Week 1 revise - Shaun Tan's, The Arrival

I thought it was amazing how much of a story you could convey using no words and only pictures. I thought it was very effective for a wordless comic. I thought it was very much like an animatic the way it was moment by moment to close together rather them sweeping moments.  The body language is really important in wordless comics and The Arrival does this very well, i thought the body language was amazing. I thought the storytelling was really good and amazing for no words and was really nicely done. The emotion really comes through too in the story through the facial expressions. 

Overall i liked the story, i thought it was interesting and i liked trying to figure out what was happening without words and you can interpenetrate it in a lot of ways because their are no words telling you exactly whats happening. I also thought it showed the passing of time well like the scene with the clouds, you dont need words to understand it. I liked how surreal some aspects of the story was and it shows well someone going to a new place they might not understand to make money for their families back home.

Very effective storytelling for no words, good use of facial expressions and body language. very interesting story.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (movie)

Ive never seen Scott Pilgrim vs. The World or read it before but i have seen what the art looks like. I think i like the art, i like that its simple. I wish the movie was animated instead of live action, i think it would have looked better and i would have enjoyed it more. I think the style would have worked well animated.
I really like how the transitions are handled how one thing becomes another or how when a door is closed you open it and its like a completely different place and day. i thought it just worked good. the pacing seems a little fast, again im not familiar with the books so i have no idea what the actual story is or how well the movie matches up. I like the video game motifs they add, and im sure i would understand more if i read the comic.
Does Amazon really have people go door to door deliveries in Canada? I dont know how Canadas mail system works but i think thats odd.
Parts are too fast and parts are kind of slow. kind of slow once he meets Ramona and awkward boring. It got better once they started playing music again and got to the  actual stuff i guess.
I guess its good that you actually hear music because when you read the book you wouldnt be able to hear the bands playing in the book.
I do like that they added art from the book into the exposition that was neat.
Scott is really whinny, the other characters are ok, interesting. I dont think i had a favorite.
The transitions made the movie for me honestly.
It was funny overall, the fighting parts were nice, as a story it was alright, i could stand it, parts were really clever other times it was just meh.
I think it was interesting enough i would possibly read the comics.

Week 14

This week i reread a little of Jhonen Vasquez, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. I read it first in like middle school. I thought it was ok then and i think its ok now. The art isnt really my thing and neither is the story but i still find it interesting and is something i actually do own. I like his environments more than his character design. i do like his line weight and inking though.   Its really physiologically interesting story wise, i like some parts more than others, some parts i cant really tolerate. I remember liking filler bunny most out of his comic work but i do like how squee got his own comic and i think devi got her own comic too? its too far back to remember. I respect Jhonen for doing whatever he wants to do. his stuff is just kind of nostalgic for me because ive been looking at his work since middle school.

I also read a little of http://teensinloveinspace.com/ because it was in the side bar. i didnt really like the art but i liked the colors. i didnt really get the story so i dont really have much opinion on it. not something i would read.


A webcomic i actually like is http://www.harkavagrant.com/ . i really like the art and the comics are short and actually funny and clever. and i dont get burnt out because each one is so short i can read more at a time than i could sitting down to a book.
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=363
This one cameos  x-files so like that makes it 500x better than anything ever.
They're all really good, and i enjoy reading stuff like this compared to 90% of what i read for class.

Another web comic i like is http://gunshowcomic.com/ac/part1/
 The Anime Club. Its something i found through people using parts of it as reaction images. some of the panels are gold just on their own. i like the art and how they portray the characters are interesting and funny. it's just funny. good representation of this class honestly. It is this class.

Promethea

The symbols i find most prominent in Promethea are  on almost every page there is a sun motif, sometimes multiple on each page. It switches between a graphic looking sun to a sun that looks carved out of stone. Another thing i noticed with the sun is a black and blue checked background, that is not on every page but it does show up a lot and often is either behind the sun or important panels framing it, im not sure what this means as a symbol. Another thing i noticed is that often you see UFO's in the sky, especially the first few pages, im not sure if this is a symbol or what it means. There is also use of Egyptian symbols throughout the book, especially on the cover and some Roman imagery as well. On page 8 there is a spiraling staircase right before we get to the back story of the little girl Promethea and i assume that means something.  But the biggest symbol thats most prominent is the sun imagery.

The elements of the story i was able to connect with was well, i didnt really connect to any of it personally. I feel emotion for the little girl Promethea whose father was killed so i guess i connect to her on an emotion level for .2 seconds. Everything just kind of happens and i dont really connect to it i guess, i mean its interesting, but its not something i connect to. I dont connect to the collage girl or the other women but i think they are interesting characters. Wanting to protect someone who protected you is something to connect to i guess?

