revised final blog pot on Understanding Comics

     After an entire semester's experience on comic reading I have developed new understanding of comics. So I thought this would be the most appropriate thing to blog about as a conclusion to my learning. Understanding comics taught me a lot about the process of comic making. I often find myself apply Sott McCloud's method on my weekly reading. He pointed out things I did not recognize before.

     Question like why does characters in comics all look cartoony? I eventually got my answer from the book: characters were designed simply to assist audience involvement. We identify with things that are more simple and view the more complicated things as the others. This is why the backgrounds in the comics are often more realistic than the characters. Even the enemies will appear to be in more details just to identify them from the protagonists.

     I once found it quite difficult to adopt this theory at first because I am the type of person who would care more about the "look" over the content. If I were to pick between "Watchman" and "King City", judged by its look, I'm more likely to grab "Sandman". In fact I did. After looking at both works, I have to admit that "Sandman" is more in depth and more completed comparing to "King City". When the Sandman shows up in the comic, I had a hard time to identify with him as the main character. He is well-drawn, with beautiful lines and fine details, he is a realistic representation of a person. I would admire the art, but I feel detached from him. However, I found "King City" more friendly and it ultimately became the book I blog about for that week. Since then, I prefer to look at comics that has a simpler style. Like McCloud said, we are self-centered creatures who relates everything to ourselves. Many things are left for the reader's own interpretations.

     McCloud applied his thinking in the comic itself. He said it and he demonstrated it right in front of our eyes. What impressed me was the image of McCloud - the cartoony version sticked in my head. This is one of the beauties of simplicity. It's easy to adapt and easy to remember. Even after I have looked at the real Scott McCloud in the photo, I still can't help to stop seeing him as the guy with big glasses in a plaid shirt with a lightning symbol on it.

web comic YUME

     We all have the experience when we fall in love with the person in our dreams. The work YUME brought this dream to life. When I first started reading YUME, it started off with the traditional black and white panels. Then after several issues, the author began putting in colors. Usually you would expect that the style kind of settles after a while. However, getting into part 2, the author totally went wild with her styles. Sometimes she deletes the line art and left with more realistic looking designs. Sometimes she combined photos into her art. Sometimes she even uses clays. You literally witness her evolvement over time. The work is not limited to one fixed form but several others. Just like how she named her work, it's a "Dream", a dream is suppose to unpredictable. That's why when I started with part 2, the first I asked myself was "Did I open this thing the right way? It seems like I was reading another comic". 

     Just from the title "Yume" a Japanese term for dream, I can already tell that the author was a fan of manga. The layout of the panels, the way the character's designed and the setup of the plot all represents the elements of manga. Not to mention that the uniform reminds me of Japan a big time  because Japanese people for some reason all have a crush on school uniforms.

     The protagonist is a lonely girl, mistreated by all of the people surrounding her. All of the sudden a hero, well a heroin in this case, usually transfered from another school stand out for her. Eventually they started a romantic relationship. This is very typical beginning of a shoujo manga except that the person our protagonist fell in love with is a lesbian. I saw them struggle and struggle and struggle for decades until they finally confess heir feeling for each other. Just when I thought that this is about to coming to an end but the author twisted everything around. Part two of the comic is what I thought to be the beginning when all the fun starts. As the comic proceed, I was actually glad that she emerge out of the box of Japanese influence later on in her work. Not to say that it's no a good thing to imitate manga but it's much more interesting to do it in her own way.

King City by Brandon Graham

     Just like any other superhero characters, Joe is a adventurous guy who goes all around the city to save people and fight the evils. He has special abilities, he is smart, powerful, cool and he has a good heart. These characteristic made him the most out-standing character from the book - there are a lot of protagonists like him who exist in the market. However although  similar genres may have been published repeatedly for a long time, the authors never fail to fascinate people with his enriched imaginations. The core of this piece of work lays in its design. I could not resist but to say that King City is really a place I would want to visit some day.

