Literature of Comics: Day 8

          Waltz with Bashir was an interesting film both visually and in terms of theme. I was not a huge fan of the animation, mostly due to me knowing how it is done. I found it to be quite stiff and swim-y, but I found that the subject matter, story, and overall symbolism of the movie to be done well. I feel that stereotyping and repression of emotion to be harmful. Yet, in my major, Computer Animation, we are taught to embrace stereotyping to a certain extent, mainly because it is recognizable to a majority of people. In film, stereotypes are used all the time, and often become a major theme in the film.
          Look at (one of my favorite films) Legally Blonde. Opens on Elle Woods, the stereotypical hot, white, blonde, stupid sorority girl waiting to be proposed to by her hot, rich boyfriend Warner. In the musical, the first song "Oh my God you Guys" is literally singing about her making herself bride material with the help of her sorority girls. This can be seen as very stereotypical, yet I have met girls just like her, and Elle in the show is kind and funny and smart when it comes to fashion, yet is called "a Marilyn not a Jackie". That line really made me think, but it is another stereotype that may not be true, but everyone in the audience knew exactly what he meant. I had never questioned that line until I looked at it from this standpoint.
          Another stereotype in the film is that students at Harvard are boring, dull, serious lawyers. Then here comes Elle dressed in all pink compared to there navy blue, grey and black cloths. I find truth in this for I have never seen a lawyer dress in a hot pink Juicy Couture sweats, they are always dressed in suits or nice work clothing. This is a stereotype, but everyone in the audience understands this and finds the contrast between the law students and Elle to be funny. There is an entire song in the musical called "Is he Gay or European" which makes fun of those stereotypes, yet the audience is laughing the whole time. I feel that people get racism and stereotypes mixed, both can happen at one, but when I think of stereotypes they are traits that have been observed repeatedly to the point where they are easily taken as truth. For example, lawyers wear suits or business men wear watches and carry a brief case. Are these stereotypes? I have met many lawyers and businessmen whom wear suits/ have watches/ carry brief cases, so does that make it a stereotype? What about a Texan wearing cowboy boots? I am a native Texan and I own and have worn cowboy boots, does that make me a stereotype? I am white and like Starbucks, does that make me a stereotype?

Literature of Comics: Day 7

          Maus is a graphic novel depicting the experience of being Jewish or Polish during the Holocaust and surviving by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. This novel really legitimized the graphic novel, and was also the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It really encapsulated the idea that graphic novels are not just for happy, kid stories, but one can do anything with this medium. When reading the graphic novel, I found many parallels to the recent Disney film Zootopia. I wonder if the creators of this film looked at this book or got any inspiration from it for both use animals to represent race.
          Yet in Maus, one can blatantly tell that mice are Jewish, cats are German, dogs are American, and Pigs are Polish. Where as in Zootopia, they use only 2 'races', predators and prey, which cleverly allows any race to put them selves in either position. Predators being the minority for the world is made up of over 80% prey animals, but also stereotyped are gruesome and dangerous creatures. I believe this brings people more into both stories for they don't depict people, thus the viewer/reader can more easily put themselves into those situations that have no specific human identity. I feel that both pioneered the subject matter, for Zootopia is not just a kid movie, and over the past couple of years I feel that animation as a whole is becoming more flexible of a medium in terms of subject matter.
          A great example of this, and one of my favorite animated shorts of all time, is Borrowed Time, which was an independent Pixar short. This short is not fun and wacky, it is about "A weathered Sheriff who returns to the remains of an accident he has spent a lifetime trying to forger. With each step forward, the memories come flooding back. Faced with his mistake once again, he must find strength to carry on. (Wikipedia)" It is a beautiful short and Maus also reminded me of this in terms of changing the scope of a medium. 

In Class: Underground Comics

In Class:

          The underground comic I read in class was 'The Last Words in Comics! XYZ Comics'. I did not enjoy either, I would never read these in my free time. I am not a fan of just making comics about sex or objectifying women or just weird fantasies. I did not like the art style in any way either, I found it pretty repulsive. I not against pushing the envelope in content, but I want a reason for it, for it to help or enhance the story in some way. I understand the appeal, that the comic is trying to be offensive. I was not offended by the comic, but more that I was not drawn or impressed by it. It seemed like a twelve year old boy who started to hit puberty and just drew out gross fantasies. I really don't like the art, I appreciate all types of art, but this is just unappealing in every way to me. Im sure there is an underground comic out there that I would enjoy, but of the ones I glanced through today, I am not going to be seeking them out.

