Manga

     I found it facinationg the percentage of anime / manga that was sold in Japan. When you see that it takes up almost 1/3 of the printed material market in the whole country, you kind of have to just stand in awe of it for a second. 

     As I was groing up I was introduced to anime by way of Unico and Voltron before school, but my interest in it sort of stopped there, until recently I picked up Battle Angel and could not stop reading it. The plot is interesting and appeals to my love of sci-fi. The illustration also drew me in, and when I think about how much work a manga artist kicks out or the quality of each and every panel I feel like I have nothing with my life up to this point; a little depressing, I know.

     I did have a brief moment in my 20's where all I wanted to watch were anime features like Akira and Vampire Hunter D to name a couple. Both of these titles gave me an appreciation for anime that makes me search out new titles for features today.

Wide world of comics

     When it comes to my kind of "Graphic Novel" anything by Moebius fits the bill. His fantasy art is what inspired me at a young age to enjoy art and all of the things that are possible with it. The cinimatic scope of the paneling and the ratios he uses along with panel placement gives me a deeper feeling of what is happening in the story. I like the idea of how uncensored things are when it comes to the European artwork in their style of graphic novel. It gives a sense of freedom of expression to pass onto the reader and to let them be enveloped by the unfolding narrative. 

     This week I read a lot of Euro-style "albums" and graphic novels, everything from the Papyrus albums to Heavy Metal to Moebius, and I laugh at myself for noticing things like how much Tin-Tin I see in the Papyrus  works. I would have never picked up on such a thing as how realistic the background looks in comparison to the rest of the image. I feel like I was almost comic blind before ccomingto this class.

American Born Chinese

by: Gene Luen Yang

     This week we are to blog about the use of stereotype in comics and the graphic narrative.

 I looked at quite a few of the suggested reading but found this on particularly enjoyable. It employs the use of some cleaver plot lines to get the story across, and a lot of it made me laugh. There were different points of view in the book on stereotype, one from a Chinese boy trying to fit into white suburban culture and the other a glaring representation of what some Americans view as the "typical" Asian person. It was dealt with mostly with humor, but I believe that the implementation of stereotypes in comics and the graphic novel are best used to get a point across quickly, but to its own detriment. As soon as we begin to stereotype, we limit the possibilities of that character immediately and leave little room for advancement. It had it's place long ago with the development of the "white super hero" to sell some comics because that what the demographic was. Now it is a very different story when it comes to the readership of comics and the graphic narrative, and stereotyping really has no place anymore, mostly due to the way our culture has changed so much over the last decades to praise the individual over all.

Maus

by: Art Spiegelman

     As soon as I started reading this book I could not put it down, I read the whole thing in one setting. The way that the narrative is driven forward by interactions with Arts' Grandfather motivates me to keep going because I fell like I am getting two stories in one book. His use of personification in the use of Mice for Jews and Cats for Nazis is pretty straightforward along the lines of a stronger opponent taking advantage of a weaker prey. I think his use of Pigs for the Polish could be a little of the authors own prejudices coming though. This book is very well done because it relates so much of this story with such few text, but there were times when all I was doing was reading the text and the images were just in my peripherals. 

     The subject matter was mostly about Art's Grandfathers experience during WWII and how he was persecuted for being a Jew. There is a segment of the book that describes very well how people just don't understand themselves in a lot of ways; Arts' Grandfather does not want to pick up a Black man, a "Shvartsher" hitchhiking because he was afraid that the Black man would steal all of the groceries. It is amazing to me that someone who has gone through everything in life that Arts' Grandfather did that he could still be a generalist when it comes to race. 

     Both Maus I and II are now sitting on my bookshelf. I enjoyed them so much that I went out and bought them.

Underground Comics

     We took a look at Underground comics and their impact on the overall legitimizing aspect they brought to the Comic book. I found it interesting that they were not available to the general public by way of the conventional comic book shop. People had to seek them out at local head shops.

     I read a lot of Fat Freddy's Cat. It reminded me of Fritz the Cat. It was very raunchy in its delivery of the life and times of Fat Freddy's Cat, but I guess that is what made it "underground." There was no holding back on nudity and the throwing of fecal matter which did make me laugh. I enjoyed the local warfare between the Cat the Mice and the indigenous Cockroach battalion. 

     I also looked at a lot of Robert Crumb (who did much work for the Subgenius Foundation in the way of Illustrations). I read the Comic "Whiteman" in which a suburban man gets lost on a camping trip and gets hooked up with a yeti princess.... lots of beastiality here in a no holds barred... pardon the pun epic sex scene between man and Yeti. It pretty much summed up the whole midlife crisis in a nutshell, with a kind of twisted perspective I might add. 

     I enjoyed this section very much as I used to be very into Heavy Metal and found a way to dive back into it.