     King City is a place where imaginations, adventures, and wildness all gather. Usually a setting is just a setting, doesn't matter if it's New York city or Sarasota county or Tokyo. Some people won't even remember the name of the setting, what's important is what happened in the setting. I think Graham really made King City a unique place. From a point of view, this is more of a story for the city itself over the adventure of Joe. If Graham were to illustrate another book based on the setting of King City, the protagonist can be anyone, doesn't matter if it is Joe or not. Joe is just a person who was leading the events of the city. It takes much more to illustrate an unique place rather than illustrate an unique person.

     The true superhero in the book is actually the cat. The cat is just like the spinach for Popeye, it has to be activated in order to perform its powers.  The way the author design the cat is very interesting. First of all, it's an animal that act like a weapon. It can do pretty much anything you can imagine but yet still contain characteristics of a regular cat. Secondly, it's cute, any guy with a lovely huggable fluffy cat would appear to be quite a lovable person as well. I believe Joe has to give some credit for the cat for making him look better in the comics.

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

     What first caught my attention is that the entire book is illustrated using only black, white, grey and red. The red is not used to drawn people's attention, instead of a bright or dark red, the red is always a little bit grey. Due to the fact the grey takes up most of the book. The selected colors created a distressed mood from beginning to end. It's indeed a very intense story with a lot of weight in its content.

      It's rather rare these days to find a piece of work that focused on the relationship between mother and children, and I believe "Are You My Mother?" is probably going to be the best example of its kind.   As humans we all run into problems with our parents. It usually resolve with time, or stayed there but fainted away, because we have lived together for a long time. However this book really brought me into re-thinking about my relationship with my mother, and most importantly, how she had impact on my life.

      I looked at the book as an illustrated autobiography, the book can be complete by itself from just the words. The characters are not acting out as much, most of the emotions and information we get is from the text. Yet what's special about this book is that it's jumping around. It's almost like the author wrote this book following her stream of consciousness. She just brought up whatever comes up in her mind, flipping through the book of memories. It's much more interesting this way than following a chronological order. In this case if the author were to write a book based on a time line it wouldn't seem as effective as the way it is. Just like she narrated in the book, “I don’t have the negatives, so there’s no way to know their chronological order but I’ve arranged them according to my own narrative.”

     It reminds me of the "Maus" a big time when I was reading through the book. Although it's more of a personal story and may not be as in depth story-wise, but the fact that the book is illustrated in a memoir form and it's a conversation between parent and child make the two very similar. What's different is the author portrayed herself exactly the way she looks in the reality in the comic. She is coming from her own point of view when telling the story. However in comparison with Maus, it is a lot more emotional story.

   

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

     The book is interesting both visually and story-wise. I was really impressed by the unique style the author used throughout the book. The style of art changes from time to time, each time fitting into the story nice and smoothly. Small things such as the color of the panels, shape of the bubbles, even the text varies from person to person. His creative ideas are not only carried out by the story, but it's also embedded in the art itself. I think of this piece of work as "design" over a illustrated narrative. Due to the fact, the art probably told me much more than the text did.

     Asterios Polyp, a middle age man who finally stepped on a journey to self-discovery after he had lost everything. He was particularly designed with architectural proportional lines and shapes, just like his personality. Most of the time Asterios is drawn in a profile view, his face is perfectly symmetrical as well. It's surprising to know that his face is exactly the same shape as his back head, forming an axe shape. I believe the author did this on purpose to emphasis on the existence of Asterios's twin brother, Ignazio. On the other hand, Hana who's completely different from her husband, was illustrated with sketchy hatching lines that represent her sensitive nature. She is also more round and less angular.

     Asterios's cool, clean and perfectly drawn lines versus Hana's warm, messy, but complex lines, the collision between the two different personality is like a chemical reaction. Their lines mixed into each other, Hana gets some of Aterios blue structural shapes and Asterios gets some of Hana's sketchy marks. At times when they are in argument, they will go back to their own form again. There's no doubt that the visual representation of the characters are the most unique element throughout the entire book. Not only the main character has their own style that's unique to their personality  so does the others. The massive amount of detail easily takes away my attention, everything has a meaning. It will take days to explore the whole.

Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka

     It's been more than ten years since I last watched Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy on TV. It's the very first anime I ever watched and it has formed a crucial part of my childhood, ultimately leading me into a career in animation. Even today, the image of the little robot boy is still vivid in my memories. Despite the fact that I had forgotten most of the plots of the story, Osamu Tezuka had carved the character into my heart. I will always remember the pointy hair, the big eyes, and the pair of bright red boots.
   
     Astro Boy has impacted on people of my age greatly. Different forms of media of Astro Boy were made throughout the years, first from manga, to anime series, to feature films and even video games. It's simply rare to see a piece of work to remain popular for decades.

     The setting of Astro Boy is fifty years from its publication, in the year of 2003. We have already arrived at 2012, but our society haven't yet develop into how Tezuka predicted. However, it's quite obvious of his influence on today's Japan, which is turning itself step by step into a mechanize country. Now we have factories full of machines, computers and smart phones that we can literally "talk" to.  It won't be long till the arrival of the entirely robotic age. Although a robot, Astro is portrayed by Tezuka as a regular human kid. He can think and he has emotions just like anybody else. He is a living soul inside of a robotic body. Tezuka gave him a lovable character, even under the condition when robots were discriminated by the human, Astro still maintain his good heart. He greatly emphasize on the respect of life and fulfillment of the spiritual world - even for robots. That's why Astro is a cute and lovable little boy than a big guy with muscular body like superman.

     Why Tezuka choose to make Astro a robot rather than a regular human boy? In the story, he treated Astro like a human. Well,  beyond human, because he is invincible. After all, Astro is a robot, he is a weapon. However, Astro uses his power to protect rather than destruct. I believe that this is the ultimate message told by Astro Boy, great power should lie in the hands of people who wish to protect others. After the mistreatment of human, after the abandonment of his "father", Astro still choose to stand on the side with human. He loves human, even if human doesn't necessarily love him back.

   

Ranxerox by Tambourini and Liberatore

     Frist impression I had on the comic Ranxerox is that it's beautifully drawn. There's no doubt about the artist's drawing skills. The comic both portrays the realism of the true world while maintain the cartoony side of the imaginary world. I can see every muscle and blood vine clearly on the body. I even doubt that the comic is made with photoshop filters if it's not from the 70s. The art in a way, took away my attention from the actual content.

     The comic does the opposite of McCloud's "Understanding Comic", it looks too real. It's hard to "get involved" with the story of Ranxerox. Especially when the main character is an ugly and overly muscular manmade robot. In addition, visually appealing doesn't make the comic appealing. Due to the fact, the comic made me very uncomfortable. The realism of the drawings made me even more disgusted once I hit the violent scenes. I don't think even much of the adults can handle it. The comic overall is violent, bloody and sexual. Comparing to many of the zombie comics we have today, which also include many violent scenes, Ranxerox is even worse. That's because in my mind I consider zombies to be nonhuman, but people in Ranxerox (except Ranxerox) are real people.

     Tambourini and Liberatore depicted the worst part of human nature. It seems like the comic is not meant to be enjoyable, but rather serve as a punchbag to relief anger and desires. There's no moral in Ranxerox. While most of us were trained to hold back our angers at times when we face conflicts, Ranxerox just go ahead and solve it with his fists right away. He is free and wild because he has the power no one else can compete with. I believe that if a real human in the real world has the strength Ranxerox got, he would be more likely to use his power the same way as Ranxerox does rather than be a world saver. Overall, although the content of this comic is hard to appreciate, but it did tell us something about ourselves.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

     I really enjoy the simple and relaxing style of "American Born Chinese". It's one of the few books that made me sit down and read from begin to end in one gulp. The characters designs caught my eyes right away. I can tell by the cover that this is going to be a funny book to read. There aren't too much details, just simple lines and color. The information delivers short and clearly, even though it's a thick book, but I manage to get through it in just a couple hours.

