As our Final Project donned upon us, I began to reminisce about this past semester studying comics, graphic novels, comic art, and all of visual literature. Being my first class involving this information I have to say the first couple weeks were very challenging. Will Eisner’s A Contract with God threw me out of sorts for sure. It’s complex narrative… Read more →
A Twitch in Time: Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Most people have heard about the great ABC Family TV show from the 90’s, Sabrina The Teenaged Witch. It starred Melissa Joan Heart as the spunky, blonde witch being raised by her two kooky Aunts, Hilda and Zelda, and the Warlock Salem imprisoned in the body of her black cat. However, a lot of people don’t know that she started… Read more →
Girlfriends or Girl Friends?
Japanese media is specifically known for one thing: Magical Girls. This genre is defined as having a young female protagonist who goes through a magical transformation to become a superheroine often involving school uniforms or Sailor Fuku costumes. Sailor Moon is one of the most popular series in this trend, with others being Puella Madoka Magica and Cardcaptor Sakura, with… Read more →
Not So Fun Home
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was the most depressing book I have ever read. Now that I have your attention, let me explain what I mean. I admit that before this class, I had never heard of this book or its author. Through my own research and reading, I came to understand its significance, and I came to appreciate the excellent… Read more →
Dystopia, Battle Angel Style!
The idea of a futuristic, dystopian society has been toyed with in media for ages. With such a huge focus on electronics and robotics, it was only natural that Japan’s appetite for future-tech would roll over into the manga sphere. Akira was one of the most popular out of this trend in manga, along with Neon Genesis Evangelion and Astro… Read more →
History can be interesting?
I really enjoyed Fun Home, the style and story of it, and while March is similar because they are both grounded in fact the change in tone was a little jarring at first. Nonetheless I am liking March. The art is not only beautiful to look at but it is very well thought out and purposeful. It expresses a lot… Read more →
Peanuts Through Time
Although Charles Schulz was first denied the publishing of his comic “L’il Folks” in 1947, he decided not to give up on his dream and kept pushing it. In 1950 Schulz dream came true and published his comic under the name that would become a culture sensation, the “Peanuts”. The “Peanuts” have had many Iconic characters in the past 65… Read more →
The Growth of Steampunk in Comics
Steampunk as a genre is a hard subject to trace. There are a number of works that have elements of steampunk, but all of them predate the word itself. Works by Jules Vern and H.G. Wells are often cited as some of the first “true” works of steampunk, but even that is an arbitrary outlook as they built upon… Read more →
Visual Language of Manga
Ever since we talked about paneling in class and we worked on our own webcomics, I’ve been really interested in how panels and speech bubbles can change a reader’s experience. I even wrote a post about the topic earlier on the blog when all of the groups were actually creating the webcomics for class. Mostly it was just information to… Read more →
The Novel in Graphic Novel – Where Do We Draw the Line?
In our discussion of what makes a comic/graphic novel, we looked at several definitions, some of which seemed pretty solid. Scott McCloud, in Understanding Comics defines comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.” This is a rather serviceable, if simple and in the case… Read more →