Asterios Polyp

Asterios Polyp

This was a fantastic story. I really love how early on we were aware of Asterios’ ego. I was waiting for Hana to call him out and when she did it was a beautiful clash of her red and his blue. The way the art was used to emphasize mood was very clever and effective.

I think we all know a few people like Asterios, highbrow know-it alls that could judge a person harshly just be looking at them. It was fun to look deeply into a character like this and to see his world get broken and rebuilt. His attitude in New York and the small town are very different. In New York, before his place burned down he always spoke of things as they were. He spoke his opinion as if it were hard fact. In the town he either didn’t speak much of his opinion or he would start with “I used to think.” This alone showed clear development of his character.

The theme of duality is very strong in this piece. No doubt, Asterios is obsessed with duality because of his twin brother whom died in the womb. This obsession with pairs affects his building designs, his philosophy, and his love life. Hana’s argument with him not only marks the end of a relationship but also shakes his world.  He was wrong about duality. He used to think love was just a mixture of mutual attraction and shared interests but it’s so much more than that. Asterios does learn though. His midlife crisis has greatly changed him, humbled him. Made him significantly less self-centered. Safe to say, he’s not a huge asshole anymore. So Asterios confronts his other, Hana, to prove it and then an asteroid destroys them both and it over. It was an ending I didn’t see coming. The ending does fit though, midlife crisis are about live like you’ll die tomorrow. And in the end I think Asterios was truly proud of himself.  

An Introduction to Manga

An Introduction to Manga

Mushishi

I absolutely loved Mushishi, it was like no story I’ve ever experienced before. It’s so hard for me to explain the creatures, the Mushi. Some people have said that the Mushi are similar to the western myth of demons. There are all kind of demons water demons, mountain demons, and sound demons, etc. And there are many types of Mushi but the Mushi are inherently neither good nor evil. They are also natural, not wicked, they are older than most organisms. There really is no western equivalent to the mushi. The composition of panels really added to the story telling. I reminded me of shots from a film. I think my favorite moment was in the Mushishi’s first encounter when we learned about the how the grandmother lost half of herself. That shot when she’s just standing, then she walks away but her mushi half stays in place watching her other half walk off was beautiful! Another strong moment for me was the man who thought his dreams were visions of the future. In reality his dreams were merely dreams but the mushi made his dreams become reality. I didn’t see that twist.

            This manga had me at the edge of my seat with my nose between the pages. It wasn’t and action manga, there were no fights but it was just so interesting and I was completely wrapped in the mystery of the mushi.

Millennium Actress

I watched this movie without looking at a review or a trailer so it was something entirely new and I didn’t know what to expect. When the film genre first changed and the time period jumped between the 1940s back 800 years I was genuinely surprised.

It is a beautiful movie and a strong homage to film. I really love that the director and the cameraman were Physically drawn into Chiyoko’s story. The shots and editing was fantastic. The montage where she’s running through all the films to the painting of the moon shows just how good the editing was. One other thing I love was the repetition of the actors (such as her older co-star.) The policeman was very interesting to me. The moment when he returned to apologize to Chiyoko as an old man was very strong. We learn that he killed the painter with torture. Chiyoko didn’t hear this though, she’s been chasing after a dead man for most of her life. And she’s cursed to chase after him for 1000 years. At the end of the film when Chiyoko was dying/leaving in a spaceship I couldn’t help but hope we’d see a scene of her finally reunited with the painter in the afterlife. But the movie just ended instead and it made me cry.

Wide World of Comics

Wide World of Comics

Fantastic Planet

I watched the rest of Fantastic Planet and I wasn’t the biggest fan. A big part of it might’ve been because I watched the English dub instead of the French one. The English voice actors were so dull and the animation was already limited and it just seemed boring. Normally, good voice acting saves limited animation. I should’ve watched it in French. I did really find it interesting that the movie showed us a utopia. But it was a utopia for the Traags and a nightmare for the Oms (who us humans are supposed to relate to.) Like a lot of 70’s science fiction/fantasy the movie focused on introducing us to new world. It focused on the culture of the Traags and the Oms. It also focused on the landscape and creatures. It seemed a bit more focused on the world than the plot. While I did like that Terr used the power of the Traags’ own knowledge in the end the conclusion of the film seemed very rushed. The Oms create a rocked and travel to the world that the Traags meditate to. They start destroying the world and the statue the souls would inhabit. This devasted the Traags so much that the called for peace and ended the slavery of the Oms. I don’t understand why the Oms would accept a peace treaty. For once they finally had power over the Traags and the Traags were terrible to the Oms past. The Oms also didn’t seem like a race that would accept peace so easily. They had some issues with Terr when they first saw him. Why would the accept peace from their oppressor so quickly? But before that question is answered the movie is over.