     Gene Luen Yang put the story together in a very interesting way. He made the readers travel back and forth between what seemingly unrelated stories. At first the book begins with a chapter based on the fable of Monkey King, then it suddenly switch to a totally different scene with Jin Wang, a typical Chinese American boy in school. Before I notice it, I made another jump to Danny and his Asian cousin. It's not until the end when I finally recognize that all these three stories are actually connected.

     Well, just imagine how the heck in the world does the legendary Monkey King relates to American school kids far far away in the west. They don't live in the same time period, they don't belong to the same time zone, they don't even speak the same language. Still Yang's able to weave the characters together, and the ending really gives a smack over the head.

     Yang's way of pacing out the story might be a little bit confusing at first, I felt like he just throw different short comic strips into the book randomly that doesn't make much sense. However as I read on, I realize that the story is much more than what it appears to be. It's about something we as human face constantly in our lives: who we want to be vs who we really are. Once I see the point of the story, everything makes sense.

   

Maus: a surviver's tale by Art Spiegelman

     As the first graphic novel to receive the Pulitzer Prize, Maus has a uniqueness which made it stands out from the rest of the comic books. It truly is an amazing work both on its symbolism and the story itself. The story is based upon a real personal experience, dating back to a dark period of human history. As students, we only had brief knowledge of the events that happened a long time from today. We read it from the textbook, the words are cold, and explanation are blurry. It's never as real as when a person who really experienced the history, teaching you the history.

     Art Spiegelman depicted the characters as animals, the symbolism used in the book is very similar to those used in the "Animal Farm" both serve the same purpose. In this case, Jews are represented by mice, which are the creatures living underground, away from the light. These symbolism are the exaggeration of different ethnicities.

     Art Spiegelman narrated the story from his point view, rather than from his father, who's the real protagonist. He told the story the exact way he heard it from his father, and invite us - the readers, to listen with him. The past and modern intertwined, shifting with one another. Thus we are constantly comparing Art's father in the past with him in the present, who survived after the Holocaust. From the beginning, Spiegelman already addressed his father's personality, he is not kind. He taught his son the cruelty of life when he was only a child. "Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends!"Just imagine, what kind of parent in the world would tell that to his son. Throughout the book, this unfriendly character of the father start to show more and more clearly. He always think that his wife is watching for his money, he didn't trust anybody, he save as much as he can - just like the way he did during the Holocaust. It's probably still in his mind that maybe one day, the nightmare is going to come back. However, as I read on, after witnessing the father's experience during the Holocaust,  I start to understand why. Valdek although survived, but he has never gotten out of it. That's because his survival was built upon the deaths of the others, he has to take away other people's chance to live!

     Art showed vaguely his relationship with his father in the first book, it has gotten clearer in the second book of his disdain toward each other. Art was only a shadow of his brother, who died at a young age. He was constantly compared to his dead brother Richieu. The picture hung on the wall of Valdek's bedroom was Richieu's rather than Art's, it's understandable because he always live in the beautiful memories before the Holocaust. Valdek has never gotten rid of his past, that's why at the end of the book he said they live happily ever after - in his memories.

     The story is not just about violence of Holocaust, but rather the human nature. Beginning as the victim, Valdek gradually turned into a killer as well. He witness people as they died one after another. What is more scary than waiting for death? People lost their faith, lost their love, they can abandon and betray just to live. Half way through the book, all I can feel is Valdek's dispair. Is it really lucky to survive? That's why even after he gained freedom, he could never be the same.  His body is free, but his spirit still remain in the camp.

Under Ground Comic - Fat Freddy's Cat

     Among the entire list of underground comics I have chosen this particular one generally is because I am a cat lover, and I read a ton of comic strips such as Garfield and Peanuts. In contrast to what I expected to see, Fat Freddy's Cat demonstrations the worst side of pets. I am seeing a naughty, unfriendly, selfish and destructive animal. Perhaps this is why Fat Freddy's Cat is an underground comic. It truly reveals the hateful nature of a cat, and exaggerate it to an extend that make people mad. There's probably not a single comic that can depict the cat the way Gilbert Shelton did.

