Week 13: The Killing Joke - Q&A

The Killing Joke Q&A

• What is your reaction to the text you just read?

Eh. I'm honestly really bored of Batman, and of grim dark superhero stories in general. I think there's been an over-saturation of that kind of content, and The Killing Joke reminds me of that. It's got everything that while I'm sure was shocking and cool when it came out that I'm tired of, particularly the treatment of Barbra Gordon. Seriously, how many girls have to suffer in media for that sweet, sweet man pain?
The thing that definitely interested me the most was the Jokers backstory, which caught me off guard and made me feel bad for the poor guy, which I'm sure was part of the point. I'd never seen a backstory for him, so to see his origin story was cool.

• What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

I didn't really connect with anything. I think there'd be a larger issue at hand with me if I had, honestly... I did feel sympathy for the Joker after seeing his backstory, and obviously felt bad for Detective Gordon and his daughter, but I can't really say that I connected to anything in the story.

• What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

I don't think there's enough content in The Killing Joke to make a movie, so that's out. I think the story would work best as an episode of a Batman television series, which makes me wonder how it would work specifically in the context of the Bruce Timm Batman series from the 1990s. I would honestly change the treatment of Barbra Gordon, as I find paralyzing her completely unnecessary.

Week 13: Reconsidering the Superhero

Hellboy by Mike Mignola

This week I read a smattering of Hellboy comics by Mike Mignola. Hellboy is absolutely my favorite superhero who isn't a superhero. In particular, The Chained Coffin and Other Stories does a really good job of showing that Hellboy isn't necessarily a typical superhero - he's just doing his job.

Mignola treats Hellboy and his antics with a huge dash of humor, often giving Hellboy something funny to say in the heat of the moment, something very typical of a superhero who has a sassy side - Spiderman immediately comes to mind.

All in all, typical superhero comics don't really interest me anymore. I don't need to see Batman's origin story for the 40th time, I don't need to see Gwen Stacy die AGAIN, and I really am not down to watch Superman show down with Lex Luthor for the 8 millionth time. Stories that give me variety and bring something new to the table is what I'm looking for when I look at superheroes now.

Hellboy is a great superhero because he's kind of not a superhero, get me?

Week 12: Comics By Women

This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki

This week I read This One Summer by cousins Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. I was really excited about this week, as I have a firm and slightly biased belief that women are better writers than men are. I'm not saying there aren't good male writers - Terry Pratchett did walk this earth, after all - but in general I find women are shoved to the side for men who are usually not as skilled. 

This One Summer is a really simple story about being in that weird time of your life as a kid where you're not a teenager, but also not young enough that your parents completely shield you away from tough topics. It's that weird transitional period where you start to get exposed to difficult aspects of life little by little, something portrayed well in This One Summer via the problems between the main characters parents, and her relationship with her mother.

It's also unfortunately that time in your life where you're kind of a little shit head. This One Summer is unflinching about that, as the two girls are navigating what is and isn't appropriate to say - like when they called a girl a slut and one of their mothers admonished them, saying it's weird to say that when you don't even know the person. 

This One Summer is a fleeting glimpse of a persons life during a time that becomes nostalgic when someone is over. It's a wonderful read!

Week 10: Manga and The Japanese Comics Tradition

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi

For this blog post, I reread one of my top favorite mangas, Ranma 1/2! I really admire Rumiko Takahashi as an artist, and really enjoy the way she handles her stories and her characters. A comic like Ranma, that deals with a protagonist that changes from a boy to a girl via water, could have gone in a demeaning and horrible direction really quickly, but Takahashi handles it with such grace and humor that it's not really surprising that the manga is as successful as it is. 

Takahashi has had success in a variety of genres, something a lot of artists can't say for themselves. She's able to portray romances in a wonderful and realistic way, and also draw insanely cool battle scenes, as seen in her other work, Inuyasha.

Genuinely, I think manga gets generalized too much in the west. It's considered a genre instead of what it actually is - the art of an entire nation. It gets disrespected in ways we wouldn't dream of disrespecting western comics, even though often enough it has more variety in story and art style than western comics have.

