Self Evaluation

Coming into this course I was familiar with autobiographical graphic novels as well as graphic short stories, in the form of self-produced zines; throughout the course of this tutorial, my goal was to read a wider breadth of graphic novels. My participation was consistent throughout the course, with timely and seemingly adequate response posts, as well as active participation in class discussion. An area for improvement was in my analysis of the books, I could have applied a consistent set of evaluative points to my discussion of each, instead of exploring only certain characteristics I found salient to each work.  Overall, I feel to have completed satisfactory work in both my written assessment of the works as well as my participation in the seminar-style class sessions.

 

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I look forward to continuing to read a wider array of graphic novels and currently am interested in Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan, Palestine by Joe Sacco, Black Hole by Charles Burns, as well as catching up on some of the novels recommended for this course that I did not choose to read.  I really appreciate your sponsorship of this tutorial and would love to take a similar course again. I believe that if we had more time, we could have explored each novel more fully, conducting closer readings of each text. An artistic analysis of the works would also be a rewarding perspective and provide a greater understanding of the works as a whole. 

Week 7: Student Choice

Stitches by David Small

A memoir graphic novel about the childhood and aging of Small as a young boy, this novel was compelling in it’s unabashed humility. The reader is introduced to the “typical” American family through the eyes of the youngest of two brothers. Each subsumed in their own worlds, the protagonist is portrayed as the familial outcast, his lack of propensity to make noise and divergent interests segregating him.  A surprising illness falls upon the narrator, uprooting his grounding in the family; the ensuing grappling with his parents as individuals progressing throughout his life and the novel.

The character’s intensity in dreaming is carried throughout the novel in it’s cyclical nature, twirling dreams and reality into separate and integrated worlds. This portrayal is integral to the character’s need to escape from reality and intense artistic imagination.  His fascination with Alice in Wonderland is reinforced throughout the novel as well, in his childhood play to his teenage psychologist cast as the white rabbit.

Artistically, the novel is done in a gradient of ink shades, applied somewhat haphazardly against the use of stark white and black outlines. The author’s experience as an established illustrator shows through in his simplistic capturing of emotions, as his facial expressions were more than revealing. The author also dabbled with varied framing, as each page was composed of different number and size of panels, the borders of which were typically a thin black line but sometimes were unbound.

Although predictable, the story was enjoyable. The plotline is a familiar tale of coming to age and a separation from one’s natal family. 

Week 6: Literary Comics

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

This novel was beautifully written and illustrated, exemplifying many of the pillars of a good comic asserted in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. The language used was brief but not understated, using articulate language and dialogue in conjunction with the illustrations. Mazzucchelli’s great attention to detail is commendable, everything from the precise choice of language to color, and the technicality in drawing were a testament to the amount of time and thought that went into the creation of this work.

I really appreciated the multiple tools the author used to distinguish and merge characters. Each individual had a font and speech bubble uniquely personal to them. Asterios and Hana were depicted in their own color palette and drawing style throughout the novel. This aspect was used strategically to highlight tension in the story, as they were shown merging in love and dividing in anger, meeting and fleeting in thought and life course.

The cyclical storytelling was an interesting presentation of the narrative and furthered the allusion to the course of one’s life as with as the planet’s life cycle. The seemingly corresponding color schemes of the chapters furthered the division yet interconnectedness of each subsection.

I was not particularly drawn to many of the characters in the book, but I do not feel it hindered my appreciation for the story being unfolded. I took to the character of Hana, her understated kind-heartedness and patience a balance to Asterios’ cold self-serving manner. The characters were easy to imagine, fully embodied aspects of the narrative, regardless of the amount of character development attributed to each. 

Week 5: The British New Wave Comics

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

When I have read graphic novels, I am usually particularly selective about what I choose to read. I am more open to content but tend to shy away from the overly fantastical, religious, or violent. I am rather picky when it comes to visual style, I am not drawn to overly sketchy, high contrast, or dark material.

This is exactly what Sandman was. More uninviting than the abstraction of the content, I had a lot of trouble getting past my deep aversion to this comic’s artistic representation. The heavy use of blacks with bright colors, filling the entirety of the panel weighs heavy on my eyes-paired with the sketchy line quality, the input was off-putting.  One artistic element I did appreciate was the inclusion of a back panel as a piece of the story, creating a page setting upon which the other frames were placed.

I found the story very slow to begin with, and after 110 pages of divergent attention, I decided to take a break from the comic. I will not say that I will never read this comic again, because I am open to it and know that my likes and dislikes are flexible, but did not have an enjoyable experience reading it at this point in time. 

Week 4: Manga

Yaoi Cinderella Boy by Makoto Yumeno

From the introduction of Yaoi comics in class as target to older housewife women that tell the stories of love between young men, I was surprised by the transgender plotline of the first chapter of Cinderella Boy.  The genre as a whole is off-putting as the sexualization of young people for adult pleasure and the fetishization of homosexual love are potent societal issues and are manifested in this popular comic media.

Although I do appreciate the discussion of transgender subject matter, the handling of it in this comic left something to be desired. At the start of the comic the character Riku, is said to have “complexes” about gender identity that would be fixed in her transition from a lonely female to a male pop star. This sincerity in words does not align with the character’s later identification as a female brought upon by the gifting of traditionally feminine objects, lipstick, by Touya. The proposition that the character’s gender identification would change with the whim of a present, is belittling to the transgender identity, the assertion that a male can gift femininity to a woman further belittling to women.

