When you pick up and begin to read a prose book, the characters in the story are inherently formless. The first time you run into a character, you only have a few distinct descriptors to hold onto–”a tall redhead,” “a stern-looking man.” As you continue to read and the character takes more action in the story, more little pieces of… Read more →
Memory and Representation in Maus
When we remember things, we aren’t aware of how much are representations of the past can be altered by time and the discourses surrounding us. Art Spiegelman’s Maus deals with autobiographical recollections of the past. Specifically, Art Spiegelman’s father Vladek provides a narrative about his hardships in Auschwitz. Art presents Vladek’s memories by remembering what his father told him about… Read more →
Colors in Comics
Many times when we read comics we don’t take the time to pay attention to the colors that are associated with entities in the comic world. We sometimes lose ourselves in the plot and tend read at such a pace that we lose sight of the detail that is in the comic. It’s hard to step back and look at… Read more →
Ring of Keys
I actually read Fun Home several weeks ago, while working on UMW’s production of Noises Off. During one act, I needed to be seated behind a giant stair unit, and I wasn’t able to move until the act ended. So, for roughly 45 minutes, I had time to read. I chose to bring Fun Home with me, since it was one of the smaller books we… Read more →
My take on censorship
After scrolling through the blog I noticed a lot being said about censorship due to our discussions about Fun Home this past week during class. I thought I would give my input on the topic of censorship. I feel that censorship is extremely tricky. One side being that you shouldn’t deprive someones learning due to discomfort. For instance obviously the… Read more →
From the Classroom to the Internet: New Mediums for Educational Entertainment
Despite the freedom that the American people have, a depressingly low percentage of people understand the fine inner workings of our legal system and the extent of the freedoms they are extended. In order to obtain a better grasp on this knowledge, Nathan Burney started an informative and entertaining webcomic that addresses the workings of our legal system entitled, “The… Read more →
More on the Rating System of Graphic Novels
When we began our discussion of Fun Home, we talked about the rating system of comics. I want to extend this conversation more to some points we did not really go into as much. Being introduced into to graphic novels and comics solely because of this class I had no idea of the rating system. Yes, I knew there was… Read more →
Fun Home reflection: Sara Francis
Fun Home has been an interesting bit of material to read. Often with books and graphic novels, the stories we are discussing are works of fiction, and while they have a heavy influence from the authors life, fiction is still in the area of dismissal. We can look at it and go ‘wow, that’s awful, these people are terrible characters,’… Read more →
Censorship and Trigger Warnings
Our first day discussing Fun Home centered more on how we should treat censorship, book banning, and all that jazz. Many of my classmates seemed to think we need a rating system for books like we have for movies, the concern being that children will be exposed to more sexually graphic material before they are mature enough. I think that… Read more →
How Fun Home Makes Us Think About the Nature of Memory
I have talked about the nature of memory, particularly in memoirs in quite a few other classes, so I was not surprised, when we broke up into groups on Friday during class, that I once again found myself discussing how accurate memories are, in terms of memoir. Throughout her work Bechdel says “I think” frequently. While some may say that… Read more →