Week 15: Revision

After having more knowledge on comic books this semester, I decided to revise this week's blog post.  I feel that now, after having more exposure to the medium, I am able to understand more the medium.  Carl Bark definitely was the the inspiration to many of the comic (and animation) artists today.

I think the biggest precedent Carl left for this medium were his strong storytelling poses and his visual style.  A lot of animation artists can definitely take inspiration from Carl, especially since his characters look so similar to the world Wal Dsiney would create anyways.  But his drawings are perfect for what animators need to see: clear poses that are a quick read.  For example, you can take out the words from the comic below and still understand what's going on very clearly.

TinTin is another comic book that follows this way of being very visual in its storytelling.  Similar to Bark's work, TinTin has a dry humor to it that is still very apparent even if you don't read all of the words.  You can see the direct evolution from comic strips to comic books, especially in the form of short gags like this:

Gags like that within TinTin are still very reminiscent  of the comic strip era, yet I argue that the early comic books are an evolved version of this because now this gag correlates with an overarching story.  I think that it can be argued that TinTin is even more evolved that Bark's work, since we see more experimentation with the panels and how they're laid out.

Ultimately, these comic books would sent the precedent for sequential storytelling and their influence has been so impactful on future comic artists and animation artists alike.

 

Extra Credit: Scott Pilgrim

I had been meaning to read the Scott Pilgrim manga for a while and after we watched a bit of the movie in class, I finally forced myself to sit down and read it.

My first reactions are, Wow.  What an awesome book!  The movie basically is this entire book copied strictly to the T, even including locations everything happens to the dialogue of the comic.  They capture the spirit of it perfectly.

Describing wallace's room in the comic book

Describing Wallace's room in the movie.  

That's honestly about as close as you can get.  Even though most of the credit goes to the original Manga for dreaming up the world and the story, you have to give major credit to the movie for maintaining the original intent of the comic and figuring out how to continue that fun and playfulness of the comic into a moving picture medium, which I think they did successfully.  There are some characters that are so spot on (and even kind of look like the Manga version), such as Kim:

I think the added effects make Scott Pilgrim stand out, and I think it also makes it very appealing.  Most people, at some point in their lives, have read a comic book and all of these tropes are so similar.  It is also just so entertaining when you see these (often times, ridiculous) ideas brought into real life.  Ridiculous, and AMAZING.

You just don't get much better than that.

I also really love the style of these comics.  It's different from most Manga i've read and it's just a very playful style that allows for a lot of great expressions.  It's a super quick read and really enjoyable -- though honestly, if you've watched the movie, you've already understood most of the comic!

Week 14: The Future of Comics

Other than comic strips in the paper, the second form of comics I regularly read were webcomics.  Nothing enriching; it was first just Mutts daily comic sent to my email, and then I found a comic that most teens find called Cyanide and Happiness back in my old deviantArt days.

This comic I love, mostly because the characters are just stick figures.  It was something so simply that made really appreciate this type of raw (and often crude) humor.  Since I liked Cyanide and Happiness so much, it only makes sense that the next webcomic that I would enjoy immensely would be Hyperbole and a Half:

Hyperbole and a Half is great, because it's not even told in traditional comic form.  It's just some long blog posts split up with these crude little drawings the creator has made.  This webcomic usually tells tales of her past in such a funny and comedic way.  Most people see some aspect of themselves in her characters.  

From this post, I decided to visit another webcomic I really like, called "Infinite Nap."  I think this comic is a great example of what is really appealing about webcomics, which is that they're short little blurbs that are usually about real life.  At least the webcomics I'm familiar with all seem to reflect someone talking about a personal experience or just how they feel that day.  In this day and age, I think people are looking to feel more connected with each other; every online community has that feeling of being just that, a 'community', and I think people automatically look for a group of people where they all have shared experiences.

I felt that way when I read the comic Ducks Ducks Ducks.  I really enjoy the loose nature of comics like these.  They bring me back to the idea Scott McCloud brought up about how the simpler something is, the more someone can project their own details onto it and relate more.  I think it also helps make the story feel like it's being told to you by a friend, rather than a random stranger on the internet.  