The band’s success conditioned upon the secrecy of Riku’s identity acts as an oppression of diversity on the assumption of difference. The assumed difference between men and women is tangible in the gifts given by Touya, and his treatment of Riku. The inherent power dynamics of that relationship present in the mandated secrecy of Riku’s womanhood.

Week 3: Autobiography

A Diary of a Teenage Girl

I appreciated her inclusion of the drawings she had done as a teenager, this added a personal touch and enhanced the relatability of the piece.

Gloeckner’s approach to the novel as a combination of prose in the form of diary entries, comic strips, full-page illustrations as well as detailed smaller stills from the text was an interesting arrangement, her uniqueness in style an interesting structure to the piece.

I think it raises an interesting point of discussion that the character preferred to type her diary using a typewritten, a mechanical form of documentation but then also chose to incorporate drawings which are a more personal, hand-made touch.

I found the text to be rather lengthy and redundant in content. The coming of age through sexual enlightenment and exposure to drugs, and other “counter-culture” is a plotline I find to be rather overdone.  Her cyclical encounters with characters and locations, reaffirmed by her intentionally repetitive word patterns add to the superfluousness I felt.  

I do appreciate the narrator’s personal agency and self-assuredness. Throughout the text Minnie never once blames her situation on others or assumes the position of victim, she takes ownership of her wants, desires and actions and does not apologize for them. 

Week 2: Underground Comics and the Legitimation of the Graphic Novel

For this week’s assignment I read a few of the Gay Comix, Girl Fight Comics, Tits and Clits and Barefoot. I was intrigued by the raunchiness of the drawings and straightforward, in-your-face approach to the content that a lot of the pieces maintained. The content matter was sometimes not articulated in a way I found to be most productive in achieving what I perceived to be their point, but as I am living in a different era of these issues, my perception may be off base. Considering where these comics originated and how their messages were articulated was very interesting and makes me want to not only read more but also explore the contemporary equivalent of underground comics.

Maus I

I was unable to read the complete Maus, but I read the first book. At first I was off-put by the nails on a chalkboard echoing bad grammar and misuse of words. These errors seemed to dwindle as the book went on which was off-putting, as I thought such blatant misuse may have been employed intentionally, but I did not read that from the lack of consistency throughout the book.

The historical mirror this book was to the time period it was written was interesting, as the characters were striving to perpetuate their stories,  as were the survivors from the war against the assertions belittling their experience or the severity of what happened.

I found it interesting that a few of my classmates were assigned to read this book in middle or elementary school, as a means of learning about the Holocaust. I can understand why the use of animals would be helpful for a young child’s understanding of the situation but personally found to be an oversimplification of personal identities, as many people’s allegiances, actions, and thoughts changed throughout the course of the war and I do not believe that the reduction of entire nationalities and religious identities to flat animal indicators is an accurate representation.

Week 1: Understanding Comics

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a forefront of the field as it is a text book about comics written in comic form. McCloud goes over the history and assumed origin of the comic, referencing cave drawings, Egyptian script, and other paneled art forms.

He presents terms of the field, the most salient, sequential art, a term that would hold weight and come to help not only define but legitimate the comic as an art form. He also details the rudimentary components, such as panels, simplicity and detail in drawings, characterizations, the importance of brevity in text, etc.

Although a great survey text of concepts, I found some of McCloud’s reasoning’s and explanations to be oversimplified and over generalized in their discussion. His presentation of characters as functioning well as simplified forms to invoke a wider array of connection in their ambiguity was particular troublesome. Although I understand the psychological theory that backs this supposition, I do not believe that for a reader to identify with a character they must see themselves as somehow related to them, appreciation is not always as self-centered as this theory allows.

A Contract With God by Will Eisner

On first impression I thought Eisner’s use of font was interesting, as his signature invoked Walt Disney to me and I thought the font throughout the novel was particularly large.

Eisner’s incorporation of the plotline with his style of artwork was compelling. His integration of the text and dialogue into graphic elements was interesting. His variance in the structure of each page was also commendable as he displayed a multitude of options, from including the entire page in blackout to establishing multiple scenes, to framing the action with simple lines or even the structure of a building.

Blankets by Craig Thompson

A coming of age story, Blankets follows an adolescent boy living in a rural American town through his fading identification with his Christian upbringing with his falling in love.

Bookended by a childhood full of imagination and a young adulthood marked by the loss of faith and exploration of a larger world, Blankets offers a glimpse into an ordinary Middle American mundane life experience.

I appreciated the paneling, the motion and variance in the frames contributed to the ease of readability. Individual frames themselves were also executed really well and made interesting compositions on their own. The author also did a good job in mirroring mental thoughts whether in clarity or confusion with his use of patterning.  The protagonist flashbacks to his childhood added an interesting component to the narrative, as his reminiscing was often the most compelling excerpts of the story.

I found the novel to be significantly lengthy for its limited plotline.  The novel could have been condensed without loosing much in terms of plot progression or character development.  I found the two main characters to be particularly vague if not flat, as only limited aspects of their lives and psyches were explored; the narrowness in description may have been employed as a tool to invoke reader identification but as I did not connect with either of them it just left something to be desired.