Week 9: A Wide World of Comics

Moebius

For this post I read a bit of volume 1 of Incal, and Heavy Metal, both illustrated by Moebius.

I greatly enjoyed the Heavy Metal stories more than I enjoyed Incal, art and story wise. I didn't find the story or art in Incal appealing, which is rare for me when it concerns Moebius. Heavy Metal, on the other hand, was enjoyable with a diverse amount of stories that all had interesting plotlines. Incal's coloring style kind of ruined Moebius's linework, while the way it was colored in Heavy Metal really allowed it to shine on it's own.

My favorite story from Heavy Metal is a tie between the first two, where two young people decide to travel together to explore the world, before getting shot down by war hungry humans. The second story is a futuristic style short about a delivery boy who is disgusted upon witnessing the gods of the world mercilessly play with the life of a champion.

All in all, European comics have more substance than american mainstream comics, as their comics market isn't entirely dominated by superheroes likeAmerica's comic market unfortunately is.

Week 8: Stereotypes and The Ethics Of Representation

Stereotypes in Media

As a Latina living in the modern world, I've seen enough media to realize the general populations idea of what latino people are - assumed to be mexican, and if you're a young woman you've absolutely got to be fiery and sexy, and if you're older you're either a nanny or a maid. If you're a man, you're a creepy dude with a mustache and working as a gardener. It's tiring to witness this kind of thing on a daily basis, and whenever people portray latinos as actual people, it comes as a shock to non latinos. 

To be frank, stereotyping of any kind to me is seen to be unnecessary, just because even if the stereotype seems to be a positive thing (i.e., all asian people are smart!), the real life consequences of pushing those stereotypes onto people hurt them. The only time I support stereotyping is when creators are using it as a vehicle to discuss wider issues with how different races are portrayed - essentially I only agree with it if the creator is making a point or is going to flip the stereotype on it's head. 

Stereotyping hasn't necessarily affected me the way it does to other latinos. I have my mothers lighter coloring, and don't have any kind of accent, so for the most part I don't "pass" for latino, which is a whole other conversation - the idea that certain races have to look an expected way. I do, however, get a lot of people expressing surprise that I am latina, and saying they "don't expect it" or that "I don't look latino", which has been said in a weirdly complimentary tone. I have a larger than usual nose as well, which makes a concerning amount of people assume I'm ethnically Jewish based off of the stereotype of Jewish people having large noses. 

All in all, I see stereotypes as something annoying and outdated. As artists, and people, we need to be able to portray people of all races as independent individuals, instead of relying on tired and more likely than not racist assumed ideas on how a person is because of their race.

Week 7: Maus Analysis/Response

Maus by Art Spiegleman

Maus is a graphic novel by Art Spieglman about his father's life before and during World War II, specifically during the Holocaust. Speilgeman employs interesting visual representations of different races/ethnicities in Maus - he depicts Jewish people as mice, while Germans and Poles are depicted as cats and pigs. Throughout the story, this type of representation occasionally deliberately falls through, such as when Spieglman is wondering whether or not to portray his wife, a french woman who converted to Judaism, as a mouse or not.

Maus is also one of, if not, the first graphic novel to be seriously considered in an academic context. Comics have a history of being considered non-academic and frivolous, but Maus changed that due to it's subject matter and artful storytelling. It paved the way for comics of a more serious/historical context, like March, a comic about the civil rights movement. It gave academics a chance to realize that comics can be useful tools in order to teach, giving them a new way to engage people.

All in all, Maus is a well done and beautiful story, it's look into a life of someone who lived through a time of widespread tragedy and the relationship between a father and son.

Week 6: Underground Comics

Underground Comics

Underground comics are where artists have the most fun, I'm guessing. For this post I read Tits and Clits, Whiteman, and a bit of Mr. Natural. The overt sexuality in a lot of underground comics is combined with weird scenarios that make reading them a really fun experience. 

