Questions and answers

1.     Are there any prominent symbols in preacher? If so, what and how are they used?

I’m not very knowledgeable about symbols, and when reading. Many times they will go over my head. The fact that he became a preacher could be a symbol.

2.     Is there an aspect of the story, in which you were able to make a personal connection?

I grew up in a very small town, so the inter collection of the town and its rumors worked in the same way. None of the rumors were as devastating, I grew up in a dry county, and everyone went to church. But I connected with the way the small town would work in this rural area. Although the area is much more southern than western, The idea is still the same.

3.     If you were to adapt this story into another medium, what changes would you make? And why?

If I was going to change this story into a weekly news article, Meaning I would write a few short paragraphs a day and then you would wait for the next installment, I would start each story reestablishing the restraint this is currently taking place in. Each day it would be slow, and likely try and reestablish the mood that the previous post made. And then continue on to the true story, which the preacher is telling. With the side bits of the angles being a ‘bonus’ story to the story. Its visual sophistication would be zero, but with this medium you could still attempt to retain the same messages in the comic.

Webcomics_Weeks 14

Webcomics is something that I have also been living with for a while now. But the big things that make me enjoy the comics is as follows. There free. It’s a free platform to let anyone read their work. And although it hasn’t gone through an editor, that is a detail that doesn’t matter. They took their thoughts and put it down on to the web to let others take it and interpret it in their own way. You can truly say it is ‘your work’ when you make web comics.

The style that someone draws the comic doesn’t have to be good. Although there are some well made comics, you can produce any level of finished to your comic. I read Ducks by Kate Beaton, which was done in an incredible style. It was still in such a sketchy state. It took me a while to understand everything that was going on in the panel at times. It was very interesting, and I loved it.

Another perk to the web is the number of things you can do with it. I watched a Ted talk that talked about how you can make a spiral comic, a comic that uses sound, a comic that has animation, a comic that is just one giant line. Because it is on the web. An example is ‘homestuck’ that includes full flash cutscenes, and long dialogue boxes with a single picture. It even has an ever-changing web page that matches what is going on in the comic. It makes a very evolving experience.

reconsider SuperHero_Weeks 13

To reconsider the superhero I read the priest story in class, along with Fable before class. I’ll talk about the priest story more in a separate post. But I’m going to admit that I had played ‘The wolf among us’ before reading Fable. I count Fable as a superhero comic because it includes people pretending to be normal, with a alternative life, and they have ‘super powers.’ It’s a whole community of people living out their lives outside of the government. It’s interesting just to see the characters re-imagined in this gritty world trying to live their lives without storybook rules to help them. Without them glorifying their lives and getting a happy ending anyway, they are actually struggling with it. Forced to take up less than honorable professions. Living on the skins of their teeth to just get by.

Women Writers_ Week 12

‘This one summer’ by the tamaki cousins was what I read for women comics week. It got the exact feeling between two young friends perfectly. It caused me to remember my lame time as a pre-pubescent girl with an unrealistic crush on boys that are so out of my league it’s almost humorous. It matched friends messing with each other about their crush, and doing little things such as encouraging or saying small things about how it just might not be a good idea.

The children were written so well it almost hit too close to home. I still have vague memories of the simpler life with a friend that it was an incredible escape from my now busy life to revisit my childhood.

Contemporary Comics_Week 11

For contemporary comics, I chose to read Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli. The comic sparked my curiosity when I saw images of it on the course share.  The drastic use of styles was interesting to look at and I wanted to know more about the work. To my relief the whole comic was in a pleasant style to read. Each character was drawing in a related, but distinct style. Working on the main character’s belief that each person has their own ideals and how it influenced others. Even the text bubbles were formed in a way that allowed you to know how they sound, and who was talking without it pointing to the character that spoke.

I very much liked the non linear story telling. Causing you to be curious about how the main character got to where he was, what actually happened, and how he works to make it better. 

Manga_Week 10

I had been a big fan of manga/anime sense I was very young. Back then of course, I believed that it was a superior medium from cartoons/comics from the west. Of course, I now see how foolish I was but because of this I have been so submerged into the medium, It is difficult for me to talk about it with a set of new eyes. But for this assignment I read Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha (or the first volume of it.) I had not read any of Tezuka’s work, only watched the anime that it influenced. For this it had many of the same qualities that Anime has, with deep symbolic meanings, and characters that have to figure out why life is life.

A cool thing about Manga is that the western audience is growing rapidly thanks to the internet and acceptance of the material. Many comics, and cartoons are now influenced by anime, making many references to it and making cartoons deeper than previously done.

World of Comic_Week 9

I read the Euro Comic, Persepolis. The comic was a very personal telling of Marjane Satrapi’s Life living in Iran, and then her high school time in Vienna, Austria. The book was very indulging and was difficult for me to put down when I read it for the first time. It was very interesting seeing her young ideals of the world, and wanting to change it for the better develop as she grew up and finding herself in the large world.  Watching her interactions you can see what influenced and what strongly stood in her mind when she grew up.

I think that is the strongest plus to comics that depict real life events. You can feel the randomness of life and have a better understand of characters. Because the writer isn’t making them up and creating their own new personality. But is using the uniqueness of an actual person.

SterioTypes in comics_Week 8

I’m a female. After school I’m going to be working in the game industry. I have been immersed in games my whole life, with a recent addiction to any and all comic books. (thanks to the new comic class) I believe that a huge stereotype that I saw in almost every comic, from old newspaper to new indie web comics is the ‘beautiful women’ default character body type.

Almost every character that might appear in a game, a comic, and even an animated movie all have the same figure. An hourglass, man’s dream women type of figure with large breast and revealing clothing. Instead of have the extremely wide difference of body types and facial differences, the reader is forced to vaguely tell which girl is which by their hair color.

I think this stereotype is the stupidest thing I had ever seen. Women makes up more than half of video game players, and comic book readers. When people market to men and only men, they are excluding the female audience.

I had recently watched all of the Feministfrequency videos, and although they were wonderfully made videos, every related video was people complaining about what was being said. About how she was talking shit about video games, and acted as if video games were the most holy of mediums and no harm could be done by them. Even girls were not watching it and understanding that these tropes are tropes for a reason. And although I don’t agree with everything, I do agree with so much of what she says, it isn’t hard to listen to what she has to say.

I think it’s entirely possible to like something, while critically analyzing it and understanding what they are doing wrong and what they are doing well.