Last Post

This post is not directly related to class, in that it has nothing to do with the readings. But it does deal with that beloved aspect of comics, the panel, and it is from my favorite comic strip, so...

Final Project

For my final project, I ended up writing a paper on how comics/graphic novels serve as a sort of a subversive element in mainstream society/popular culture. It's kind of a twist on my proposal because I realized that my proposal would require a 20-page paper to complete. I think my topic works, but there's still a chance I'll be scrapping the rough draft and starting over. I'm just no good at choosing my own topic. Give me a prompt any day.

I know we were originally assigned an essay, but after reading about all the cool "choose your own topic" projects that people are doing, my standard essay is starting to look a little lame.

The little in-class activity we did on Monday? Ended up being really hard! For the life of us, my group couldn't put together a coherent and eloquent sentence musc less a paragraph about the panel from Epileptic. Translating pictures into words is so much harder than translating one language into another (from some one who tested at having taken two years of German in high school when I had taken four, this means something).

Cliche alert!

I guess a pictures really is worth a thousand words... :)


Some one always posts one of these at the end of their blog post, but I don't remember who. Anyway, here's one that one of my friends made of two of my other friends. I thought it was pretty funny.

Berlin, Chapters 1-4


"I hope it will add up to more than a pile of stones" (p. 80)
I'm not sure this is exactly what Herr Severing is talking about, but I can't help but to think of images like this anyway.

The first major European city I ever went to, thankfully was Prague, Czech Republic. Prague is the only major European city not bombed in the war. It is glorious.

My dream city to go to had always been Vienna, but when I went, I somehow forgot that it, unlike Prague, had been bombed out. I was still thinking about Prague, of streets that wonderful composers and writers had walked on centuries before. Vienna is surrounded on its periphery by government-subsidized housing slums. I do not want to go back to Vienna.

Like our class, Alison Bechdel has her own blog.

Unlike our class, hers is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

That's okay though, because her blogs leads you to some of the interesting YouTube videos she's posted.

Like this one, where she explains and demonstrates her artistic process:




Pretty neat. Time consuming too.

19

Fun Home, Chapters 1-4

I have never watched an episode of the Addams Family before. I've seen the Munsters, which I used to confuse with the Addams Family.

The closest I've ever gotten to any associate with the show is when I was forced to do a group project about a part of speech in middle school and we re-appropriated the theme song (complete with snapping) for our rousing rendition of "The Adverb Family".

...

Anyway, in the spirit of class today, here's a little video.




Be sure to watch to the end to find out how the Addams family keeps their teeth pearly white while living in that dark, gloomy place.

18

Fun Home, Chapters 1-4

I am fully aware that I say this at the beginning of every novel that we read, but I swear that Fun Home is truly my favorite comic so far. I guess I'm a sucker for a memoir. Even if this is the third or fourth one that we've read, who cares as long as the book is good? Perhaps I just have delusions of grandeur and think that one day my life will be fascinating enough that people would want to read a memoir about it. I think this is what my mother would say.

I think what endears this novel to me so much, aside from the story, is the interaction, or lack thereof, between the narration outside the panels and the speech text inside of them. As a random example: p. 71

Outside: My parents made a trip to Paris soon after their wedding, to visit an army friend of my father's.
Inside (Father): He's a writer, you'll love him.

In the past we've discussed how we don't like that the inside and outside text of the panel are so similar, that one or the other is unnecessary. I don't think this is the case here at all. I think that in Fun Home the outside is obviously the narration, but the texts inside the panels are more like asides, a sort of running commentary. And I'm a huge fan of running commentary.

One more thing. The author's father is run over by a Sunbeam bread truck, right? I love the way Sunbeam bread makes random appearances throughout the entire novel.

p. 21: on the counter
p. 31: middle left panel, in Alison's arms
p.59: the truck that squashes him
p. 67: top panel, on the table
p. 96: top panel (poster)
p. 112: top right panel

Like playing Where's Waldo?

sixteen going on 17

Mini-Comic

Forget artists and authors. After this mini-comic experience, I have a new-found respect for the person who writes all the little words in the little bubbles. Even though I planned to take my time and do my best work, of course, I still didn't think it would take very long to write in the words. Two and a half hours later I had to take a little break to uncramp my hand and sample the cranberry bread my roommate made.

