On Our Final Project

I had grand ideas. Strange ideas...ideas that, at the time I did not know, involved advanced psychology rhetoric. This past week I had been doing research on face perception and recognition. It's really fascinating and I even found an article on how autistic children could recognize and distinguish cartoon faces through conventional thought processes but had to go about different cognitive methods to do the same for actual faces. All this was very interesting but also very hard to synthesize.

Not that hard is bad. I love a challenge, who doesn't, right? But my research brought to the Comm library which has a great collection of editorial and various other types of cartoons. It also has a lot of old comics like Popeye, Flash Gordon, and, my favorite, Krazy Kat. I started reading some accompanying essays and got on to another topic. After researching, I came to the conclusion that I really like normal, research-based essays.

It's pretty rewarding to read and digest a bunch of smart sounding stuff and cite them on paper. So I'm taking the start of comic art and comparing it to modern works, which we've read in class, to talk about the major elements of the form. And there's even going to be a works cited page.

FUN HOME's Conclusion

I couldn't help, despite the amount of information and insight throughout, that I didn't get a lot of info out of Fun Home. There were so many times that I wanted her to explain more or to show another letter or to expand on a scene, but she never did. I see how it worked in the piece, to make it more of a reflection instead of a narrative, but as a person, not as a critical student of literature, it made me anxious and unfulfilled. But I suppose that's the sign of a good book, etc...that you want it to continue after it ends.

An interesting use of panels in Fun Home, was how they were used to incorporate more text to the page. Passages of letters and novels set background to the narration. I liked this implementation better than in Watchmen, were it became a strange jump from panels to text. They both accomplished the same goal, authentication, but Fun Home seemed more natural (although that's easy to do when comparing a memoir to a story about blue naked supermen).

FUN HOME and things that are loosely related to class (maybe an excuse?)

Fun Home continues to be one of my favorite reads in the class, though I often am daunted by the literary references. I am one of three people in America who didn't have The Great Gatsby assigned in a high school English and am lost with all such allusions (minus the Robert Redford-reference).

I also have never read Proust. Though I find those sections more educational that dependent on previous knowledge.

But honestly, I'm slightly behind...not because I'm not interested I've just been overwhelmed. I'm performing in a stand up Monday night at Zanies in Chicago for the Regional Semi-Finals of a College comedy competition. Not that that's an excuse for not writing in depth blog posts... but its kind of cool, right?

More on Fun Home on Wednesday, maybe?!??!

FUN HOME

I'm not far in to the text so far tonight, but I figured I'd forget to blog if I waited too long and also something in the text struck so much that I felt the need to write about it.

On page 12:
"There are those famous wings. Was Daedalus really stricken with grief when Icarus fell into the sea? Or Just disappointed by the design failure."

I thought that was such an interesting perspective...and one view of the myth that I had never considered. It characterizes the dad well too. His children were part of his still life of a home, part of the design. Foreshadowing perhaps to a disappointment, it gives a different look at a father figure.

It made me think of that poem by William Carlos Williams, which I guess then in turn conjures the image of the painting by Brugel? (Wikipedia told me: Pieter Brueghel's Landscape With The Fall of Icarus.) But maybe more so the poem, because such a violent horrible act such as falling from the sky and drowning in the sea is brought to greater attention in verse.

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning.

If his father was truly upset about the design his eyes would have stayed on the sun and the vapors that were once the wax wings and the splash would have gone quite unnoticed.

Stuck Rubber Baby

One thing that came to my attention while reading Stuck Rubber Baby is how real it seems. So much so that I just assumed it was an autobiography. Of course, I've been conditioned to think that with our past class readings. I mean, I really thought Alan Moore was the girl that became V at the end of V for Vendetta. No, I mean the autobiographical elements that were found in Blankets and portions of Potraits of Life. Toland is not Howard Cruse but I believe in everything that's happening. The logic of the novel all makes sense and the characters and anecdotes seem incredibly authentic. I think that adds to the power of the piece. The art is also really cool. Sometimes the characters seem a little caveman like, with thick necks, broad shoulders, and tight pants, but the style is very bold and eyecatching.

I'm only at Chapter 11 and it seems that this book, more than the others, is hard to judge without knowing the conclusion. Right now though, I'm really enjoying it.

Historical Comics

"Collier's work stands out like a beacon amidst other comics, entertaining and informing all at once." - EYE Magazine.

