Literature of Comics - Day 1

Literature of Comics - Day 1

Page 1 - A rooster balancing on a spherical ball approaches a woman who is dancing for coins. She has set a basket on the stone ground in front of a building and seems to be gathering quite a lot of coins for her dancing. It appears that she has not noticed the rooster, or she may not be able to see him, but the rooster is intently watching her. there also appears to be a homeless man or a drunk sleeping behind her on the stairs. The woman could possible be a gypsy.

Page 2 - There is an angel looking down on a woman laying on the table, most likely dead. With his body language, he either feels remorse over her death or he has arrived to bring her to the after life. The rooster is still there watching next to the angel. They also appear to be in a study of some sort rather that a church. The dead woman my be the one from the previous page.

Page 3 - There are humanized roosters looking down on a woman dead in a coffin. Above her is a sculpture or goddess of a woman holding cloth. They may feel remorse over her death.

Page 4 - There is a woman laying a a slab of stone, dead or resting, with a male and female humanized rooster who appear to be wrapping a child or bread. There is also a tree or antler coming from the ground. There is also a smoking top hat. This page is the most surreal to me.

Page 5 - A woman has fallen out of bed, dead or murdered with a humanized male rooster who is either yawning or cheering over her death. There is also 2 normal roosters in her room.

Page 6 - There is a man who is awkwardly dancing for a woman, possibly trying to seduce her, while a male humanized rooster watches them from behind a door.

            Max Ernst, the artist of these pages, a surrealist and inventor of collage. He does his work without intention, he wants to get into his unconscious brain to let his work be unintentional as much as possible. Much like dreams, there is usually no meaning, and trying to remember when one awakens, it is impossible to retell completely. Authors intentions are not always the measure of what is true about the work or not. One's brain is hardwired to find stories within images that may not even be there, but one tries to make sense of everything even if there is no sense to be had. Your experience play a major part in how you would interpret a piece of work, which is why everyone could interpret a work differently and they would all be right.

            The Arrival - When I read through this my first initial thought was when everyone was immigrating to America in hopes to earn money to send back to your family and they they would hopefully be able to send them there too. This made me remember when I went to a world market and I found so many foods that I had never seen before, but were very common to others. I can relate with the man, it is a lot like moving to college, though not as foreign, it can be overwhelming at first. In the novel, he keeps enough earth like things to make the audience feel that we are still on earth, even with all of the strangeness of the town. One can feel the weight of the story, specifically through the detail of the drawings, each is just as important as the last. The Arrival gives you a clear picture of what it is like to go through the immigrant experience, not knowing the food, language, or the overall layout of the town. He had words though out the novel, but it is in a completely foreign language, but one sees that it is labeled which gives the reader a clue about what that object or place is.

            I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid back in 7th grade with in a 10 day school trip. This novel made me remember experiences that I had back at that time, for example the food. One night we got to eat at the Eiffel tower, and on the salad there was a whole prawn, head an all. This freaked me out, but to others in the restaurant it was completely normal. They also did not know what ranch was, which baffled me at the time, but now I understand that ranch is largely an american product. Another example was the transportation. There were way more people who travel by train or bus compared to where I lived, a lot more bikes and mopeds too. Many of their building were much older too, making the whole city look like an ancient town I had seen illustrations of in history books. The last thing that really stood out to me was the clothing, all dark muted colors, compared to what I would normally see at home, colorful pants, shirts, and shoes. Many wore large jackets and always had an umbrella for it seemed it would rain at least once every three days, which is very different compared to Texas.