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.

Week 11

This week i read the reccomended David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp. 
It was alright, the story was a little confusing at times with the second brother and then him being "alive" and them meeting but not really. I hated the main character he was a super jerk and really didnt deserve anything good to come to him. i thought it was kind of racist to draw the Japanese girl with anime-ish eyes. overall i thought the art style was interesting i liked how often it changed and why it changed sometimes to fit the dialog like when the marriage was falling apart everything would come apart in the drawing and i though that was a good way to reflect the overall tone.
I also liked how the fonts changed with each character and their personality, i couldnt read his moms good though because i cant read cursive so it was difficult for me to read her parts. but overall i think the font choices were nice, fitting, and helped establish characters.
my favourite character i think was Ursala, she said the best stuff and was just nice compaired to the main guy who i didnt like.
Overall i thought the book was really pretentious, i loved the colors especially the purples and yellows, and i liked how the art style would change and the fonts and i guess the story was interesting, i cared about the parts where he was at the mechanics place the most but i guess how it was like a past/present story that meets back up at the end type thing. I dont think they should get back together but whatever.
I wouldnt have read this book on my own like most books in my class but i dont regret having to read it like other in this class so i guess thats good in its own right.

Week 10

Foe this week i read phoenix volume 4 by Osamu Tezuk.
I will never understand how a baby lost an eye and an arm falling down a mountain. I hated the first part of this book a lot, i really didnt want to keep reading it. It was really gross and disgusting. The good parts were the sculptor even if he was probably a pedophile because he had to be over 14.  i didnt like that Gao became a sculptor or even that he got to live and the other guy died. overall i didnt think Gao deserved the arc he got, he wasnt someone who i though deserved the good things he got even if they ended up bad later, people shouldnt take pity on him and even if he was good at sculpting what he did in his past should have mattered and im glad his other arm gt cut off.
I liked the sculptors arc better, overcoming a disability without anger and murder is something Gao could have learned from. I really liked when he was looking for the pheonix and when he had his reincarnation dream.
Overall i liked the amount of buddhist imagry in the book but overall i didnt like the book. i didnt like 90% of the charcters and could only get into certain parts with the other sculpter.
i guess i like that it was two stories coming together as one later. but i probably wouldnt read any other books in the series if theyre all like this. its just not the type of stories i read or characters i like.

Week 9 movie Fantastic Planet

Ive seen parts of this movie before but never the whole thing. its very surrealist and experimental i think film wise. I was very excited to get to watch the whole thing through for once. the concept is neat and i think easy to grasp. the art style is not really my taste but i appreciate it. I really liked the concept of lessons i think it would be neat to have information available like that. I think the environment and landscape is interesting and i liked the gem scene.
 I like the costume design for the Oms they remind me of clown costumes, the colors and shapes of them. the creatures in this world are interesting and scary in a way.  the imagery is really fantastical.
The animation is also interesting and its stop motion-ness and jerky action goes well with the art style and level of surrealist that it is. i think all the technical choices fit very well. The concepts of different Oms societies i think was nice to add too.

Overall my favorite part was definitely the different creatures and animals on the planet, they were very imaginative and surrealist and just interesting to look at and see how they work, what they do, and how they interact with each other and everyone else. the story arc was interesting and very other worldly apocalyptic type thing. its a good foreign film worth reading the subtitles for.

Week 8 movie Persepolis

The week 8 movie recommendation was Persepolis, but because i hadent read it yet and planned to read it for week 9 i wanted to wait until after i read the book to watch the movie.
I love how the art style of the comic translated to animation, it just looks really really good. the voices arent the same as i imagined them to be but it doesnt affect it that much.
In the animation i think it helped me understand the history a little better, having things pronounced properly and said to me verbally helps me learn.
The book definitely gives more information but thats true with most book to movie adaptation. but it in ways gives more information because you can hear the feelings and inflections in their voices and see the subtle face changes.
I cannot express how well i think this art style translates to animation.
I think the transitions where they tried to fit a lot of what was happening in the comic into one part transition also worked but i cannot tell if it worked because i read the book and knew what was happening anyways.
the pacing feels a little fast and rushed but i understand fitting a whole book into a small amount of time, but it still kind of bothers me like we dont get as much time to see and get ti know the characters.
I think the animation was more emotional for me then the book because of the added movements, sounds, and inflections. music always adds feelings to situations.
overall i thought it was a good interpretation of the book and while i haven't read the second book thats also part of the movie it probably did an equally as good job though i cant speak for the pacing but overall good.