Obviously, though, the drawing of the comic is much more difficult and time consuming, so thanks to James for doing an amazing job that I never could have pulled off.

English 300, are you ready for... George Washington?!





P.S. Kinko's does not have one of those handy-dandy giant staples. So if the mini-comic you get from my group is a little...crease-y...sorry about that.

16 candles

Stuck Rubber Baby, Chapters 12-End

So, yesterday in class we discussed whether the focus of this graphic novel was more on the racial aspect or the sexual identity aspect. It seems that overwhelmingly the class feels that the author places the emphasis on the latter.

I tend to disagree.

As you might be able to tell from my last post, it was instead the Civil Rights aspect of the story that stuck out to me. It might just be because in HIST 287 (African American Women- great class!) we just finished learning about the Civil Rights movement, so the topic is on my mind. I think it might also have something to do with the fact that, from the story's very beginning, grown-up Toland is drawn with his male partner, so you know how that aspect of the story turns out, even though it takes him the whole novel to get there. On the other hand, the outcome of the characters involved in the Civil Rights struggle is more uncertain throughout. Also, even when Toland does come to grips with his sexuality, the moment is tinged with aspects of the Civil Rights struggle. When Les and Toland finally get together, Les has to hide in the car because it would be dangerous for a black and white man to be together at night, regardless of sexuality. Lastly, the book closes with Anna Delyne and the lyrics and musical notes that have been prominent in the Civil Rights scenes throughout.

Obviously, both aspects of the story are important and function together to make the meaning work. I just think that the issue of racial equality stood out a bit more than the discussion of sexual identity.

15

Stuck Rubber Baby

As much as I have a new-found appreciation for comic books/graphic novels and their ability to take on serious subjects, I think there are still some instances where the cartoonishness/comicsness of the images might detract from the seriousness of what is being discussed.

Because of this, I have decided to post real pictures that show the same things that are illustrated in Stuck Rubber Baby.


George Wallace= "The Chopper" on steroids


Protest



Dogs at a Protest


This book is filled with songs, and the following video demonstrates the type of songs found throughout the novel. The song that is sung on p. 55 is right near the beginning of the video. When the video talks about churches, I think it captures the spirit and mindset of Rev. Pepper and the Biracial Equality League.

14

Stuck Rubber Baby, Chapters 1-11

Reading the beginning of this novel, I feel like I'm re-reading the first chapter of Blankets. That good chapter at the very beginning. I love the intersection of different issues. Who would think to write a graphic novel about the Civil Rights movement in the deep South, much less incorporate a main character trying to come to terms with his homosexuality?

It makes sense, though. Any time more than one group is striving for change, it makes sense to join together with other groups with this same goal, regardless of specific issue. Right now I'm taking a history class on African American women, and we just got done watching a movie about Ida B. Wells and how she was a the leader of the national anti-lynching campaign in the early 1900s and a prominent leader of the women's suffrage movement as well. Having people campaign simultaneously for two different kinds of civil rights makes complete sense.

Sure, some things in this book are a little off. I too have noticed the super hero jaws on every single person in this book. But while these characters might look "heroic," their personalities and struggles are intensely human. Obviously some characters in this book are completely despicable, like the KKK, but even the main character is hard to completely support because of the way he dumps on Ginger. But I'm excited to see where all of these characters end up by the end of the book.

I think my favorite character in the whole thing is Mabel. I'm with any woman who carries a brick in her purse. You know...just in case.

13

Portraits from Life

It seems that all semester we've been discussing in class how nice it is to get away from Beowulf or whatever and just read good stories. If this is the case, then Portraits from Life has got to be the favorite so far.

I'm thinking specifically of the story of Grey Owl:


Hi "real" Grey Owl!

