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.