Week 9 Persepolis

This Week i read Persepolis, i had heard about it before but never had a chance to read it so im glad i finally got too. we've been reading a lot of autobiographical comics in this class and i think it helps us relate a lot more. even though i grew up in America and we are not a war-zone i related to the girl in the book as a child and also as a girl and growing up. I really liked all the historical background the book gives and the different opinions and outcomes. its scary to think these things happened and theres a little disconnected because its a comic but i think its a good way to help convey to people that might not normally learn about this stuff.  It makes me really want to read the second book to find out what happens which is not something i felt with the other comics we read like Maus, i felt more obligated to read both but i didnt really want to and i think that makes this a good book when someone actually want to keep reading not just because it was assigned to them.

I really enjoyed the art style, its probably not only my favorite thing ive read so far but my favorite thing i got to look at. The way the people were drawn and the contrast of dark and light lent itself well to the story. and they type font was very easy to read, a lot of times i have trouble reading fonts so im happy when something i actually like is easy for me to visually read. overall again i really enjoyed the story and that it was through a child's eyes and worked through her feeling of what the time was like, i really like historical things and her relationships with people added well to the story and made it real, because it was real. It was very interesting to see her grow up in the book and how things changed and how she changed. It was definitely interesting to read something about another country from the perspective of someone from that country, i think its important to read books like this from places you dont live and situations those people face.

Week 8

Ethics and Representation

 This week i read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I liked the story and i liked how it was three different stories that at the end all tied in together. as separate stories they were all good and had meaning in their own right but putting them all together and making them all one i think elevated it a lot. The type was easy to read and the art style was pleasant to look at. I liked the layout of the book very much. overall i thought it was very interesting how it was done and speaks volumes about stereotypes and how they make people feel.

I think that stereotypes in comics can be useful but should be done tastefully and done so in a way that thats not the only thing about the character. using just stereotypes makes the character not real, everyone is a combination of things. The majority of stereotypes are harmful especially racial stereotypes. In American Born Chinese stereotypes were used to show how harmful they can be to people, one character was a personification of every Chinese stereotype. I think the way they used stereotypes was a good way to show how harmful they can be from their own experience of being Chinese in America.  I don think stereotypes especially racial stereotypes should be heavily used unless to show how harmful they can be. I do not think stereotypes are a necessity when creating a character to a degree. I think when you create a character you should do lots of research to make a real character without making it a walking stereotype, but not strip away the entire culture of your character. Representation is very important and should not be used to hurt people. 
 

Week 7 Maus

I took the Holocaust class a few semesters back and we briefly talked about Maus, i had heard of it before then but never really wanted to read it until after the class. I thought overall it was very interesting storytelling wise, i've read a lot of book about the Holocaust and survives tales so im familiar with the names of camps and the timeline of the war and other peoples perspectives from the camps. I liked the set up of how it was him talking to his dad and it would skip to the present to show what hes like now and his problems now and how Art Spiegelman reacts to his father. I thought that made it more personal for not only his dad but for him as the artist of this book and putting himself in it too. I also thought it was neat that he actually put the comic he made about his mom into it he didnt just talk about and move on, we got to actually see it.
I thought it was ironic that his dad was treating the black hitchhiker like the Nazis treated him but didn't really understand it. Or when Art brought up that his dad was basically one of those caricatures of old Jewish men, because he wanted to save money i thought was also ironic. I liked that it told what he did to survive what he traded and what stuff was worth, and what he remembered happening to the people he knew in the camps. I thought it was selfish of the dad to remarry and not actually like the person but demand she stay with him, even if she did just want money.
I thought it was interesting what animals he picked to represent what people. i thought it was funny that his girlfriend is french so he wanted to make her a frog but because she converted he made her a mouse, and how he wanted to portray that in the story to his dad.
Overall i liked it and it was interesting, the art style was simple and i could tell what was going on most of the time and i could read the font so that makes it very accessible. The storytelling was good and i really enjoyed all the little details. I was sad that his mothers diaries were destroyed i thought that would have really added something to the book and given it another good perspective. i liked that it showed the father son relationship between them also and the relationships of everyone made it more real. I also really liked that it focused on the camps and survivors and not just Germany and Hitler, in a lot of books it focuses on Hitler or hate of Germany and Hitler and it was nice to see something more focused on the survivors in the camps and how they got there and their timeline and how they felt.

Week 6 part 2 films

We were asked to watch Two films by Sally Cruikshank, Quasi at the Quackadero and Make Me Psychic. I found it in the library.
Quasi at the Quackadero was interesting, the art style and animation style immediately reminded me of the cartoon Super Jail, and in a way the writing did too. I could follow the plot of the story well and  i overall enjoyed it and actually found it funny at parts; when they looked into mirrors and when they pushed Quasi into the time exhibit.
Make Me Psychic was fun too, though i hate when things end with they were just dreaming and it was never real. I didnt like it as much as the first one but it was still charming. It still reminds me of Super Jail in almost every way. though i think unlike Super Jail i dont think i would have watched these on my own.
I definitely enjoyed these animations more than the comics i read for this section. While the art style was still on par with what i didnt like about the comics im always more forging with the art style of animation because of the movement, i have high standards for things that dont move. If its moving im not constantky looking at the same image its always changing as opposed to a crudely drawn comic panel i have to stare at that doesnt change, its hard to explain.  overall they are both very abstract, i prefer the animation style wise, writing wise, and overall it was just more enjoyable to me.

