Origin stories are the staple of any superhero character. You could know nothing about the plot of the comic or the name of the creator, but its almost a guarantee that someone will know the origin story of a major superhero. Almost everyone knows that Superman was the last surviving person from Krypton who crashed landed on Earth to avoid… Read more →
Television Shows get cancelled all the time, and for those of us that are particularly television obsessed, our hearts break with every cancellation. We have talked during class at length at how comics and graphic novels relate to film, and how we can easily see them as movies and how the framing works the same as it would in a… Read more →
In 1954, the Comics Magazine Association of America formed the Comics Code Authority (CCA), an alternative system to government regulation that allowed comic book publishers to self-regulate the content of their comic books in the U.S. The code was commonly called “the Comics Code,” it was widely used until the early 2000s. Comic publishing companies would submit their comics to the CCA, who would… Read more →
Whether it’s reading a novel or a graphic novel, I can’t help but wish I could choose what the characters said and did. I loved the Goosebumps book that had you choose your own path, and whatever you chose determined whether or not you’d get out of the haunted house or not. I loved being a part of the narrative… Read more →
The comic Watchmen was my first exposure to a full-blown colored comic. When I want to read a comic in my spare time, I tend lean towards manga so all the color present in Watchmen was a tad overwhelming for me at first. I noticed that I had trouble focusing on the speech bubbles and the images at the same… Read more →
Over the course of the semester thus far, I’ve been paying most of my attention to how the art of comics differs from other styles. Primarily, because I like to doodle, and comic panels generally don’t take up too much space, but also to analyze how the depth of each panel is conveyed. As is often discussed, comic panels… Read more →
The first aspect of a comic that most people notice is the visual artwork. In polychromatic comics, color usage is a significant component in engaging the reader and effectively communicating key features of the story. One of the important functions of color is to identify characters and distinguish objects from each other. In comics, the fictional world exists in panels. By ‘assigning’ specific colors to each… Read more →
Watchmen isn’t the last word on the superhero genre. Neither is The Dark Knight Returns. Superhero comics aren’t just places for gritty “realism”, anti-heroes, and moral compasses damaged beyond repair. They can be full of wonder, optimism, and act as an escape from a world that is becoming full of darkness and evil without insulting readers’ intelligence. So if you’re tired of election ads or the 24 hour news cycle, here are some superhero comics that are… Read more →
Back in 2011, DC Comics rebooted their entire continuity in a heavily publicized event called “The New 52” The goal of which was to create a better streamlined universe that was much more reader friendly. However, due to a lack long term planning and discussion on what exactly was or wasn’t in continuity, the New 52 is nothing short of… Read more →
Watchmen is coming to an end, and I am somewhat down in the dumps about it. There is so much to analyze and our class brought out some interesting discussion about the topic. After my first-time reading the story, I first noticed how pessimistic and self-aware the characters and story was about the classic superhero tropes; I believe that one of… Read more →