The Last Week o Comics

This week I read a bunch of webcomics: 
 

YU+ME Dream  http://rosalarian.com/yume/ 

Chester 5000 XYV jessfink.com/Chester5000XYV 

TJ and Amal http://tjandamal.com/

The Meek http://www.meekcomic.com/

Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name http://hanna.aftertorque.com/ 

Chester

      I’d have to say out of all the webcomics I have read, Chester 5000 XYV is the most outlandish.  When I first looked at this comic I was like what in God’s name am I looking at.  But I decided not to freak out and I actually read through it in two nights. Frankly, I think Chester is hilarious. I really liked the style of it, all of the swoopy shapes.  It’s weird, her drawings are completely impossible with ridiculously pushed poses but they really work and add to the eccentric quality of the comic.  That’s part of the reason I liked it, it was something different and I think the artist pulled it off really well.  I think the author of it has really come a long way in terms of plot, too.         The story started out as basically smut. Smut everywhere, which is entertaining, but not probably the best thing to drive a story.  But lately it’s been more plot driven, focusing more on character interactions and less on gratuitous sex scenes.

       I also really enjoyed the fact that the characters talk with symbols instead of words.  It reminded me a lot of Shaun Tan's Arrival.  While The Arrival focused on more gestures to understand what was going on, Chester's symbols basically gave you the gist of what was going on.  It really gets the point across and I’ve never been left confused by what the characters are saying.  It adds to the simplistic monochromatic panels and just makes the comic a fun and easy read.

      

TJ and Amal

       I’ve been reading The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal since my friend Pinky showed it to me freshmen year.  I really love this comic and I read it as it updates every week religiously.  What I really like about TJ and Amal is it really captures a normal lifelike story.  It seems completely plausible and although it does have NSFW content, it works with the story and it’s not completely random.  The story itself is no fast paced action piece, but it’s comfortable.  It reminds me that the best stories don’t have to have gut wrenching romance or special effects or excessive violence.  It’s about characters and relationships and the choices you make.  I mean, this comic sounds like a story about two of my friends roadtripping. 

I’ve constantly reread this comic and it never gets old.  It’s witty and I always get a laugh out of her dialogue.  Plus the artist actually understands how to draw. Her panels are smartly made, it’s not always just a frontal shot of her characters, she knows how to work the space of her environment and it helps the story feel more realistic.
     

The Meek

         

       I am not really a big fan of The Meek.  I really like how detailed her comic is, I mean it’s full color, her drawings are really nice, and I really like the giant scary tiger Dagre.  But that’s about it. 

      I’ve tried to read this comic, like I have it bookmarked, and I try to come back to it every once in awhile to get through it, but it is too slow for me.  I mean, the plot does progress, but it drags.  Every time I look at a new page I feel like I’m no closer to any sort of plot point.  I think it’s partially because Luca’s story was the only one that interested me because I didn’t really like characters.  They didn’t really do anything that made me like them.  I only was interested in Luca because he was mentally unstable and was seeing a giant tiger that was scary as hell.  I don’t really understand Angora, she just seems to be naked in the woods. Like I’m fine if you are naked in the woods in a commune, but there’s got to be a reason for staying naked after awhile. 

Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name

     I’m a big fan of the paranormal, so Hanna was right up my alley.  It wasn’t the most original story I’ve ever read and it was basically broken up into mini adventures, but it was entertaining as hell.

      First of all, I’m a big fan of this comic and when she stopped updating I was pretty devastated.  I decided to reread this comic, since I hadn’t read it since freshman year.  I think the most intriguing part about Hanna is that reading the comic itself is visually stimulating.  The graphic design concerning the lettering on all the panels were so different.  They really brought something new to the table.  At times they could be a little confusing and I wasn’t sure where to read first, but I think overall the design was really original.  And you can really see as the pages progress how Tessa’s artwork improved as well as the visual elements in her pages. 
     Actually, before this comic was canceled due to the fact that she was being sued for having the same name as another comic or something, this comic had a huge following.  I have seen countless cosplays of this comic in particular and it was really upsetting when she stopped updating it.

