So this weeks required reading was fun.
Sandman the Wake is one of my favorite story arcs in this comic. then again i love the entire comic so saying that really isn't hard.
as for the recommended readings i didn't get to all of them but here's what i did get to.
The spirit i think will always confuse me, i'm not really a fan... sorry...
Anything Batman is awesome, though my favorite in that collection will probably be the "Robin dies at dawn" story Arc its hokey in places but still cool to see Batman kind of out of his element.
I really liked the artwork and storytelling of the 'best crime comics' though i don't understand some of them they where some of my favorite comics we read this semester.
Over all i think there where a lot of really good comics chosen to read and i am planning on reading them all over Christmas!
part one:
ReplyDeleteSo the readings I've done so far for this last bit have been a lot of fun.
I read Vertigo, Beanworld, several Wonder Woman stories, a few Batman stories, Read Yourself Raw, and some Best Crime Stories. I'll get on to reading some more within the rest of this week, but so far here are my thoughts:
Vertigo was lots of fun. Though I personally find the Invisibles very hard to read, I still enjoy it… though I think I'll still need to reread it before I get it. I think it's definitely an interesting departure from the superhero stories - it seems like a story about people who have mysterious abilities, but more like they are just fringe-dwellers, on the run so much that they can barely fend for themselves, let alone the rest of the world. Or maybe that's just because I'm not very far in the Invisibles yet (I started reading it earlier this semester). Over all, though, my favorite from Vertigo was definitely Fables. Cover art by James Jean? Yes, please. I know I'm biased in favor of it, though, because I am a bit of a fairy tale nerd (I like to buy collections of fairy tale books and read them through as much as I can -- I am currently 500 out of 700 pages through the complete Grimms' works). I always love seeing adaptations of fairy tales (especially ones less kiddy than the usual Disney works). I liked the dark take on it and could see a lot of opportunities for secret jibes and inside references that could be a lot of fun later on - but at the same time it did a good job of not being too specific and excluding people who don't know the tales referenced.
Honestly speaking, I didn't really get Beanworld. Esthetically, I liked it but for some reason I just couldn't get invested in the narrative. I guess I'll just have to try again later!
part two!!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading Wonder Woman. Though dated, I think she was (in many cases) ahead of her contemporaries and I think she is a very smart character - both feminine and strong, purposefully made fashionable to avoid accusations of being butch. Plus, later on the art got quite nice - though I still take issue with the whole Wonder Woman, Diana, Steve dynamic. Honestly, Wonder Woman is like the most awesome woman on the planet. She really shouldn't need to do much out of the way to get his affection and he sure as heck shouldn't blame her for things that aren't her fault or be petty and fickle with his feelings. RAWR.
The early Batman was hokey as ever, but I'm getting used to it. I am slowly learning to accept the copious amounts of text, though it is not my preference. The Batman story with the Monk is hokey as hell, though! I mean, hypnotism? From a distance? And vampires? Reeeally? Like, how is that even Batman? It just didn't seem right. And he had a fiance, which is terrible.
My favorite of the shelf reading was probably Read Yourself Raw. The first story, Dead Things was really odd - some boy who's sister died and then he worked - and I think it was trying to have one of those weird, disconnected narratives that talks about the banality of life, but honestly I'm not too sure. I did like it, though. The Andy Grifith Show one super creeped me out -- but in a good way. Those town people were super creepyscary. My favorite was definitely Dog Boy, though. He… He's so adorable. And sad. And… adorable. HIS PLAINTIVE PUPPY FACE WILL HAUNT MY CONSCIENCE.
But that's not really what I'm supposed to be talking about, so here's the part where I redirect this post to talk about non-superhero narratives and their role in comics.