Octapus Pie was another good comic and I liked how this one had more of a storyline that it followed thorugh each week, rather than the other webcomics which were either little gags or short stories.   Each webcomic offers something new to the table and I don't believe they will die out anytime soon.

Week 13: Reconsidering the Superhero

I kept postponing making this blog post since I was having a really hard time getting into this genre.  The first time, I read just the script for Watchmen on the course syllabus and could not get myself interested in the story at all.  I found the comic online and started reading that, but for some reason, I just couldn't get into it.  I wanted to get into it, but I just couldn't.  I can definitely see the appeal behind it; I think that it is such an interesting idea to have a superhero that is the total opposite of a superhero that is well liked, or a superhero that even likes the people he's saving.  In the first few pages of Watchman, we see Rorschach call the humans around him 'human cockroaches' and watch him as he breaks an innocent man's fingers just to learn information:  he's definitely your friendly neighborhood Clark Kent.  This idea in itself is really intriguing, which is why I'm not surprised why so many are drawn to it.  Watchman on a whole deals with more adult topics and it shows the darker side to superhero/masked vigilantes/humans in general, and I think this element makes it more appealing to adults.

For me, I think Watchman was a little too grungy for me.  I'll also be honest and say that stories which require a lot of dialogue and less relying on the visuals are not as appealing to me.  Especially at this point in my life, where I'm an exhausted college student looking for something to take my mind off things.  It is for this reason that I also didn't like Preacher as much, but felt more drawn to Hellboy.  I think Hellboy was also more appealing to me because the characters are completely different than anything I've ever seen before; whereas Preacher and Watchman are mostly just humans, Hellboy's new designs made it more interesting and I felt that the tone of it could get a lot more light-hearted than the other comics:

I think the art style also contributed; Preacher and Watchman are much more detailed than Hellboy and aren't as much of a quick read, whereas here there are very clear visuals with only one or two items as the main focus.  To me, it's comics like Hellboy that keep the action that made the first generation superheros famous, that I find more fun to follow and can relate to more.

In Class Questions

Were there any prominent symbols and how were they used?
In this comic, I noticed that they brought up the idea of the Church and liquor and usually compared the two in some sort of way, or there was trouble happening near liquor or involving liquor.  In the beginning in the bar, that's where the preacher started delivering his 'truth's, and you can see a liquor bottle on the ground.  The reason the preacher starts on his whole rant is because of the watered down beer.  It is also right outside the bar where Tulip first sees the man she's supposed to kill.  There's also the idea of innocence; in the beginning, the Preacher delivers the 'truth' to everyone, which infuriates the public so they beat him up.  Then, the public claims their innocence in the whole ordeal.  Tulip kind of loses her 'innocence' at shooting the man.

Is there an aspect to the story where you were able to make a personal connection?
I'm not really sure if there's any aspect I personally related to since the characters and their situation is so different from any I have ever been in.  However, there are some feelings that are the same between the comic and myself; I relate to the Preacher in the beginning with the frustration of hearing everybody claim their innocence yet hearing all of their secrets, as most people in any given situation will usually try to act like they had nothing to do with it.  I also relate to Tulip and how she decides to ignore all warnings and drive into the explosion; I am of a similar mindset where part of me is curious but most of me would be worried for anyone there, and I believe I would probably do something similar.

If you were to adapt this story to another medium, what changes would you make and why?
I could see this as a TV show, similar to the format of Lost or Supernatural.  I think the biggest change I would make would be to not have the wings on the ruler of Heaven.  It's a tiny change in the grand scheme of things, and this change would be rooted in practical VFX money reasons and also the fact that I think it would be harder for people to be intimidated by someone with wings.  Because it's a symbol that we're not used to seeing on people in everyday human life, it would cause the show to lose its sense of being within a realistic reality.  In comics, people are more used to the unexpected, and when the details are just enough for you to imagine the rest, you can imagine it.  With a format like TV though, it would have to look so accurate and there's not much room for mistakes.