Whiteman is a really fun twist on the Beauty and The Beast trope where the woman, in a rare occasion, is The Beast. Tits and Clits is a really fun anthology type comic that features several different artists, all of whom are women. Mr. Natural, I found, was the most boring to me, to the point that after a few comics I couldn't be bothered to read more.

Underground comics have more freedom than mainstream comics, and because of that the content tends to be more outrageous than anything you would find in the mainstream. Anthologies like Tits and Clits also give female artists a platform to display their skill while writing fun short stories about sexuality - a subject most women in general are discouraged from publicly speaking about. Underground comics give people and stories a chance to be heard that they wouldn't have if they tried publishing their work for a general audience.

Week 5: Body Talk - Eisner and Thompson

Blankets by Craig Thompson

I read Blankets at 17 years old via my best friend, who loved the comic so much she not only recommended it to me, but showed up at my house with the book and insisted i have my own copy. At the time, Blankets was more interesting than most stories I was reading. Thompson and I come from slightly similar religious backgrounds, though the way our parents raised us was completely different. I wasn't forced into religion or guilted by it as Thompson is, which allows me to have a healthy relationship with religion. 

Thompsons art is technically masterful while still creating a unique visual style, which is always nice to see. The way he depicts emotions in Blankets can be visceral at times while leaving a lasting impression in his readers minds.

While I have some issues with the way Thompson depicts Raina, his first love, I think I can ultimately be a little too harsh in my feelings on this. I'm so used to seeing women idealized and deified - something Thompson cheekily draws out in Blankets - that as an adult, I'm a little quicker to write off that aspect of Blankets then I was when I was 17. Thompson ultimately treats Raina with more respect and adoration than most female characters are given by their creators.

What I loved so much about Blankets when I initially read it, and what has kept me returning to it time and time again, is that Thompson is so open about who he is and his experiences. You can't help but root for the guy, seeing how his life plays out, and hoping it goes well. It left me with such an affection for someone who doesn't even know I exist!

Week 4: Comic Books

Uncle Scrooge, The Secret of Atlantis

Discussing Carl Barks in class made me interested in checking out more of his work. I read his Uncle Scrooge story, The Secret of Atlantis. It was really silly and fun! I liked the take on the people of atlantis adapting to their new home and becoming weird not quite mermaid aliens. I think it's easy to forget that comic books aren't just superheroes and the latest stressful plot about how they're going to save the world from whatever type of evil is popular that week, and this is a cute reminder that things other then that exist.
It was definitely a fun short story with a lot of personality, as is most of Carl Bark's work with the disney ducks.

Week 3: The Comic Strip

Calvin & Hobbes

I read Calvin & Hobbes obsessively as a kid. We'd had the books at my house thanks to my older brothers, and I took full advantage of that. Calvin and Hobbes is an interesting comic strip because while it's a comic about a little kid and his imaginary best friend/stuffed animal written by a grown man, it never feels that way. Calvin's wonder about the world and the way he is doesn't feel forced, it feels natural. It's a testament to Bill Waterson and the way he writes that Calvin and Hobbes can talk about fate and the idea that life is predestined in one strip and have Calvin playing with toys or resisting going to bed in the next strip.  

I think Calvin & Hobbes is a masterful approach to how children can be just as three dimensional and complex as adults without taking itself too seriously. The heart of Calvin & Hobbes is that it's a simple, slice of life type strip that looks into the daily lives of a boy with a big imagination, his favorite toy, and the people around him.

Week 2: A Week of Kindness OR The Seven Deadly Elements Story Interpretation

The Rooster's Laughter AKA Haunted By The Cock

Ernst's series "The Rooster's Laughter" is a series of shocking and slightly ridiculous photos of women being terrorized by roosters in various settings. The series is grotesque, but for anyone familiar with the way men are and have honestly always been, not unfamiliar. The rooster heads drive home the idea that what these men are doing is more animalistic than human.  Some scenes are more out there with their imagery such as the third photo, where the men seem to be robbing a grave of some kind. Others are more common place, and can reflect things women still deal with in the modern world. The seventh photo shows just that, as one of these rooster-man-demon hybrids appears to have scaled an opera house specifically to harass a woman whose body language frankly says "Oh, god, not this shit again."