YU+ME Dream

      

       I can’t believe I actually read this whole thing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but it was very long.  Like I think it’s one of the longest comics I have read.  It seems like one central story in the beginning, a simple high school story, but once you get past that it’s like you opened the floodgates to the Dreamworld and that’s where things get really interesting.  But there were a lot of characters and things did get a bit complicated for me especially when I was around page 735.  And there were a lot of jarring plot twists that left me pretty frazzled.

       But I really did like YU+ME Dream, because it really is basically one of a kind.  There really aren’t that many lesbian comics that actually have a plot and aren’t just smut.  I do attribute it to the fact that it seems that comics written by women tend to be more story driven versus more physically driven.  And in this comic, like Hanna, you can really see her artwork came a long way.  She experimented with many different styles like illustrator, photography, and clay.  I remember thinking to myself if I ever created a comic I would want to try something like this. 

       In general, I think the comic did hit on a bunch of points that most people miss.  None of her characters were truly bad, they were just misunderstood or they lost their way.  What I enjoyed most in this comic was the concept of having a concept and finding yourself. And even though I did have to go back and reread parts of it when I got confused with the plot, I still hold this comic in high regard and I would read it again in a heartbeat.
      This comic actually really reminded me of a book that I read called Going Bovine by Libba Bray.  They have the same sort of derailed beginning where someone uses a sort of dreamworld to escape from a reality that they don't want.  It is in this new reality they can find what they never could in the real world.  And they both end similarly, too.  Both sort of have a death with a possibility for rebirth.  In Going Bovine, Cameron finally heads to the end of this ride he always thought he would die on with the girl he loves named Dulcie.  In YU+ME, Fiona and Lia jump into the portal to be reborn again in the real world.

Neil Gaiman and the Sandman

As an avid reader of Neil Gaiman's work, this comic was right up my alley.  Gaiman's work always has a great sense fantasy and really good character development.  His stories are always really nice to read because they are something different and they have a really good central story.  I've read The Graveyard Book, Anasai Boys, and seen a bunch of Neverworld episodes.  The narration in particular in the beginning and the end involving the Sandman was absolutely lovely to read and had a very old storybook quality to it.

That being said, I think the most engaging panels were the ones with the Sandman in it.  As a character he was really appealing and intriguing.  I was kind of bored with the usual heroine character who lost her memories.  I really wanted more of that character and I'm sure the other comics are different and include him more.  It seemed more interesting if we were to follow more of his side of the story because there isn't a lot of writing that follows an outsider character.  I did really enjoy the bit about the Cuckoo and the creepy neighbor who opened his chest and birds came out.  That idea was really original and it was illustrated really well with the panels showing the birds flying out and making people's dreams turn into nightmares.

It wasn't the best drawn comic.  In one of the pages where Barbie was lying on the sofa she just disappeared out of one of the panels and I got really confused. I was like WHERE DID SHE GO. And some of it was horrific like when the girl stabbed that guy's skin to the wall and took out his tongue and it was just hanging there on the wall.

This really reminded me of two things: Alice in Wonderland as well as a comic I read earl
ier in the semester called Princess Amethyst.  Both involve a naive girl entering a sort of magical 'dream' world where they have been before but have lost and/or forgotten their exploits.  In order to fix their problems they must come to terms with what they have lost and meet their final boss battle.

The main cast of the comic was particularly mind boggling.  We have a drag queen, two lesbians, a creepy neighbor, a shady Jesus-praying neighbor lady, and our heroine who doesn't dream anymore.  In the beginning I actually thought everyone was a lesbian and I was really confused about why all the men were gone.  But I digress, it was a very feminist friendly comic.   If anything it was actually sidestepping men in general when the women were going to find "Barbie" and the drag queen had to stay in the real world while all the women went galavanting in the Dreamworld.  By the way her name being Barbie really drove me insane--she even looked like the Barbie doll with her platinum blonde hair and huge-- I don't even want to get into it.