Honestly, I think non-superhero comics provide a different atmosphere to comics and it's quite refreshing. The moods conveyed can be more subtle because they are not restricted by the spandex and masks and general "I beat you up" superhero story line. It gives the comic to take a bit more of a personal approach, like I think Dead Things does. I think it can also make it easier to push certain issues - such as race, like in the Andy Grifith Show. Because they're not superhero and probably not mainstream, they have a little more leeway. And the fact that they don't necessarily have to be directed towards kids (as many, but not all, superhero comics are) means that they can attack more adult subjects. It also means that because they are not faced with the necessity of creating the usual super-story arc, they can play with fragmenting the narrative more and creating a story that more resembles the pace of a rambling mind (which I think is what the Invisibles is doing). I feel a lot of times that where superhero comics lose out is that they get so set into a single pattern - problem, fight, beat it. It becomes a lot of action sequences, narration boxes, and talking head scenes. Other genres allow for more freedom to deviate from this model - and more freedom in terms of subject matter. It also makes a difference where length is involved. I can't picture a superhero comic anything like the Dog Boy comic, which is probably one of my favorite things I've read all semester. I just can't picture a supercomic being that short or… like that. It just… it tickled me so much I can hardly explain.
However, I also come from a background of reading primarily non-superhero comics (I grew up reading Sunday strips, Tin Tin, and Eastern comics), so I may just be battering the supers with my general assumption that most of it is pretty hokey and hackneyed (though much of it can be good, as this class has proven to me).
Anyway, those are my thoughts thusfar. I'll be back with more later!
Well said Maya.
ReplyDeleteOk So.
Work with me here...
Pretend that the entire world of comics was represented as a multi-vitamin. On the side of the bottle was a percentage of amount of comics within this vitamin. When you eat the vitamin that is the wide world of comics, you intake how much of a place that particular aspect of comics has within the whole vitamin of comics. Ok, it is my belief, that Non-Superhero comics would take up most of this vitamin experience. Albeit, Superhero comics might even have the most percentage of any one category. Possibly. But the overall vitamin intake that you would be ingesting would be Non-Superhero Comics. I mean there are a lot of sub genres of comics that are not super hero. Educational, Slice of Life, Manga, Crime, Erotica, so many that you might just glance over the last few and buy the vitamins anyway.
Why did I just write an extremely convoluted and confusing comparison?
Because the world of Non-Superhero Comics is vast. And although Superhero dominate American Pop culture within the comic world, the vast list of other comics take a place as well.
Superheros, in fact, do tend to get stuck into a formula. At this point, people have a hard time finding an entry point into the wide world of superpeople. The complaint as of late as been that the situations and dialogue between characters is constantly referencing other books. Enough to make it difficult for the reader.
But the whole concept of the Superhero is formulaic within itself. Nobility, superpowers, self-sacrifice are all elements of what makes up a Superhero. Although there are deviations from this, which has also been done. Its hard to find a deviation of a deviation (of a deviation of a deviation).
Oh ya, this is supposed to be about Non-Superheros.
The books that I read for this week were Beanworld, Scrooge, War Comics, Journey, and the other required readings.
I think that I might just talk about these in general terms. Just looking at the titles of the books that I read, you could imagine all of the different types of comics these are. The creators didn't seem to have any limits to what they could produce. This offers up a lot of more options about what kind of stories they could make. There is a cartoon duck, a bunch of non-extistant bean people, real life war, a scary guy, dream, a priest, hoodlums... quite a list. While I'm not saying that Superhero comic makers don't add in their own feelings and emotions on real life situations (because they DO), I just think that if you are looking for someone who is speaking a little more from the heart, look toward Non-Superheros. Maybe its just that if you want to tell a story about crazy beans with forks, that go on existential adventures, it would be much harder to do within the pre-defined context of the Superhero world.
One thing that this class re-enforced within my belief about comics is, you can find just about anything...and genres can bleed together. Actually, that is happening more and more as the comic world is unifying (I'm guessing that is to rally sales, or maybe I'm being a little cynical, maybe not). The unification of comics, for whatever reason, is a good thing for the industry because it's opening doors for both the creators and the characters.
Carry on.