Week 6 part 1 comics

For the "Underground Comix" section of the course i choose to read some of Robert Crumbs The book of Mr. Natural and Aline Kominsky Crumb Need more love a graphic memoir. First i read the Mr. Natural. I absolutely hated it, The writing was boring, not funny, misogynistic, and overall just not my taste. I didn't get very far into because i couldn't stomach it but its just not my thing. The character designs are also bland and i dont really like the shading technique or art style in general which also made it a hard read. 
Next i read some of Need More Love, Aline Kominsky Crumb; I hated the art style much more than i did when i read Mr. Natural. It made it really distracting and hard to read just because the overall abstractness. I did like that i got to see some of them in color because i really like to see color in things but the drawings really took away for me. this is a memoir book so its part actual book with some comics thrown in, which kind of threw me off at first because i wasn't expecting that. It was also really hard to read the comics because of the type, its very small and close together and overall sloppy but does give it a hand lettered look which i assume it was just written in like that by hand. I dont think if i would say the writing was "funny" again it was hard for me to read because of the hand lettering but it was more ok for me to read than Mr. Natural. It was just stories about her life, I remember liking the one where someone cooked good spaghetti sauce and that they were watching a gangster movie and see recalls some shady business partners her dad had. 
overall for both of them i definitely wouldn't read either on my own time. one was definitely more likable than the other for me personally, one i couldn't stomach and one was just hard for me to physically look at and read. 
I also skimmed some of the Girl Fights comic from the resource page and  i read some of it but mostly skimmed over the pictures. while i dont necessarily like how the girls are drawn i thought the first part when she stabbed that guy was funny but overall i dont think i would like it at all. it mostly just made me uncomfortable. which is understandable since the first two comics made me uncomfortable too but all in different ways. 

Week 5

The first thing i noticed about a contract with god was that for the first while there are no speech bubbles until a while in. i though that was really interesting. the contract with god story i also thought was interesting, im not sure what kind of statement it was trying to make or what will eisners beliefs are but it was an interesting read. i liked that there wasnt speech bubbles for a while. when i was reading the part after the guy gets rich and hes with that girl i pictured the girls voice as Harley Quinn from the animated batman and that made it fun. i guess its irony he died after making the new contract? or that the boy at the end was kind of like him when he was little, helping people then making the same contract.
Blankets also dealt with god and both mention a pact with god or a spiritual pact. i liked the line quality of the work that the more cartoony than realistic approach more than what will eisner was doing in a contract with god.  Blankets also felt a lot more abstract, art wise, more organic and flow-y, less angular the majority of the time. both also dealt with rejection and rejecting or being rejected from religion. Blankets also switched back and forth a lot between them being young and then teenagers then adults. it was very non-linear but contract with god i thought was very linear.
I like the storytelling of a contract with god more than blankets but i liked reading blankets more visually. blankets for me was just more appealing to look at but it was long and not that interesting. the story of a contract with god was simple and just more interesting to read.
overall i like aspects of both visually and storytelling wise.

Week 4 Comic Book

This week I started out with Tin Tin, Explorers on the moon. I use to watch Tin Tin when I was little on TV; I haven’t seen the newish movie though. The panels are the normal square and rectangles that I normally see in comics. The colors are saturated but not too saturated. I don’t remember the show enough to compare writing but overall I thought it was good.

Tales from the Crypt is something I loved to watch as a kid but ive never extensively read the comics. I got some of the DVD seasons a few years ago and the behind the scenes with the comics, was really cool and hearing about the censorship stuff. It also had normal panels that I would expect as well as very saturated colors. The colors add creepy-ness and excitement I think and normally when I think of comics this is the kind I think about with really saturated colors. Tales from the Crypt is a lot more graphic style than Tin Tin with darker shading and brighter colors. I like the little short stories they do instead of one overarching plot thing; it reminds me of a Twilight Zone type thing. Overall I really liked what I read of it.

For my Carl Barks reading I read some Donald Duck, he first thing I noticed right away was that the panels are really wacky shapes and not like the other comics I had just read. The colors were saturated but not to the degree of Tales from the Crypt I think. I think that the panel layout is really nice and dynamic with the different shapes it uses, I really like that its more than just boxes, its funnier to look at. I really like Donald Duck so I really enjoyed reading it.