Week 12: Graphic Fiction and Nonfiction

This week I read some of Berry's Britten and Brulightly.  I think the best part about this comic was the bits with the teabag.  I mean it's not everyday that there is a comic where one of the characters is a teabag.  I think it was a good device to keep the reader from being overloaded by two much information.  It gave Britten someone to talk to and it gave you a little humor here and there to break up the serious overtones.  As I was first reading it, I thought I was reading it incorrectly.  I was like, is he on the phone, there's nothing there but the teabag! But I think it really worked to show the sense of isolation that Britten has from the rest of the world. It also sort of hinted that Britten might not have all of his marbles--rather, he might not be the most reliable narrator.

What really bugged me about this comic was everything was drawn very stiffly. The main character actually looks like Hitler to me.  Like, who else had a huge honker of a nose and a tiny moustache.  I don't know why but I could never unsee it and it was actually very distracting the entire time.  My roommate thought it looked like Hitler too, so it's not just me.  I do realize he was supposed to be from Ecuador, but I mean, it was just kind of awkward.

This comic really did a good sense of detective noir: it was dark, lots of harsh contrast in every panel, and a bit grunge-y.  Also there was the constant deluge of rain which made it even more foreboding and sleazy.  Also the traditional media used to wash the panels with the blues and greys really helped form the melancholy environment in a way that made it beautiful to read each page.  The watercolor he used really added to the character of the piece.  It was very interesting to me as an artist because I have used watercolors and it is near impossible to get nice blacks and dark shades with watercolors, they tend to be way to light for me.  But I really think Berry made something different, there aren't a lot of watercolor comics out there.  It takes dedication.

Also, Britten is the typical noir antihero.  I mean, he's down on his luck, he is a fallen man, and he isn't exactly a sunshine of joy.  Britten realizes the clarity he has searched for causes nothing but problems.  Inevitably, he destroys all of his work.  It's a very negative story in general, it was very depressing in nature to read.  Everyone seemed to be be down on their luck and the sense of morality is really skewed, everyone has their own problems.  

It reminded me a lot of the movie Blade Runner.  I mean they were different because the movie is set in the future with robots and this is a more realistic story but they do have a lot in common.  For one it followed the same sort of idea of a detective story. But I think overall, they both had an unexpected ending.  The ending of Britten and Brulightly really surprised me as the concepts brought up with Blade Runner, especially the ending scene.  Also they both were sort of set in this dystopia where everything was very rainy and dark and--well, depressing.

The Geometric World of Asterios Polyp

I really enjoyed the way Mazzuchelli integrated a sense of semi-cubist deconstruction of characters.  I think it worked the best when Asterios was arguing with his wife and they were deconstructed down to shapes and Asterios was very geometric and blocky and his wife was more realistically shaded in.  I think this spoke a lot about their character where Asterios was more judgmental and rigid as a person while his wife was quiet and soft spoken.  Throughout the comic it was really easy to understand the mood that you were supposed to get from the panels with the simple color wash David put on it.

I think the little things in this comic really worked to make it a different kind of experience than other comics.  Almost every character had their own font ranging from Asterios' mother's cursive to Hana's tiny cute letters.  And all of the side character that were only in there for a few pages-- like the man who used to work at the car place-- were completely fleshed out.  Asterios overall wasn't really a nice guy, I mean I think he meant well but he got caught up in the fact that he seemed to know TOO much.  I've met some people like this myself and after awhile they can get to be really taxing.  Everyone else was very quirky in terms on every character seemed interesting and had their own likes and dislikes.  They weren't carbon copies of each other or anything.

I actually expected this comic to go a completely different direction from where it went.  I was somehow expecting Asterios to meet his brother or switch places with his brother or something, since Ignazio was the narrator.  I mean the constant nightmares Asterios had were creepy to say the least, but  I think that could've gone somewhere since that was never fully explained.  It's kind of like giving someone half a cookie. I want the whole cookie, not just morsels.