Triplets of Bellville

I have never seen triplets of Bellville before this class and I loved it! I loved Champion’s unconventional family. I loved the style and the comedy. It was so interesting to watch but I was wrapped in it. It made such and interesting story even though it had so little dialogue. Which was so it could be distributed to other countries. I also found it very inspiring to my own animated work.

Stereotype and the Ethics of Representation

King

I read the third volume of King at the library. I really loved the gorgeous back and white ink drawings. It was a relief to see African Americans portrayed as actual humans instead of simians like the comics we’ve read before this.  Balancing hand painted drawings with actual photographs really reminded the reader that this was a historical piece. The monologues of different people giving their opinion about the king were also an interesting bit of story telling. What I really loved about this was the way that Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t overly glorified. He was a great man but he wasn’t flawless. The comic also showed the King arguing with his wife. I thought his personal life was the most interesting part of the comic. It’s what we didn’t learn in our high school US History class. The moment when Coretta had to tell her daughter that she couldn’t go to the amusement park (because it was whites only) was heartbreaking. It was such a strong and real moment. This little girl didn’t even understand racism, because her parents protected her from it, it didn’t make sense to her. It’s because racism is outside of common sense.

Chicken with Plums

I’ve read Persepolis before and I was looking forward to this book, which wasn’t from her point of view. This book told the story of one of her relatives, Nasser. The wonderful thing about this story is the way that your opinion is constantly changing about Nasser as Marjane reveals more and more information about him through out his story. In the beginning we see Nasser is on his way to buy a new sitar to replace the one his wife broke. He thinks he sees a woman from his past but she doesn’t remember him. The new sitar isn’t good enough, so he decides to lie down and die. At first I was judging this strange man, I didn’t understand why he’d give up on life because his sitar broke. Later we realize that the sitar was the only thing that kept him going when he wasn’t allowed to marry the woman he loved. That lover was the woman that didn’t recognize him in the beginning. So in one day he loses sitar, which symbolized his love, and he sees that the woman he loved forgets him. It was such a well put and told story I had to read it twice.

Maus

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Maus was a very wonderful and unique read. I love the way the main story, Vladek’s Story, was framed with Artie’s little visits. It was a very personal book. Vladek does not jump right into the story of the nazi oppression he first tells the story of his young life, of finding love, of the good times. Everything being told is significant to him. It’s also adorable that Vladek told his son not to mention such “private things” in his story. This also gives us a contrast to the rest of the novel.

            I am fond of the portrayal of Vladek because he reminds me of my own father. My father wasn’t in Auschwitz of course but he does do a lot of cycling. When you get older and your joints weaken walking gets harder. My dad started cycling a lot because it was an exercise that didn’t hurt his joints. I can only assume this is why we see Vladek cycling so much, and cycling as he tells his stories. Vladek also seems proud of his strength. It would only make sense that he continues exercising even in his old age. Vladek’s speech pattern’s is also a clear part of his personality. “It was so treasuring for me this package.” I loved that I could hear the Polish accent in my head as I read this.

            I also like that Spiegelman didn’t portray the characters as humans. Polish were pigs, Germans were cats, and the Jews were mice. For a brief moment in the sanitarium we saw even more animals such as rabbits, moose, and frogs. Cats and mice have a very clear relationship that was similar to the Nazis and the Jews. Mice are also seen as pests, much like how the Nazis saw the Jews. I also like that when the he was portraying his father pretending to be a pole he portrayed him as a mouse wearing a pig mask. By using anthropomorphic characters Spiegelman has made the meaning stronger. This is part of the visuals but it really adds to the story.