The story of Grey Owl is framed by the story of the man traveling to draw the picture of his cabin. It takes all sorts of tangents (the bit about his childhood) like a real oral story would. There's breaks in the story's narration to go back to the present-time of the narrators, like what happens when real people are telling stories and you have to pause because the person you're talking to has to pee or something.

I may not know anything about Saskatchewan or Canada in general or who any of these people in the story are, but I know a good storytelling, and I think this qualifies.

the 12 days of christmas

Portraits from Life

My maternal grandparent's house in Georgia is one consumed by history. For my grandmother, it is ancient history, and for my grandfather, the Civil War. His space in the basement is filled with books, memorabilia, and stacks of genealogical records. For the most part, this historical clutter is confined to its space in the basement.

The first floor seems to be a different place. The formal sitting room has instead furniture that could possibly be older than even my grandparents along with a collection of music boxes, one given to my grandmother by my grandfather for each of her birthdays. The dining room is formal as well, complete with glass-paneled wooden furniture housing the good china.

But history has seeped up through the floorboards. Also in the dining room, looking slightly out of place, is a painting. It is a painting of an old general store, one with two old-school gas pumps out in the front and a Coca-Cola refrigerator on the porch (we are in Atlanta after all). You've seen this general store a hundred times in movies. But I've seen this exact real one. It still exists, this general store, between the big new Kroger and the Chik-fil-A.

But it doesn't look quite the same. In the painting, the store stands alone, on a dirt road. Now defunct, left only for show, a historical landmark, it fades into the strip mall behind it. It has been moved back a few dozen yards from the road to make room for the re-widening that had to be done when the congestion of the city streets spilled over into the suburbs. Its glory days are gone.

This is why, whenever one of my grandparents would catch me looking at the painting in the dining room, they would say: You have to capture things as they are, because they will never stay the same.

All of this is just to say, that if I was somehow able to go back to that general store before the streets were widened and the Kroger showed up, I feel like I would meet the people from Portraits from Life there.

I know who V is. He's not anyone, and that's the point.

He's not  representation of a real-life person, He's not Evey's father, He may not even be the guy in cell V at Larkhill.

He is V, Evey is V.

You could be V. That's the point.

lay 10 dollars down

V for Vendetta, Book Two

Then things went to hell in a handbasket. But that's usually where things go, when you think they can't get any worse. Isn't it?

Book 1: Europe after the War. A specific time and place. Specific events. V was, to me anyway, a specific person. I was on his side. Sure, he was a cold-blooded serial killer, but I believed in what he stood for.

Book 2: The Vicious Cabaret. Perhaps he's not a who, perhaps he's a what. Before it seemed like a strategic political plot, now I wonder if V is not a completely insane guy playing an elaborate game. One where no one wins.

After what he did to Evey, I don't know if I can be on his side anymore. Maybe he taught her an important lesson. But I can't get behind that.

I suppose V has always been more of a concept that a person, even if he does have a specific history. What does V mean to you?

9 in the afternoon

V for Vendetta, Book 1

I did not like Watchmen. This is why: I don't like superheroes, messed up or otherwise. And I know why this is as well: I have no imagination. I cannot suspend belief long enough to enjoy special powers or anything like that. I read a lot as a kid. I read exclusively historical fiction. This is the truth. And therefore, I love V for Vendetta.



This summer, I read 1984 for the first time. I had decided that everyone had read it except me and that I was somehow missing out. I figured that, as an English major, it was one of those books that I was supposed to have read somewhere along the line. And so I read it on my lunch breaks while working at JCPenney (where Every Day Matters).

When I read V for Vendetta, I feel like I am reading 1984 again. Crazy leader. Intense slogans. Government organizations watching you. Anarchist and his stumbled-upon female co-anarchist. But this time, we have the elements of Nazism as well, down to the salute. Concentration camps holding Jews, blacks, and homosexuals. Gross scientific experiments.





It's an odd intersection of two ideologies. The leader of this new England claims that he is a fascist. Nazis hated fascists, right?

So much is going on that I can't even begin to make any guesses or come to any conclusions, except for this: England prevails.

8 days a week

vs.