The sudden ending of this comic seriously almost gave me a heart attack.  I realize that the end of the world was eluded to throughout the comic through other characters, especially the man in the cafe, but it seriously threw me off in a bad kind of way.  It's like when you are doing theater improv and someone pulls out a gun in the game and it throws everyone off.  It kind of threw off most of the slow build for the comic and left the reader reeling.  

And another thing I wanted to mention that was a little bit odd was Asterios' design.  I really liked his face design and how his face was basically one curvy swoop, it was super appealing and also reflected his hard nature.  

Buddha and Scott Pilgrim and Millennium Actress

This week I read some Buddha.

A lot of this comic reflected a bunch of motifs I have seen in a most Japanese manga/anime I have watched.  First of all, in a lot of early anime in particular, there is a lot of violence against women and children.  I mean, in this comic a man is whipping a boy and his mother because the goods got stolen.  There was also an episode of Speed Racer where a man was whipping a car and then was whipping his daughter because he didn't want her to ride in Speed's car--and that one got banned in the US.  Secondly, there is no filter.  Everybody regardless of age or gender gets slapped and/or punched.  This is Japan.  They have tentacle porn, shojun, manga, anime, otakus, the works.  I mean I just read a page where these kids peed on this one kid and he punched them all in the gonads.  Sometimes I just question why there are some things in manga and anime, but then I just go with it because you might as well.  

Another interesting thing that the Japanese have in their work is an acute connection with the environment/nature.  In this comic in particular there is the sense of the connection between Tatta and the tiger and other people and their interactions with animals.  This goes way back to the Japanese belief in harmony and zen, they respect nature.  This is different from the Eastern side of this, our side, where we strive to master nature rather than live with it. What I really like about Japanese manga is that people seem to become friends really quickly, it's like once people have a common view they are thick as thieves.  

There are a lot of aspects of Speed Racer in this manga, I mean, they are both Osamu Tezuka, and you can really tell in particular pages 48-49 with the classic stretched torso pose and implied violence from the multiple "BAM"s written across the next page.  One of the kids in this comic looked just like Astro Boy, he almost had the same face and hair, I think his name was Tatta.  This comic in particular has a lot of sound effects for movement.  I was reading one page where there was an army coming in and the entire thing was just: Booms, Snaps, Rumbles, Gallops, and Phoofs.

I've also seen Millennium Actress as well as basically every other film Satoshi Kon has made.  When he died I was seriously heartbroken. I really like Paprika and Perfect Blue better as films because they explore the psyche more and had a lot more of a unique flavor to them: I mean in Paprika you are running around in a circus like dream world where anything goes and Perfect Blue leads you down a rabbit hole where you question the main character's sanity.  I would say Millennium Actress is the tamer of the bunch.  I have only seen this movie once because it was kind of repetitive to me after awhile of always running and searching for someone.  I think this film does give a very good sense of Japan more so than the other two just because there is so much of the things Setsuko Hara that explore the past genres of Japanese history.  And this movie in particular really weaves seamlessly through her past and her present and takes the two interviewers with her.

I've also read all of Scott Pilgrim as well as seen the movie which was actually a really good representation of the book, which I wasn't expecting.  I think the most exciting thing about this comic was that Scott Pilgrim was like one of those 8bit games.  I mean, I am not a gamer myself, but it really had an appeal all to its own because nobody had really done that before.  You get extra lives just like a game, and there are different bosses and it makes sense as you are reading it, it's not jarring at all.  And Scott Pilgrim seemed like a real story about this guy in Canada.  And it's cheeky as hell.  There's a guy with Vegan powers and this comic has probably the best collection of one liners ever.   My favorite line from the comic would have to be

Scott: "What's the website of amazon.ca?" 

Wallace: "Amazon.ca?"

The comic is snarky and sarcastic and it really stands out to me. I don't really read copious amounts of comics on my own because books are more appealing to me.  And at the same time I really don't have time with the amount of coursework as a senior CA, but I made time to read all of the books freshman year because they were so goddamn appealing and fun to read.  