Literature of Comics: Day 6

          The Yellow Submarine, 1968, is a very trippy film. I have known this film for basically my whole life due to my dad. He loves this movie, his last birthday my sister and I got him a yellow submarine card for father's day. I appreciate the variation in techniques and the Beatle songs are great. The Yellow Submarine was made to be done as quickly as possible, using rotoscope and looped animation, because it was created at the height of the Beatle's fame. Everyone expected the Beatles to be forgotten, but this is probably the most successful, experimental animated film. This film is very 60s - early 70s, with a lot of art movements portrayed throughout. The bright colors, surrealism, pop art, art nouveau collage, graphic shapes, live action film loops, and a lot of profile portraits. Whenever I watch this movie, I remember the Power Puff Girls episode where they spoofed this film. Mojo Jo Jo gathers the villains and creates the group, the 'Beat Alls', and I felt so smart when I was little and understood the reference compared to my peers who had no idea.
          Under ground comics were also very influenced by many genres. This basically starts with College Humor Magazines. These comics were funded by students, and it was always fighting against the admins. These would become more and more scandalous, pushing the boundaries, and would be fought against by the legislature. The harbor lampoon is one of the few humor magazines that is still around. At this time, around the country, there was an under ground press movement.People would walk in with their comics in hope to have them published, and often had a large circulation. Political stories were very common, often about civil rights and anti-war. These were distributed by hippies. Eventually the underground comics became more organized and more widely known. Rock music and concerts was another movement occurring at this time. Thus the business of making Rock posters was growing. Robert Crumb comes into the picture due to this. Crumb is a nice boy from baltimore, and his brothers and sisters and he are raised by strict father and a mentally ill mother. He later gets a job at American Greetings making strange humor cards. At this time, they basically all took LSD, but at the time they could get it from a physician. He was not a hippy, most artist weren't at the time. He later goes on a road trip to San Francisco, and he sent work to Zap, and they lost it. Many years later they found it and published it as Zap number 0.

Literature of Comics: Day 5

          The Contract with God, a graphic novel, can be seen as a novel or not. The book is longer than an average comic and the characters seemed to be more developed in one book than any other comic I have seen. The subject matter also seems to be different than an average comic, plus it is places in a real place at an actual time, making the novel more grounded. Comics tend to be more action driven also, where as with this the dialogue and story take the lead. Not only are graphic novels much longer than average comics, but they tend to read more like a full story/tale than a short/episode like most comics are. A reader does not wait till next week to see what happens next, instead they are given a full story. Will is more than just a comic artist, but a theorist and innovator.
          Stan Lee and Spiderman, he really pioneered the comic book and begins to show people that comics are not just for kids. Creating X-Men, Avengers, the Hulk and more, Stan was creating a universe all ages could enjoy.
          Blankets was a very interesting graphic novel. It had heavy themes, that I thought were portrayed well and emphasized by the art style. My favorite part of the work was the art, the reader could literally see the world through the main character's eyes. I loved the personification of the objects and literally being thrown into the imagination of the main character. At the beginning of the novel, when the father makes him sleep in the 'cubby' room, he sees monsters and the fold out bed is a monster's mouth. This art style emphasizes his fears and the viewer can really feel what the main character is feeling. I think that this work would have scared me or disinterested me at a younger age, but now that I know about symbolism and personification, the reader is really submersed into the world of the graphic novel.