            The story is filled with heartbreaking moments. Everything you’d expect from a holocaust survivor. It was interesting to see how the characters dealt with the tragedies. When Vladek’s son dies he reacts in just a small panel but when Lolek decides to face the ovens there is an entire page dedicated to this tragedy. I thought about why his nephew death got a page while his son got a panel. It was because of Anja. Comforting his wife was what made the moment so memorable. She was a wreck but he wasn’t going to let her give up.

            Spiegelman clearly can’t stop thinking of his own mother as he interacts with his father. He wants her story. He also filled with guilt since his mother’s suicide. We see this in his comic Prisoner on the Hell Planet. He is a prisoner of guilt. He always asking his father for his mother’s diaries so he have the story of both his parents. When Spiegelman learns that his father burned the diaries he loses it. Especially when he hears that the stories were intended to be read by him. Spiegelman his furious that he doesn't have his mother’s story to tell. As a reader I am also sad that I don’t have her story to read. In a way the writer and the reader mourn the loss of a story. I also thought it was extremely clever the way Spiegelman ended the first Maus by calling his father a murderer. He also ended Prisoner on the Hell Planet by calling his mother a murderer. It is a wonderful connection between the two moments in time. It’s incorrect to say Maus is just about the Holocaust. It’s about the Spiegalman family.

Underground Comics

For the underground comics I read Greaser. It’s really strange comic written in the 70’s set in the 50’s. The comic starts with the main character doing the old hole in the bottom of the popcorn box gag on a movie date with his girlfriend. Through out the entire comic I have trouble finding the protagonist; I don’t think there is one. For a while it seemed as if the comic was applauding the greaser lifestyle since it was centered around it. We see the greasers terrorize people. In the end the greaser push some one too far. They both get their brains blown by a shot gun only to have their killer commit suicide. Who’s the protagonist? All the characters with a significant amount of lines are dead. What’s the point? Without a real story this comic seemed more like a freakshow. The comic would only be read just so people could obtain an offensive view of gender and Italians. The paneling was awful and art. It was clearly handled amateurs, but I guess most underground comics were. One strange thing that stuck out for me was on the back there and illustration of a greater harassing a woman, on the bottom it said sexism was out. I didn’t understand it all. Was the comic sexist and hated feminism? Did the comic not believe in sexism? Maybe the comic was actually against sexism and using the disgusting characters as an example of what not to be? I don’t know but I also don’t want to read Greaser to find out.

Sally Cruikshank’s work actually made me laugh. It was a little hard at first because the animation is low quality but it was entertain. Seeing Sally’s work I now know that the show Rocko’s Modern Life is must be based off of it. In fact most of Joe Murray’s work must be inspirted by Sally Cruikshank. It was very interesting to see the work of a significant figure of animated programming.

#4 Brief History of Comic Books

#4

I read Tin Tin in Tibet. In the class people said that the dialogue was tedious because the characters would unnecessarily explain the visual information. I didn’t get that in this comic. Haddock could get into crazy antics with and ox without anyone explaining it. It might be because it’s a later comic. Tin Tin was still a little tedious to read. I think it was because of the way the panels were laid out. There were about 15 panels per page all with the same height. Lengthy dialogue, such as reading a letter would be stretched out through four panels. If this were a modern comic it would most likely be fit all in one panel and the panel would be stretched to take half the page.  I also noticed that a lot of the panels would use the same composition or “camera angle.” This makes Tin Tin seem inspired by film composition. I understand why the Tin Tin cartoon was so popular. The comic really translates will to the silver screen. It’s like reading storyboards. I love storyboards so it was an entertaining read. It is interesting to see the clear line between Tin Tin and modern comics just by the way the pages are organized.

One thing I do love about Tin Tin is that it is an action adventure comic aimed towards children. It handles the audience and the genre really well. There is just enough comedy and just enough excitement. I enjoyed that all the characters have clear personalities, even Snowy gets internal dialogue.

            The EC comics were extremely entertaining. I can’t believe I’ve never read them before. The art is fantastic. The story and transitions are all done so well. The treatment of story reminded me of the Twilight Zone. The episodes had separate characters and plots but it was still the Twilight Zone.

            Carl Bark’s stories were also fantastic. I love how, unlike most of the newspaper comics we looked at last week, it was funny. The comedy is well thought out. This must be the point in time when writing started to get better. It’s a shame Barks didn’t get enough credit. He really did make a big impact.