Boy Howdy are they right. I really like this style of comic and, not being a connoisseur on the subject, I've never read anything like this. It reads really well, it's aided by the visuals, and it seems like I'm learning something in a backwards kind of way.

I found the Grey Owl story totally fascinating. Not only the story of Grey Owl, but the stories within it the text that helped the narration. In the story, the reader is presented one primary narration... the narrator's skiing trek to Grey Owl's cabin. From the perspective of the traveler we are told many stories including:
1. The backstory as to how he ended up in the middle of a frozen lake under a moonless sky.
2. The story of his near-fatal experience in Temagami
3. The story of Grey Owl himself.
The layers make for a very engaging read. Each panel jumped back and forth through time and place but was still easily followed. It's fitting that Grey Owl, a great storyteller both in his writing and his own fictitious life, be the center of a story about telling stories.

This historical form made me think of some cool historical stuff that could benefit from a comic treatment. Mainly, the story of Beautiful Jim Key. He was this super smart horse that was a big world fair attraction around the end of the 19th century. He could supposedly spell and count and do all these wild things. The shown intelligence of this horse brought animal rights and other related issues out of the fringe and into mainstream thought. Maybe that'll be my mini-comic suggestion...maaaybe...

The End of V for Vendetta

The end of this was probably a million times better than the film. I really liked the way Moore left the status of the world hanging. It wasn't an "OH NO!" kind of cliffhanger ending like Watchmen. It had a sort of poetic closure similar to the end I liked so much in Blankets.

Finch walking down the road seems to parallel the silhouetted V walking out of the flames. The future is implied through that panel. It is uncertain, dark, dangerous, and maybe even worse than the past, but it solidifies that what V wanted was accomplished.

Finch's LSD trip, his descent into madness, into the insane head of V, was eye opening for him. I was confused then, that he killed V. I thought maybe he would see the face of his opponent and, not necessarily repent, but not riddle him with bullets. I'd be very curious what everyone else in the class thought about that...maybe I'm the only one?

Alan Moore...Moore like Alan Boore

That title's not entirely true, it just seemed like a fun way to start off the post. It was originally "alan moore, more like alan bore." But then I realized that 'more' could be spelled "Moore" and then it would be his last name. At that point though, I had to add the ... to give some space between the two uses of Moore (and to indicate a dramatic pause). But back to class stuff...

I have now read two of Moore's books, so I think I can talk about him in a quasi-general way. When reading him, I can't help but think of a saying a heard at some point in my education. It went "Focus on the soldier, not the war." This is in regards to storytelling. A more interesting piece is one that focuses on the individual instead of a larger conflict. For instance, if someone wanted to make a movie they could

-make a movie that focuses on two families struggle with changing times such as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

or

-make a generalized overview of a dozen poorly connected racists that uses popular notions and stereotypes in an attempt to appear 'important' such as the movie Crash.

In this example, Guess Who is a great small scope story that at its center is a very important contemporary issue (how big issues affect individuals) whereas Crash is a presentation of a problem in its broadest sense. Guess Who is a more personalized and persuasive film.

With this, I feel Moore's work falls onto the Crash side of things. And this is the guy that made a facebook group called "No Seriously, Crash is a Horrible Movie" so that's not a good thing. Moore's work presents the problems of the Reagan-era Cold War by presenting... the Reagan-era Cold War but with SUPERHEROES! Oh My GOD! It's not a fictionalized, fascist version of England...IT's US!!! What can we do!?!

This especially comes out in the film adaptation, where we are basically told... hey, this is like the patriot act etc, put on masks and cause some ruckus.

Admittedly, big issues have to be tackled in a super hero-esque story but I feel that there should be some subtlty. Is that how you spell that, it looks weird... but yeah I think it's either insulting to the reader's intelligence by trying to persue a blatant political agenda or it's exploitive because it takes common beliefs and feelings and therefore makes the reader involved and think it's an important piece of work. Either way, not a huge fan.

But I do enjoy reading them, it's just I don't think we should let Alan Moore think he's as important as he'd like to think...

Art at its broadest

McCloud give a definition of his idea of art:

"Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn't grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: survival and reproduction (164)."

Is that to say that a senseless act of murder is then an artistic gesture? Is that to say that rock bands forming simply to bag easy women cannot create art? It's true that art is all around, and many forms are often unappreciated, but I think there are some more guidelines than what was given.

