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 →
Tag: akira
Mary Sues and Gary Stus
If you are reading this article, you should already know about the term that is used to describe a lot of characters from various media in a bad way. The term originated in fan fiction, but it is now being used to describe every character that fits the strangely large criteria. “Mary Sue” can be used to describe characters that… Read more →
Are graphic novels inherently dark?
An interesting point of similarity between all the stories we have read so far is the darkness or negativity found in each story. Up until this point every graphic novel we have discussed in class has had a dark nature at least in a point of it. To prove this point that I see as being so pervasive let me… Read more →
Panel Structure and Movement in Akira
I started reading manga in middle school when a group of friends handed me a copy of Fruits Basket. I didn’t read much manga after that and went straight to anime. I started with Naruto and found my favorite anime in Durarara! Only when I got more into anime did I start reading more manga. The main thing that made… Read more →
Scott McCloud Reflection and Thoughts on “Slow Comics”
This Reflection post is mainly going to be about my thoughts on Scott McCloud’s comparison of comics and graphic novels to film and movies. Let’s begin with the question: Are films just really slow comics? Sure, you can say that films are just slow comics and you wouldn’t be wrong. Taking a look at the Akira novel and film, you… Read more →
Akira – Americanization
Manga is a Japanese word meaning “comics” and “cartooning.” It is a type of comic either made in Japan or by a Japanese artist. The style was developed in Japan in the late 19th century; influenced by earlier Japanese art, manga can cover all book genres and is read by varying audiences. Typically, manga is read backwards to an American… Read more →
Watchmen, Akira, and the Shadow of Nuclear Power
This week in class, Professor Whalen drew a brief parallel between Watchmen and Akira, being two definitive comics works we’d recently studied. I hadn’t ever thought of comparing the two before, though other people in the class have, but I realized that the two comics have some interesting similarities, despite being written in different cultures. Particularly, I was interested in… Read more →
Tale of Two Cities
It was middle school when I first started reading manga, but watching anime did not come until college and the subscription to Netflix, because sometimes good English dubs are hard to find. Even though I had been reading Manga for years at this point I had not read anything as intense or graphic as Akira. I guess to some people… Read more →
Reflection #3: Akira
I’ve really enjoyed Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira this past week. I’ve never read manga before now so it was a bit of a new experience for me. Some of the major difference that I noticed in manga opposed to other more western comic styles were the super detailed panels, the amount of panels and the superhero-like action sequences. Daniel R.… Read more →
What Does Nuclear Mean to You?
The dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki forever changed the world as we knew it. Suddenly countries were battling in a cold war over a nuclear arms race, and widespread panic over nuclear weapons and radiation fallout spread like wildfire. What also was changed, was pop culture , and specifically for this article, comics. In America, nuclear… Read more →