Easter Island AKA Men Don't Get To Feel Things

From a first pass over of the second series Ernst shows, Easter Island is different from The Roosters Laughter in several ways. The male figures still terrorize women in certain ways, but Easter Island deals more with themes of rejection, sadness, and isolation. The Easter Island heads, called Moai, reflect the idea that men are not allowed to express emotions in ways women can. By literally rendering these men as stone-faced, it creates a veil through which their motivations and their reactions to their actions in the series are unclear. It again disconnects the idea that these men are human, though the figures in Easter Island are shown doing more human like actions in this series. There's also an air of creepiness, particularly in the third photo where one of the Moai-faced men is spying on a woman, and again in whatever is going on in the fourth photo. The final image of Easter Island is also more haunting than any of the other images, with the body language conveying a certain kind of anguish, but the stone face keeping the viewer from really understanding how the character is feeling.

Week 2: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Understanding Comics

While reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, there was one idea in particular that caught my interest. It was McCloud's six step theory. McCloud claims that whether an artist realizes it or not, they will always follow these six steps that he has laid out: Idea/Purpose, Form, Idiom, Structure, Craft and Surface.

I had never thought of artistic growth as a process that was trackable, besides the obvious tracking of quality and growth of your work, so to see it laid out in this way was really interesting to me. The examples he used to show how artists grew and maybe, for some of them, settled into different steps without progressing was interesting as well - I liked that even though it was a six step process, it wasn't necessary to complete the entire cycle to be satisfied with your work and your artistic identity. McCloud doesn't look down on artists who settle into earlier stages of the six step process.

As we proceed on through the six steps, he presents steps 1 and 2 as choices. Step 2 is Form, where an artist can push the limits of their work and art in general and see what they/art as a whole are capable of - McCloud lists examples of artists who do this such as Windsor McCay and Moebius.

Step 1 is Idea/Purpose, where an artist's art becomes a tool with which they can effectively tell a story with, like Charles Shulz or Will Eisner. 

While McCloud presents these two steps as choices, he does make it clear that neither choice is permanent if the artist doesn't wish it to be. I really like that McCloud's six steps can flow into one another and aren't extremely restrictive, or even need to be followed in order. There's a certain freedom to the six step theory he presents that instead of making it seem like a checklist of things an artist MUST do, it rather seems more like a natural order of things that happens to an artist organically. 

Ideas and form are important to an artist, and comics in particular. You cannot have one without the other, and by laying it out so simply, McCloud helps us, the reader, truly understand this.

Week 1: The Arrival by Shaun Tan Analysis

The Arrival

Shaun Tan's The Arrival tells a story familiar to many - one of immigration - in a new and interesting way. Tan's world is filled with imaginary creatures and artfully rendered grand visuals, making the lack of words almost unnoticeable. Too often, comics unintentionally rely on telling the audience too much, instead of showing it. Tan's complete omission of words presents a story that is almost dream like in nature, much like the world he has crafted in The Arrival – one that is different from our own, but similar in the experiences of those who inhabit it.  

Tan uses various visuals to represent the different passages of time, from panels of clouds to represent the days passing by on the ship to the leaf that later morphs into a flower and then perishes in the snow, showing the audience the passing of seasons. It’s also fairly easy to see the distinction between the present and the past due to the way Tan presents the sequences. The present has bright white margins, while the past, as shown in the flashback sequence of the woman on the air boat in the third chapter, has greyish margins, with each panel framed like a battered old photograph.

Through Tan’s careful storytelling and visually descriptive drawings, The Arrival works best in its silence. By leaving the comic wordless, the audience can give their full attention to the emotions and actions of the characters, and properly appreciate the fantastical surroundings.

Ultimately, The Arrival has no use for words. Words would distract from the story Tan wants to tell, and add nothing to the story that Tan hasn’t already shown us.