's easy to intellectually recognize that things will be harder in a larger art community, I think it's almost impossible to completely p

Today I read the first book of  Blacksad , an edgy French comic written by Juan Diaz Canales and illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido. The   comics follow a panther detective through a series of anthropomorphic noir mysteries. I really enjoyed Blacksad . The story is a fairly standard mystery, but Blacksad's voice is engaging and authentic as a noir narrator, and the artwork is amazing. I felt that the art style was especially effective because it helps immediately establish character personalities--the criminals are rats and scaly creatures, the sheriff is a border collie, etc. I also tend to find that in noir movies or comics all the characters tend to look the same (all the men are square-jawed and serious, the women attractive and curvy) and the style of  Blacksad helped prevent this from happening for me. Guarnido also does a fantastic job at using different shot angles and engaging acting within the panels. I enjoy this kind of visual storytelling much more than flatt

For this week's talk on representation in comics I read March, a graphic novel by Andrew Aydin and Roy Lewis in which Congressman and Civil Rights activist John Lewis tells the story of his life. When reading March , I found myself constantly comparing it to Art Spiegelman's  Maus. Both comics deal with a man narrating his experiences navigating a time of great turmoil in human rights, but they are executed in very different ways. Where Spiegelman   tends to transcribe everything about his father in Maus  regardless of whether or not those details are directly relevant, March is more streamlined. Even when it deals with issues in Lewis's life that aren't directly related to the Civil Rights movement, those details are a vital part of understanding Lewis himself and how he came to be the activist and Congressman--like when we see him preaching to his chickens and protesting their deaths. I think March can have this tighter focus (which I found to be very pr

This week I read Maus  by Art Speigelman, a graphic novel in which Speigelman interviews his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. One thing that struck me about Maus was how raw and unedited it felt. It feels like Speigelman didn't leave anything out in his interactions with his father--where many documentaries or other kinds of interviewing would portray a Holocaust survivor in the best way possible, Speigelman shows what feels like every minor quibble and annoyance between he and his father, like his father's habit of putting down Speigelman's mother. Speigelman does this within the Holocaust story as well-he doesn't cut out any of the minor events in favor of more important ones, he just tells it like it happened. I appreciate Speigelman's honesty with this style of storytelling in Maus , but I cannot tell whether I enjoyed it or not--it was honest, yes, but felt unnecessary at times. One thing I definitely enjoyed about Maus was the c

This week I went in a very different direction and read strips from  Mother's Oats , an underground comic.   The comic surprised me right away with its cover page (above). The cover features a mother swearing at her child and smacking him across the head, while her other boy curses as he looks on. Although this scene is made out to be comedic, it is very disturbing. Even the child abuse by Craig's father in Blankets-- last week's post--was not nearly so blatant. The shocking cover was a good indicator of what was inside  Mother's Oats . Nudity and blatant drug use abound in the comic. In one strip, a character even shouts that he "Musta O.D'd". In another, two faucet spouts have sex. Mother's Oats is not only about shock value, however. The comic also frequently jumps into political theory tirades in the middle of its insane adventures. One character, for example, discusses his "theory of perpetual ignorance" to his friends. The bo

I will be moving into more recent work this week with Blankets, an autobiographical   graphic novel   by Craig Thompson. What struck me right away when reading  Blankets was how engaging Craig can make a mundane, personal story. It's easy to forget that many of the childhood tales he relates in the novel are those that would likely be considered boring in any other medium. However, Craig uses his expert paneling and illustration skills to draw us into the action and make us engaged in the childhood play. Craig's mastery of the comic medium also shines in how he shows his perception of the world. His childhood church school teacher, for example, shifts from a rosy, plump old woman to a looming, shadowed figure depending on what she is teaching. Similarly, Craig's depictions of himself range from scratchy, ink-brushed and spiky drawings when he is upset, to beautiful, curving abstractions when happy. These radical visual shifts in Blankets were what really struck

This week was a focus on the comic book in the context of two comics: Marvel's Mary Marvel and Hergé's TinTin.  Mary Marvel and TinTin already have basic differences built into them. TinTin is about a young boy and the adventures he experiences around the world with his colorful, if imperfect, captain friend. Mary Marvel deals with an idealized teenage girl and how she battles crime in her neighborhood. With these two comics are already being so different, I tried to look out for more interesting stylistic contrasts. What ended up surprising me most about these comics were the extreme differences in formatting. In Mary Marvel , Mary leaps over panel borders to grab criminals, speech bubbles change shape from a circle to a squiggle to a storm cloud to suit the mood. Meanwhile, big blocks of color guide our eye and unify each page by breaking up the narrative into specific color fields. In other words, Mary Marvel has the traditional flair most commonly associa

This week's reading is a series of comic strips from Little Nemo in Slumberland  by Winsor McCay and Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. While I grew up on Calvin and Hobbes,  I had only heard mention of McCay's work. So, I decided to read both comics to see how they would compare as two strips featuring the adventures of a young boy. Breaking into McCay's work was very surprising. I was expecting traditional pen-and-ink strips, but instead found a comic in which each panel is its own painstakingly designed, full-color illustration. McCays's style is strongly informed by classical illustrators. His work joins the curving designs of art nouveau with Maxfield Parrish's lush classical backdrops. While these illustrators' work was quite realistic, however, the world of Slumberland is abound with highly designed creatures.  While cartoonists tend to caricature, McCay truly takes his designs one more step forward. One character from McCay's strip

This week I read Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art,  a non-fiction discussion on comics theory by Scott McCloud. In Understanding Comics, a cartoon McCloud guides the reader through an exploration of the theory, psychology, and tools of comics. Drawing upon the wisdom of masters like Will Eisner, McCloud authored a book that has become a fundamental part of many comics educations. One of the most interesting discussions  McCloud covers in his book  is iconography and the sense of self in comics. It's well known that cartoon representations are more endearing and relatable to audiences than realistic representations. Out of all the posts on my own  art page , for example, the piece that got the most mention from family and friends was a doodled cartoon rather than one of my more "serious" illustrations. Most will recognize that emotional bias towards cartoons comes from the simplicity of the characters. However, McCloud goes one step further in

Welcome to my blog! For my first post I read The Arrival by Shaun Tan. A silent graphic novel, The Arrival puts a surrealist spin on the immigration experience, inspired by Tan’s own experience immigrating to Australia. Tan’s mastery of illustration and research of real immigration stories come together beautifully in this compelling novel. Though The Arrival is marketed as a children's book, it takes a mature and eye-opening approach to its subject. The protagonist, an immigrant leaving his family to start a new life in an unfamiliar country, must navigate an unfamiliar place without knowing its language. The Arrival puts its reader in the same position--we must navigate the book without words. Instead of language, Tan uses character acting, panel setup, and the details he chooses to focus on to tell the story. For example, at the beginning of the novel Tan shows a montage of different objects around the immigrant’s home--a child's drawing of the family,