Wide World of Comics

 For this week I read some of Persepolis and some of the Blacksad comics.

I looked forever to find a Blacksad comic online because I saw one panel of it and couldn't take my eyes off of it.  The Blacksad comics were so beautiful to look at in general, the detail given to each panel was just mind boggling, I mean you could see every wine bottle on a shelf and every leaf on each bush.  And I've been to New Orleans and it got to one panel and I recognized the panel as one of the restaurants there that I've seen pictures of.  I really like the range of emotions that the characters had.  It seems in a lot of comics with animals it is either condemned to still movements with little or no exaggeration.  Guarnido really knows how to work his characters to keep it looking lifelike a realistic.
And some of the panels just were simply gorgeous like this one:

Even without any narration or dialogue you understand exactly what is going on, plus you get a sense of this character.  You don't wanna mess with this guy he is dangerous.  And all of the characters in Blacksad were almost all different animals and breeds and every character really used that characterization associated with that animal.  I mean there were cats, ferrets, dogs, bears, horses penguins, goats, and the list goes on.  A lot of research went into this.  Like one panel I was looking at there was a polar bear orator roaring and you just knew that that guys gonna be trouble.  And Blacksad uses his catlike reflexes: he stalks and trails people and remains basically unfazed and aloof the rest of the time.

This comic really reminded me of the web comic Lackadaisy (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/).  They are very alike in terms of detail and characterization.  Plus they both have a very rich sense of environment with Lackadaisy's Jazz Age speakeasies and New Orleans' old wrought iron buildings, which both give each comic a unique old flavor.  And it really does read like one of those dark mystery books, I really enjoyed it.

           Persepolis was an interesting read since there isn't a lot of writing I have found about Iran, especially a comic at that.  I was glad that the comic followed her as a kid because I think otherwise it would be hard for me to understand what was going on since there was such a large political influx going on.  It did give a nice unbiased view: I mean we are seeing this as Marji sees it and it was good to see both views on what is going on and really see what was going on through that war with the common people.
          I really liked her dream sequences where someone would be saying something about her grandpa or something and the next minute in her mind she would see him as a sort of king with a crown and everything. It reminded me alot of Blankets and how that wove in and out of reality.

King Comic

For this week I read King by Ho Che Anderson.

This comic actually reminded me a lot of a movie I saw called the Virgin Suicides because it had a similar type of multiple person narrator.  While it did give an interesting insight to different kind of perspective on things, this type of narration always tripped me up because the way it moves from one person to another.  It's almost like I finally get something to grab onto, and we're onto the next person's thoughts.  I mean, the comic gave you an almost godlike vantage of everything, but at the same time you were left wanting because you didn't know one person's whole belief.  All you have is pieces of everything.  And in King, these opinions were not always positive and a lot of the views weren't what you were expecting.    I mean, the first time you see him in the comic he's trying to steal food. I was like whattt is going onnnnn.  This is just degrading.  It would be degrading to anyone.  It's not the normal picture you would be expected to be painted of Martin Luther King.

The beginning was very in your face.  It was like a bunch of short subjects of people doing crazy things.  My favorite line would have to be "...jungle bunny share-cropping twelve sandwich eating..." because that is just ridiculous.

There were a lot of Christian overtones throughout this comic.  Especially one page where MLK was talking to his wife and there was like a down view of him on his bed and there was like an intense contrast of King looking at the cross with half of his face in shadow and the cross had like intense lighting on it so it almost looked threatening.  It reminded me of that famous picture of the two people who were sharecroppers with the cross in the background, the American Gothic.

Most of the non-African Americans in this book were not really shown in the best light, for lack of a better word.  I mean, what was it--the second page where there were a bunch of hoodlums yelling about Chinks and something else.  It kind of took the idea of the racist Southern person of the time and ramped it up 100%.  I think the page with the old lady on the bus who says hello to the driver and angrily mutters niggers to all the black people in the back was a good example of that.  It's still true today as well my grandma thinks black people are lazy and don't do anything even after all these years.