Lauren's Literature of the Graphic Narrative

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 peo...

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 ...

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...