Back to rock bands and easy lays, isn't reproduction, however subconscious, a huge part of art? The entire 'muse' system is based upon sexual desire. He/she inspires the artist to create beautiful songs, paintings, furniture, etc. Orchestral compositions, portraits, "Delilah" by the Plain White T's, these are all expressions of emotions and love. And what is love but an abstract notion applied to wanting to bang...which in turn is our evolutionary instinct to constantly want to procreate.

Plus, if you want to talk about comics, it seems that artists think about reproduction to a totally creepy degree. You don't have to look further than...

etc. to see that maybe those urges inspire a lot of creative work. Infer double entendre's as you see fit. But seriously, doing academic research on the X-Men led me to some really uncomfortable artwork...

SWEAT!

In Chapter Five of Understanding Comics, McCloud discusses the abstract symbols that have developed universally in comics. On 128 he discusses how the invisible become visible (i.e. stink lines). Two pages later, however, he illustrates my favorite cartooning symbol, the flying droplets of sweat.

This can be shown with an old cartoon I did for the Daily Illini (to the left)

Something like this is a standard way to present emotion in comics and cartoons but only because it has been used so often.

I spent the majority of my youth (including now) watching cartoons, drawing, and reading funny papers. To me it is as clear as day what is going on. But when this cartoon ran I had a couple friends ask me to explain something. Was there supposed to be a halo around the guy?' one asked. Another thought something was on the wall. When I said it was sweat, I only recieved blank stares.

That's the first time I had been confronted with totally cartoon-illiterate people. Needless to say I don't speak to them anymore. That's actually not true, I just have lost respect for them and ,accordingly, act very condescending when I'm around them.

Something so clear to me was completely foreign to my friends. I felt like them when I saw the snot? blood? shooting out of a guy's nose on page 131. I'd have no idea that represented 'lust.' Now I watched Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing after school back in late middle school/ early high school and I had those Imported Pokemon comics, but I had never seen that.

It goes to show how arbitrary these symbols are and how subjectivity their meanings can be. Everyone interprets things differently. For instance, I could write:

"Why don't you come over later."

The later is emphasized. Does this mean 'later' is said in a certain way? It could be said seductively, as if to imply a winking emoticon. On the flip side though, it could mean later, as in not now, I'm busy, I'm brushing you off. The italics could mean disdain and disinterest. NOT NOW, NOT SOON, MAYBE LATER. This is way AIM is a tough way to carry on a conversation.

But in conclusion, I wish sweat really did fly off your head when you were nervous and that exclamation points really did pop out your skull when you were shocked....

watchmen ripping off a classic?

The open panels of Watchmen put a bad taste in my mouth, and a very familiar one at that.

"the streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown."

The noir-ish telling of high morals as concieved through hate seemed very familiar with Travis Bickle's daily musings in the movie Taxi Driver:

"All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."

Like Bickle (DeNiro), Rorschach is an extremist nut with his own set of extreme and not totally accurate set of morals. Like Bickle you can see Rorschach's way of using his own form of justice. But also like Bickle's thoughts as told through voice over, Rorschach's scribblings seem like they're trying to be stinging and isolating but at the same time "interesting and full of meaning." The decent metaphor and dark feel made me inclined to not like the novel.

As the story moved however, I got more into it. I find it really interesting how unlikable and messed up these 'heroes' are. I like that one of their main adversaries are college demonstrators ("campus subversion" Ch. 2, pg. 10). It gives an interesting parellel universe (a la Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick) and it's pretty engaging.

Unlike Blankets though, the art is hardly as compelling as the writing and the story. There's something about the typical superhero/greek statue style that seems really overbearing and silly. This kind of stale art is a big part of the reason I stopped reading Super Hero comics so many years ago.

Don't dislike, just throwing out some grievances about "the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced."

First Post!

Today we talked about some of the interesting composition and panel formatting used in 'Blankets' and during the discussion I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite cartoons, "Krazy Kat" by George Herriman.

It's not exactly like art in 'Blankets' but the idea of a single picture spilling out into different panels as well as panels being placed over a scene both are shown in Herriman's work from the early 20th century. It's cool to see original and beautiful art like in Blankets but what's cooler is that it has its roots in something almost 100 years old.

note how the road on the bottom of the page connects behind the middle panel. Krazy (the cat) and Ignatz (the mouse) are in two places at once. Thompson does something like this on pg. 333 at the party. Craig and Raina are in the crowd twice, but the gutters placed around them separate them from the collage of teenagers.