Me: Mommy, mommy, Scott McCloud called me stupid.
Mom: Did you call him a name first?
Me: No. All I did is express doubt that comics are "art."
McCloud: You're stupid! There are those who ask the question, "can comics be art?" It's a really STUPID question!

Of course, in order to go along with Scott McCloud on his string of theories at the beginning of Chapter 7, one has to agree that art is anything that doesn't help in either eating or making babies. Unfortunately, I don't agree.

If I draw a stick figure, it doesn't aid me in either one of these pursuits. But is it art? No way!
I think there has to be some level of talent to be taken into consideration.

Of course, comic artists are extremely talented and I'm quite sure that I could never do what they do. But is it on the same level as, let's say, the Mona Lisa?

I say no. Maybe comics are art, but all art is not created equal.

So far, we have met two variants of the superhero:
In our Wikis, it is the superheroes that many have come to know and love.
In Watchmen, it is their dark underbellies.

I now offer you a third type of superhero.

6 times a week and twice on a sunday

I know that some people in our class have expressed a dislike of McCloud. The problem seems to be that he's really good at telling us what we already know.

This is true: Most of the stuff in McCloud is stuff that, after I think about it, I probably could have figured it out on my own. The problem is that I've never thought about any of this information before.

After I thought about it, I realized I had known all along that there is a difference between an angry line and a happy line, between a tear drop and a symbol of rage. But I appreciate McCloud not for informing me of this sort of thing for the first time, but for informing me of the fact that I had already known it.

5

Who is Rorschach?

At first he seems like a man that time has passed up. His speech bubbles are just as tattered around the edges as the yellowed pages of his diary. He seems politically reactionary, sees everything in black and white, and there is a distinct feeling that he believes everything was better in the past.

On the other hand, he is almost militantly apocalyptic. The end of the world is nigh.

And while he seems to see things the most concretely out of all the characters, his characterization is also the most ambiguous. Dr. Manhattan? Manhattan Project. Atomic bomb. Nite Owl? Oh, is costume looks like an owl.

But Rorschach? That isn't anything concrete. In fact it's just the opposite. The Rorschach test is that crazy inkblot test psychiatrists have you look at to determine whether or not you're absolutely out of your mind. Which would explain his mask, white with a giant ink blot where his face would be. Is he crazy? Or is he the only sane one? What about me? What about you? What about us all?




Who watches the watchmen?

the 4 seasons: winter

I think I'm supposed to be happy at the end of this book. I think I'm supposed to be happy when Craig burns (yet again) his memories, this time of Raina. I'm supposed to be happy when he leaves behind everything he has learned throughout his childhood. I'm supposed to be happy when he gets the latest, coolest, hippest, most awesomest hairdo. Huzzah! I say. He's finally found himself.

I'm not happy, and here's why: I think throughout the book, and especially at the conclusion, Craig has difficulty distinguishing being a unique, exciting individual with being totally and completely alone.

Grunge is actually in style? Must get new haircut. Don't agree with my parent's religion? Must move out and come back to visit approximately twice in my life. (Emphasized by his lack of presence in their embrace on p. 560). This even applies to religion. The main reason Craig first becomes disillusioned with Christianity, even though he has question before, is at camp simply because of the mass of people. When talking to Phil on p. 533, he again emphasizes this: the problem is not with the core teachings of Christianity, but he sameness of the people in it.

p. 533: "It denies the beauty of being HUMAN, and it ignores all these GAPS that need to be filled in by the individual."

Individualism is great. My individual self is all for it in fact. But when I see Craig alone, even at a crowded party, alone, even on a crowded street, alone on the last page of the book, I don't think, wow, he's done it, he's found his unique self. I see a man, now in his thirties, who apparently cannot get close to any human being because he has to be completely an individual. Guess what Craig? No matter how different one is, there are still ties and similarities that bind us to other people. It's called being HUMAN.

(A side note: Craig claims he is not a Christian anymore. But he still believes in God and the teachings of Jesus, the very things that make one a Christian. Even if he didn't, the doctrine of Christianity teaches that once some one, as Craig clearly has, has been "saved," nothing can change that. So really, at the end of the book, Craig is a Christian whether he likes it or not, still part of this big mass organization, still part of the one thing he's been trying so hard to escape. Where does that leave him?)

