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.