     Starting on the discussion about the character design, the cat, whom in most people's eyes are resembled by the term "cute", totally looked something like "uncute". He looks more like the old evil witch from Snow White. Pointy ears, small eyes, big nose, skinny legs and a fuzzy tail, these elements all gave him an unfriendly impression. Comparing to Garfield, who's also naughty and selfish, he was designed much more appealing to the audiences.

    Like cats in real life, Fat Freddy's cat maintain the destructive nature of wild animals, except that he destruct OFTEN and PURPOSELY. It even seems like his life is built on causing trouble for his master just to make himself comfortable. It is indeed quite disturbing "watching" him poop in the shoes, scratching the furnitures and making messes out of everything. It recalls many bad moments of life when my pets were doing that to me. However, what made this comic more interesting is the interaction between him and his master, it's not just a one-sided annoyance from the pet. The cat gets Fat Freddy, and Fat Freddy gets back at him, just like how people deals with each other. They never try to please each other, yet they manage to live together with a style.

A Contract With God by Will Eisner

      Will Eisner call this particular piece of work "graphic narrative" instead of "comic". A Contract with God is indeed very different from the comic we used to see before, it made a revolutionary leap into what form today's graphic narrative market. Although as the first graphic narrative, the work may still retain some characteristics of comic, but the style is obviously much more loose and free.

     Eisner abandoned borders and boxes, instead of traveling from one frame to the next across the pages, one image can take up an entire page. A lot of times, images are loosely arranged, one over another. Without lines and boxes, the story flows naturally. Sometimes, it evens seems like watching a movie, a scene fades into the next. Rather than having a cut in between which stopped one scene to begin a new one, the fade made the scenes intertwined with one another. Text also merge within the images, becoming part of the art. How Eisner composed A Contract with God is very unique, it had, in a way makes me feel more involved with the story.

     Dialogues of the characters have been reduced, we are not communicating as much with the characters. Instead, the plot relies more on narration. Without looking at the images, the readers can understand the story based just on the text. It indeed is just a narrative, but accompanied with images.

     In this book the page are not compacted with informations, because there are no limites on page numbers what so ever. We are given more room to "back up" from the reading, so we don't have to stare at the tiny little boxes trying to figure out what's going on. Comic can be overwhelming sometimes due to how "crowded" they are. The style of Contract with God is much more pleasing to the eyes. In fact, I think it's a much more enjoyable piece for Eisner too.



   

The Adventures of Tintin

     

     Tintin took us all over the world, traveling from places to places, discovering new adventures and solving more mysterious. We followed his foot steps exploring around the world on paper, and he never fails providing surprises on each adventure. To accommodate great stories there must be great protagonists. Herge really did a great job on building the personalities of the characters. They all have strong characteristics. It is incredible how the characters appeal to us. Certain character speaks a certain way, act a certain way, and express him/her in a certain way. We can easily tell which dialogue was spoken by which character without seeing the actual illustration - just like identifying a person's voice.

     The captain for example, is the most unique person among the characters of the adventures of Tintin. He has a big beard and a big body. He is always expressed in an exaggerated facial expression with exaggerated gestures. He loves whiskies, and he always mess up because of it. So the beer bottle became a symbol for him just like the big round ears became a symbol for Micky Mouse. These characteristics engrave into our mind, they are what brought the story to life.

     Tintin, the soul of the story, is a boy with all the good natures of human. He is smart, brave and adventurous. He has a strong sense of justice, he is not afraid of anything, he can do all kinds of stuff such as riding the horse, fixing machines, operating cars, planes, and even the tank. In the story of Tintin, there's always a good side and a bad side. Tintin can always fight off the bad guys - just like the golden rule of many other stories: evil can never prevail the good. Tintin is an idol because he can do all the things we wanted to do and he has all the characteristics we dreamed of.  Herge in fact, created a superhero rather than a human. Only this superhero, Tintin, can lead us into the most exciting adventures of all time.

Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay

     Unlike most comic books we read today, Winsor McCay's works were following a certain form and norm. Little Sammy Sneeze, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, and Little Nemo in Slumberland all started the story differently but end with the similar ending (earlier Little Nemo comic even started off with the same beginning). Winsor McCay told the same story over and over again, but just differently. What really impressed me is his ability to fit so much imagination and information into such simple form of storytelling. He created a world way beyond our imagination on single pages of weekly comic newspapers.

     Not only does Winsor McCay's story follow a particular norm, his drawings did the same thing as well. The stories are drawn on a steady pace, one follow another, more like an animatic storyboard. We spend about the same time on each panel, even the dialogues between the characters tend to be balanced throughout the panels. The panels are pretty much the same size throughout, except for couple that contains more action and characters. McCay expanded the size of the panele rather than shrinking the characters. There are no close-up or medium shots, the characters are always the same size, drawn from head to toe. It almost look like the characters are walking through the panels as we are reading. Most of the feelings are expressed through body languages, the characters had barely any expression on their faces. Due to the fact because they are always put into a wide shot, their faces are so small that we only can see two dots for the eyes and a line for the mouth.

(steady pace)

(barely any facial expression)

     It is quite obvious that McCay didn't pay too much attention into expressing the feelings of the characters, rather, he focused heavily on the other objective elements such as the backgrounds, which are essential to form the world he created. McCay wants to express the "Slumberland" more than little Nemo himself.

Understanding Comic

     Scott McCloud solved a question I came across all the time but never got an answer to: why are the characters so cartoony? Not all, but most comic characters are designed in a simple style. For years I thought it was only the choice of style and possibly to lower the workload of comic artists. At least, as an animator, that's what I do to turn in the work on time. The simpler a character is, the less work we have to do. However, on the other hand, this rule can't apply to the rest of the comic creation process - the backgrounds are full of details and sometimes even photorealistic (especially in Japanese Anime). That made me wonder for a long time. Why spend so much time on the things readers are most likely to ignore than working on the characters who we play close attention to?

     I eventually got my answer from the book: characters were designed simply to assist audience involvement. I found it quite unreasonable to adopt this theory at first. Simplicity can look fake, shouldn't our eyes first attracted to the realistic look of things? Throughout the human history many artists trained themselves tirelessly to achieve the skill to draw realistically. The more real the better the viewer adopts as the reality. In comic books, we must go the other way around. Even though photorealistic characters with fine details may be very much appreciated by its craftsmanship,  but it made the reader less efficient to relate to them. The more detail, the more our eyes identify as "other". In this case, it explains why backgrounds are drawn much more complicated than the characters. We want to perceive everything besides the main character as the "others". We want to become the protagonist.

     After all, it's quite impressive to learn that our mind can relate to any form of art, no matter if it's realistic or not.  Just like Scot McCloud said, we are sucked into this "vacuum" called comic.  We see ourselves on the other side of the book, and that's what made comic such interesting media.

The Arrival by Shuan Tan

     It's always critical of how a story grabs the reader's attention at the start. A lot of authors sell the "meat" right off at the beginning. "The Arrival" did just the opposite, the story starts off with something we commonly see in everyday life and progresses into a completely different world of wildness.This is also one of the most fasinating part of the book -  the big contrast of life.

     We can see this compare and contrast pattern throughout the entire book. Tan is repeatedly comparing the events taken place in the story. For example, the layout of the first page and last page are exactly the same, but the content of the images has changed. The paper crane changed into a paper creature, the pot changed into a food of the new world, the newspaper changed into another language and etc. All of the elements emphasize that life has been the same way, but better. Tan also compare and contrasted the  experiences of the different people we saw throughout the book, which in my understanding, are to emphasize the same thing. The young lady who originally work as a slave now gained her freedom. The couple escaped from the giants now built their little family in the new world, with their child. The old man found his peace away from the war. At the end, when a foreign girl came to ask for directions, the scene immediately reflected the main character's experience when he first came to the new world. The scene lifted my emotion to a higher level because I know the story is going to continue on with someone else.

     The contrast is the major component which brings the reader's feelings into the book. Only if when we see the bad side, we see the goodness of life. I believe this is what made the book so interesting.