Literature of Comics - Day 4

         In the 1930s, Betty Boop was a major studio who showed minorities in America, though through stereotypes, are representing groups that were never represented before. The studio was created by a Jewish family, 4 of them, and Coco the clown was a caricature of one of the brothers. This is unlike Disney for this is much more urban and stayed in New York most of their carrier, but then went to Miami where they shortly went bankrupt. Bimbo the dog seems to be a very popular character of theres, along with Betty Boop and Coco the clown. I also know that Betty Boop was originally a dog and they were together. There is lots of energy and craziness in the cartoons, each moment is unpredictable. At the time, America is deep in the depression, and the plan at the time was not to do anything and the world was floundering. So what people did was go to the movies, which would be in a huge theatre that could hold 3,000 people and there would be an orchestra or organ that would play over the films. They would play the news, then a episode of a show that would play that would end of a cliff hanger, then they would play 2 films that would often have an animated short before hand. Sound is starting to become a thing and Steamboat Willie is one of the first to have sound that was shown in theaters. The only other forms of entertainment during the time was newspapers and the radio, thats why in the early cartoons they often play popular music of the time.
          In the late 30s, comic studios start to pop up. Before this, comics were not widely spread for there was just not enough material. The killer appeal for comics at the time became superheroes. Superman was one of the prominent ones, but he was never meant to be in comic books, but in comic strips. They took the original comic strip, cut it up, and created the first comic book of him. The comic I was given to look at in class was Amethyst Princess of Gem world. It is a very disco title. In comparison to the strips we saw last class, this comic has much more sequential flow and color than the earlier comic strips. This also felt more like a full story from beginning to end, like a tv episode, instead of a bunch of skits and stories. In comics in the 30s and 40s, comics could be up to 60 pages so the reader could get a complete stories. The page size is very different to, it is a pamphlet, not in a huge newspaper. The second world war makes the comic books much more popular due to the portability of the product. In the 1950s, westerns become super popular mainly because they were being shown on tv. Crime Suspen Stories was another comic I looked at in class, and I didn't like it. Too many words and the end of each of the three stories I didn't feel like I discovered something new. But one can tell that this was not written for children, having murdered multiple people. Comics were seen as evil, that they were rotting the brains of the children, turning them gay, and stupid. Many comic book companies grouped together and formed the comic code, which made rules for what could be in a comic. EC stood for educational comics, but within 6 weeks they were taken out of the market by the two major companies, which would enforce government censorship. Yet as the original audience grew older, the content became more and more adult.

Literature of Comics - Day 3

         Early comics and what to look for. Where are the words and images, how many words are there compared to the drawing? What is the style? How does it read? What is the creator's voice? What are the elements that make up the comic?
         Comics with strong voices will never be mistaken for another comic. Comics like the Peanuts won't be mistaken for Mickey Mouse. Personally I really like the Peanuts, but thats probably because my dad would show me them all the time. We even went to Snoopy land up at Mall of America back when I was little. I always liked Snoopy the best, especially his skits with Woodstock. We always would watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas every year. One of my favorite parts is the ghost covered in holes and would always get a rock when trick or treating. I really liked looking at the comic "The Upside Downs" because the artist really had to think about his drawings so that they would read both up right and upside down. I also love Mickey Mouse, especially how well the character's poses and actions read. My dad also loved Popeye, so I was introduced to it at a young age. I didn't like Popeye as much, but the artist's voice is loud and clear for I would recognize his work immediately.
         Mickey Mouse comics seem to rely heavily on spoken word bubbles. The drawings are very expressive and read well, but there is not a single panel that doesn't have any words. Now if one was to take all of the words and speech bubbles out, I may be able to understand whats going on but I certainly wouldn't be able to know for sure. Flash Gordon comics remind me a lot of superhero comics like Wonder Woman or Super Man. It definitely has less words than a Mickey Mouse comic, but I would have no idea what was happening if the words were not there. Lots of line work and much more realistic than cartoony. Lots of cross hatching to express mass and shading, and very action orientated. Yet, like the Mickey Mouse comics, not one panel has no words and I feel that not all the panels need them, they could stand on their own without words. It kind of reminds me of the He-man or Thunder Cats cartoon.
          Little Nemo has a very different voice compared to the two previous comics. It almost reminds me of a children's book or drawings for a church or biblical writing. This comic has a lot less writing in it, having very small speech bubbles. It also has very pastel or light coloring compared to the bold bright colors in Flash Gordon's comics. I feel that this comic has done the best with allowing the drawings to speak for themselves, but most panels have at least one speech bubble, but I feel that if they were taken out I could understand the general story. His backgrounds have been the most detailed of the comics I have seen so far. Crazy Cat reminds me the most of modern newspaper comic strips. It is not a continuous story but rather mini skits that take up one line of panels. I like the simplicity of the drawings and characters which makes them relatable. There is no color, but a lot of filling in and line slashing to indicate shadow and mass. I also like the variety of characters that show up in the different strips, from a rhino to a big dodo bird to the mouse. The artist also adds in sound effects when objects are being thrown like 'zip', which reminds me of current comic books that have 'pow', 'bam', or 'boom' to indicate action noises.