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.