Lit of Comics Kevin Liang

The Smartest Kid on Earth Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware was an interesting read.  It touched on subjects that I did not expect to come up.  It was mentioned in class that these graphic novels seem to push the boundaries regarding the subjects being told in the stories, and Chris Ware's "The Smartest Kid on Earth Jimmy Corrigan" is no exception.  With in the first few panels, Jimmy is shown to strike a chicken with a rock and kill it.  The artist shows no restraint on showing violence and death within its themes, this carries throughout the book.  Beyond the violence and death, the graphic novel also touches on adult subjects like suicide and depression.  The story of Jimmy Corrigan is not shown in sequential order apparently, I am not sure whether or not that is simply how it comes in this particular piece I am reading.  Regardless, Jimmy Corrigan is shown to age in these stories, up to the point of being an old man.  Reading this story felt a bit jarring for a while becau

1. What is your reaction to this comic. I have read Killing Joke before, it is a great read and an interesting analysis of the Joker’s origins and psychology.  The story gave more depth to Joker’s character and gives a compelling reason as to why he has such a fixation on the Batman.  “One bad day” is the small thin line that separates normal people and who the Joker is.  Alan Moore was able to take the story beyond just action and drama. 2. What connections did you make with the story, what elements? Why? Joker’s thesis on the human condition and his claim that madness is just one small step away for any person in the world.  Granted that his experiment failed with Jim Gordon, I still think his idea holds some ground.  Our lives are fragile and could be turned on its head at any moment.  Everyone lives with a shadow attached to them, and anyone is capable of becoming something cruel and insane. Alan Moore’s choices in storytelling for this comic is above the typical.  This whole

Manga is a medium I, and probably a lot of the class is familiar with.  Japanese culture, anime, and manga has become more and more main stream these days.  It is no longer a genre/art style that is in the minority, regardless of this it is still a "rejected" medium in western culture art for some reason.  Understandably there are some anime/manga that lack a level of sophistication and accuracy to basic anatomy when it comes to its "style"; however, just like in western cartoons, there are highly acclaimed animations as well as poorly received ones.  It is still strange to me that some art teachers still seem to have a knee jerk reaction to any "anime" inspired work. Battle Angel Alita was an easy read for me, probably because I have years of experience reading manga.  I always appreciate the way most manga translate action on to panel of the page, the action is clear and easy to understand.

Color in every panel!  I was pleasantly surprised to finally see color in every panel of the graphic novel, there might have been some other colored ones in the past, but they were few and far between.  The Black Incal seems to be a science fiction graphic novel about a dystopian world with giant cities and flying cars.  The main character John Difool is a tired detective that finds this magical device that brings him loads of trouble.  This was a pretty fun read.

March: Book One is a graphic novel about civil rights among African Americans.  This graphic novel is another good example of this medium touching more mature and complex themes in its stories.  The art style and pretty clean, so for me it was very easy to read and follow.  In comic books, I personally always felt cramped when reading, since every image seemed cramped, and was being squeezed so closely to text all the time.  For March: Book One there was room for images to breath with the artist's use of empty space to fill the gaps, pretty refreshing to see in a graphic novel/comic.

Maus is an interesting story about a Jewish survivor of the Nazi invasion and the Holocaust.  In this graphic novel, Nazis are portrayed as cats, and the Jews are seen as mice.  The story is told from the perspective of Vladek Spiegelman's perspective and his son Artie.  The book jumps back and forth in between the past and present, jumping from Vladek Spiegelman's past and the present time with Artie.   Despite the characters being displayed as animals, the overall story feels very human and real.   Apparently Maus was a graphic novel that brought the whole genre into the mainstream, which contributed to the legitimacy of the medium overall. The overall aesthetic of the novel seems to appear as though it was drawn by an amateur artist. So the thing that set this book apart from the other must have been the subject matter rather than the actual art itself, not that it undermines the artistic value of drawings themselves.   The mature and “real” telling of the st