3 little words

In one of the chapters we've read so far in Understanding Comics, McCloud discusses how the more generically a person is drawn in comics, the more the reader inserts him or herself into that character's place. Reading Chapters 6-7 of Blankets this weekend, I've discovered that the opposite can also be true: When an image is incredibly specific, it can reverberate especially loudly with the reader who may still be able to identify with it.

What do I mean by this? Well, that blanket that Raina gives Craig which makes its presence known throughout Chapters 6-7... I swear I own it. 

 p. 182

 p. 434, p. 435 (top right panel)

 p. 437

 p. 435 (snow)

Except that my blanket comes from Target, not from an eccentric and overwhelmed, if underwhelming, pseudo-lover.

tea for 2

I'm confused.

Last week I was really into the relationship of the two brothers. I guess I should have known the story wouldn't stay focused on them based on the picture on the cover, but reading Chapters 2-5, I feel like we may have veered a little off course.

Adding to my problems is the feeling I now get that I'm in a time traveling machine that is quickly spiraling out of control. Even though the time line jumped around a bit in Chapter 1, I could still follow it. Now I don't know where or when I'm going to be next, and my chronology is all off. Confusion lessens when Craig arrives at Raina's house, but between the end of Chapter 1 and that point in Chapter 3, I'm a little confused.

Where did Phil go? Why doesn't he get to go to church camp too? Did he fall off the end of God's green and rather flat earth?

I understand, however, that the novel is not as disorganized and chaotic as I make it out to be. While events may not be as clearly organized by chronological time, the are not totally unrelated. Instead, events are bound together by time in terms of the season (winter, which connects the flashbacks to Phil and childhood with the high school present), religious themes, and location (the novel can leap from childhood to high school in Chapter 2 because the events take place in the same place- camp).

However, I still somehow feel like I'm reading a different novel. I loved in the first chapter the collision of so many issues- religion, relationships, abuse, etc.- in such an unexpected way. Now I just feel like I'm reading a generic teen love story. The relationship is great, religion begins to be conveniently pushed aside, and the most complicated problem is that people keep trying to get Raina and Craig to eat meat. Oh no!

Here's crossing my fingers for the return of the punch of the first chapter in the remainder of the book.

Sarah

1 is the loneliest number

Before yesterday, not only had I never read a graphic novel before, I also was not exactly clear yet on what they really were. I think this is a common problem, because when I told my roommates what English class I was taking, they were distressed that I would apparently be reading about Spiderman for fifteen weeks.

I myself was like pre-age eight Scott McCloud, destined to read "real" literature, which certainly does not involve speech bubbles. My first contact with graphic novels reinforced my view, when my best friend in high school told me that her boyfriend like graphic novels because he could not concentrate well enough and long enough to read a real novel.

Imagine my surprise then when by the second or third page of Blankets I was hit with an emotional punch the equivalent of which I have not felt since approximately the time I read Where the Red Fern Grows in fifth grade, and certainly did not feel when I read "real" novels like Tess of the d'Urbervilles last semester. By page nineteen, I wanted to get on the phone with my sister, our relationship seeming to be the basis of the brotherly relationship in the novel, and apologize for every garbage thing I have ever done concerning her.

Who knew a simple (shudder) comic could hit so close to home? But Craig and Phil are us. I the realist, she the imaginer. I the dreamer, she the one who would try to follow in my footsteps if I would let her. But in a strange twist, she is the artist, while my stick figures beg to be put out of their misery.

In this novel, unlike I imagined, the pictures do not cheapen the words, but rather give them their full meaning. The words pull the brothers apart, the fake snoring, the telling of the world's harsh realities. The pictures bring them together: the way they both have superhero emblems on their pajamas, the claw marks of Phil's in the cubby hole that are the same as Craig's on the school bathroom mirror, Craig's real hand next to Phil's turkey handprint.

So with this new viewpoint in mind, one of a literature in which words do not have the final say, I look forward to what graphic novels have to show me this semester.

Sarah