I also read some Bugs Bunny just because it was under week 4 with the course resources, it was interesting not as colorful and box panels but it was good.

Overall I like comic books being an all at once thing rather than having to wait a week for the news paper, its super convenient. I also really like when colors is comics are more saturated like in Tales from the crypt but I like the non box panels from Donald Duck.

The Comic Strip

I started out reading Krazy Kat, “Krazy & Ignatz,  A Brick Stuffed with Moom-Bims” because it was the first one I found in the library. Most of the time I didn’t really understand what was going on dialog wise, the language was hard to interpret to me. Was the mouse (who I assume was Ignats) in jail because he was the bad guy? Also it was really hard for me to see the police officer as a dog in the same was I could tell the other two were a cat and a mouse so that was slightly confusing.  I guess the brick throwing slapstick was kind of funny but overall I was confused.

Next I read the Little Nemo in Slumberland, Little Nemo and the palace of Ice. I have read some Little Nemo before and went to the exhibit at Selby when it was up so I was vaguely familiar with it. I do not like this Flip character, was my first thought as I started reading the book. I thought it was funny how it could switch from jack frost to pirates to an island jungle to another ship to a palace then to a city. Besides the obvious racism I thought overall it was good. I really liked at the end of each page, its Nemo in bed being woke up, I thought that was interesting. I also really liked the clothing design in the book, I thought it was really interesting.

I also read the first Calvin and Hobbs PDF on the resource page, which I am also slightly familiar with. I’ve always loved the creativity with Calvin and Hobbs, Hobbs actually being a stuffed tiger; I always thought that made it really interesting.  Calvin’s interactions with his parents are also very entertaining.

The last one I picked to read from the list was Hark a Vagrant by Kate Beaton, which I was surprised to see because I though this section was about early comics and im almost sure its rather recent? Regardless I have seen some of the panels before but ive never read the pages in full. They were really fun to read and honestly I enjoyed this work the best out of what I read, Calvin and Hobbs coming in second. It was overall very funny to read and the drawings while simple and sometimes crude were also incredibly funny.

Overall I think all these comic strips have good things about them and are good in their own way, the definitely tell a good narrative.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud was very interesting to read. Ive never had comics explained to be in that way before and so in depth. He starts off talking about what comics are sequential art and explains the differences from other media and I thought that was interesting point to make, that the definitions of things could be interchangeable at some points and what goes into each to make them different and how similar certain things are within those structures.  I agree that we see ourselves in comics especially the more “cartoony” they are. It makes me think about the things I watch and read and how I react to them. There are so many styles in character illustrations and the author was able to categorize them together and explain how it happens, it’s a good way to organize that concept. 

I thought the concept that people can see faces or themselves in everything really interesting. I see faces in stuff all the time like cars and wall sockets like the examples, But im not sure if I ever pictures myself in those things, but I do humanize them by giving them faces. I also thought it was amazing how little detail you need to actually communicate a concept if you needed. Turning a realistic drawing of someone riding a bike to essentially just lines was a good example.  I also liked the concept of making something simple like the character but making the background realistic and I have seen that used in comics as well as animation.

Overall it was a very good introduction to the idea of comics, what they are and concepts behind them that are interesting.

1st Assignment: Shaun Tan's, The Arrival

Shaun Tan's, The Arrival, is a wordless comic that conveys its story through multiple pictures that show a story scene by scene, moment by moment. It achieves this by showing the small changes frame by frame making a slow transition. This is an effective was of telling a story through pictures using no words. The reader can follow along because of the pacing of the pictures its like watching a movie every few frames. In the first scene you see a photo being wrapped into a cloth and put in a suitcase, this takes about 10 frames. There are no words needed to convey the emotions in that scene or to say what’s happening.  The next scene the man with the suitcase’s daughter wakes up, it shows her eating and them getting ready to leave. Outside there are shadows of large tails on the building, showing maybe they don’t live in a good place. In the last frame of the scene it just shows the mother in the daughter in the city with the shadow tails, it is clear the man has left. In the next scene the man is sitting on a boat looking at the picture of his family he packed, you don’t need words to understand he misses him and he probably left to help them. In the next scene it shows many different pictures of clouds to show the passing of time, again you don’t need words to understand this. Over the rest of the comic you learn this man is an immigrant looking for a job, he finds a place to stay and meets people like himself who have also come from far away seeking a better life. In the end he gets a job and sends money back to his family and they come join him. Everything is shown very clearly though facial expressions and body language. Using expressions and body language is a good was to tell a visual story without the use of words.  Besides going slowly movement by movement with the body language that is how a story like The Arrival can be told without the use of words.