Changes i would make to adapt to another medium would be to take out the back story of the collage girl with her friends, i dont know if they weigh any significant in the other volumes of the comic but in this one they just take up time and i dont care about them, I would focus more on the little girl Promethea and what she went through and the different versions shes been through time. I would adapt it into animation, i think comics transfer better into animation then they do live action. I would just focus more on the actual back story of little girl Promethea and then cut out everything thats not important like her friends, it should be her going to get stuff for her paper, being turned away, her being attacker, her being saved, her turning into Promethea and defeating the whatever and helping the old Promethea. Just keeps what necessary to the story, keep the themes, symbols, mood, and colors.

Week 13

This week i read Alan Moore's, Watchmen. I have read parts of it before in high school but never the whole way through. i've also never seen the movie since most people are like no dont watch that.
I think its a cool concept, parts of it like superheros being outlawed remind me of The Incredibles which clearly came after this.
I know a lot of people are supper fan-ny about Rorschach, but honestly hes an asshole? like hes super sexist, racist and incredibly right-winged. I really don't care about his back story and life it just doesn't justify it for me. I mean everyone in the book is somewhat problematic, but to like this character who would probably hate you, like why even? 
That being said overall the concept for the comic i think is good,  well interesting at least. I think it is actually worth reading if you like comics, though people should be warned about the graphic imagery. It makes me wonder what they kept for the movie and what they took out or added but i still probably wont watch it.
The art style is interesting and i think fits really well with the story and atmosphere its trying to make, they type is also readable. The other character are ok, i dont have a favorite but i like that there is this whole little world for these people and its believable. And even if i dont like the character they are still interesting.
Im glad i finally got to read it all the way through. I thought i was really good concept. i know i havne't liked a lot of the comics ive read in this class so im happy i got to read one that i was already somewhat interested in reading besides Persepolis.And it was sinally something that wasn't autobiographical so it was nice to just read a story and have it be that, just a story.

Week 12

This week i read Hannah Berry Britten and Brulightly, I though it was interesting.

I couldnt read a lot of the cursive parts so i had to get most of the story from dialog so its not really accessible in a reading clarity sense but thats what you risk when you read and written stuff. I really like mystery stories and from what i could read i though it was interesting. i guess what confused me the most was when he would talk to himself or whatever was in his pocket i think it was a picture? i dont know if that was explained in the writing i couldnt read but i guess thats what threw me off the most. but the character were actually interesting and i liked the parts i could read and understand.

The art was alright, not something i would normally look at which makes this something i probably wouldnt have read on my own. i liked the ink and water effect though i guess. it was definitely something unique and not something i though a comic would generally look like. normally when i think of comics i think of clean line work and stuff but this was messy but in a nice way i guess.

overall i thought it was good, hard to read because of hand written but still and interesting story with an interesting style.

I also reread through my kuš Baltic comic magazine #9

http://kushkomikss.ecrater.com/p/12767834/baltic-comics-anthology-9

This specific one features only female artists and the theme is based on secrets. Its from 2011 and published in Latvia. it features a lot of different stories and a lot of different art styles; some i cant stand but others i really like. Its really interesting to see a bunch of different takes on one theme especially since its from international female artists so you have cultural influence too. even though i dont like some of whats in it overall as a collection of different artists styles and takes i like it.

Week 11 movie (ghost world)

My roommate had to read Ghost World for your lit. and media class and from what she described i knew i would not like it. but then she also said she had to watch clips in class and said the movie was more bearable than the book so i decided to give it a try. 
These girls are such assholes? people like this don't really exist? They don't even look like high schooler i hate when people who cast try and pass off people in their mid 20s as teenagers even if they are teenagers they dont look like it. and the movie is full of ableist and racist language.
The movie is just really slow and boring? Like they're just really pathetic and mean for no reason?
It kind of reminds me of Daria except i can stand Daria even if its similarly slow slice of life type stuff and meanish high school girls. I do prefer Daria to this.
This girl with the black hair is the worst, and the other girl and people around her should stop enabling her to do these thing. its just creepy and slow.
It was really hard to get through a i wouldnt have watched this on my own. its just kinda really fucked up you know?
The acting is not really good either. the characters just arent my thing i guess? nothing in this movie is honestly redeemable? its just boring and gross, its trying to be edgy but its just boring and kind of abusive, defiantly ableist.
if my roommate said this movie was more bearable than the book im glad we didnt have to read the book for class i probably wouldnt have made it through the book.  and she said that the movie didnt even follow the book so???
Was there even a plot? stuff just happened and the ending was bad?
and there was no ghost? the most disappointing thing was no ghosts in ghost world.