Week 14

Webcomics! 

For this week, I read a webcomic called The Meek. Well, I read as much as I could, because it’s still in progress, apparently. But, what I DID read of it reeeeaally sparked my interest!

The story is about a girl who has (so far) unexplained plant-controlling powers, and she’s been sent by her “grandfather,” who disappeared, to save the world from a tyrannical emperor who killed his wife (to appease some beastly tiger demon thing) and waged war on the southern region. The girl’s backstory is told in pieces and hasn’t been established completely because the comic is still in the works, but so far we know that she hasn’t always had her plant-controlling powers. 

The first chapter hooked me immediately because for one, the art-style is so beautifully captivating…

And it draws your interest very quickly, because it starts right on intense action! In the beginning of the first chapter, we see a naked girl being chased through a jungle by a group of armed loggers. That left me with so many questions, that I just had to continue reading. When I found out that the naked chick also has awesome, unexplainable superhuman powers, that made the whole situation even cooler, because I’m all about cute chicks with cool powers B)

Not to mention, the universe that the story takes place in is very interesting to me, as well. It feels like some sort of alternate reality, because we see influences things we’d typically find in our world, like similar geographical locations, “technology,” religious concepts, similar earthly cultures and human customs, etc. Despite this, the narrative still has a sense of otherworldliness, because it incorporates inhuman powers, and weird, fantastical creatures and beasts, which I’m certain will appear more in future chapters. 

I originally was going to complain about one tiny aspect of this comic, but it quickly made up for itself. My complaint was that after the first chapter, it introduces an entirely different setting with a ton of new characters. It didn’t even feel like the same story. And after THAT chapter, it introduces yet ANOTHER different setting and a bunch of new characters, and seemed to stray further and further away from what the story originally was.
However, halfway through the third chapter, you realize that it’s just establishing all of these new characters separately, and they’re going to come together in the end. It starts to make a LOT more sense after that point.
But, that also sets itself up for being something spectacular, because with all of these characters and the story getting deeper and deeper, putting it together cohesively and in an exciting way make it seem like a massive project…
…I have very high hopes for it, and will DEFINITELY be keeping track of it for later chapters; I’m already following it on social media, heheh! 

The Killing Joke

1. I thought The Killing Joke was really interesting. I admit, I’ve seen more Batman movies than read comics, but I get the gist of it. For one, this graphic narrative was really dark, like something you’d expect from a more modern Batman installment. The story was very serious and morbid, and didn’t have any silly or non-serious moments that one would expect from an older Batman. Heck, even the visuals were really morbid and twisted-looking. I enjoy the establishment of the Joker in this, and liked that the story was centered more on him and his motivation rather than what Batman was doing; I like seeing villains have their backstory fleshed out such as what happened in this, it brings a whole new side to their character that one might not necessarily have seen before. I, for one, like seeing darker tones, so the story in this had a lot of appeal to me. I thought the transitions between the present and what happened in the Joker’s past were awesome; the panels even matched! Say, something happened in the present, but then the next panel would be the same action/composition/content of the present panel, but it would be the beginning to a flashback from the Joker’s horrible past with a desaturated tone over it. This was a very strong way to present a character’s past, and seemed very cinematic and clever to me. I also really liked the ending, where the Joker finally got Batman to laugh at a stupid joke, and ends up getting strangled. It was a satisfying way for a Batman comic to end.
   
   
2. It’s hard to connect with any aspect of this comic, really. There’s too little content of Batman himself to connect with, and he’s doing his same old masked vigilante crime-stopping, but also trying to understand his enemy. Since the story is centered on the Joker, it’d be more likely to try and connect with him, but I still feel it hard to, since he’s portrayed as a total psychopath. Everyone can relate to something traumatic happening in his/her life, but it’s probably not something as horrible as a spouse and child dying. Also, it’s difficult to relate to resorting to crime and becoming disfigured. So, i guess the emotion that the Joker is feeling is the most realistic thing to connect with. I’ve definitely felt like a failure before when the odds are against you, and the world sees you as a failure (i.e. the part where he explains to his wife that he couldn’t get a job can’t support the family). I’ve also felt what Batman feels when he contemplates the worth of his constant feud with the Joker, it’s a little like evaluating the pettiness of a rivalry, but on a much, much larger scale.
   
   
3. If I were to adapt this story into a different medium, I would want to do something completely fresh and original. We have seen plenty of variants of Batman comics, films, and animation. So, I would like to see The Killing Joke as a live-action musical. It would be hard to capture the seriousness of the story in musical form, since many musicals are happy and fun. This would go the darker route with a lot of visual storytelling, like an opera (but the music wouldn’t be opera, it’d be something that relates to this Batman time period). Musical format would be fitting to the story, especially during the scenes of the Joker’s past when he experiences deep sorrow and trauma. It’d also be really cool to see the Joker and Batman sing a powerful duet when they encounter each other at the end, like two enemies coming together to sing about how different they are, yet so similar. It’d be such a epic, meaningful moment between the classic villain/hero duo!
   The biggest changes I would make to the story to have it fit the musical medium better, is the acting. I would want the characters to be portrayed in an overdramatic way, which is typical to that of how plays are performed, but I don’t want it to be over-performed to a point where it becomes silly and ridiculous, because I want to keep the dark theme. I just really want to capture the sorrowful tones of the Joker’s past and how Batman and the congressman feel through song form, and I think a huge musical number of very visually interesting scenes like when the Joker puts the congressman on the Ghost Train and mentally tortures him, or the end when Batman and the Joker are fighting each other, and the Joker makes his joke at the end to Batman…that’d be really cool with big musical hits! 

Week 13

So, I don’t really know anything about Hellboy… I know it exists, but that’s about it. Never read the comics or watched the film, or anything. So, after reading Savage Dragon and Wake the Devil, I have decided that… I prefer Savage Dragon. It felt pretty humorous, for what it’s worth. I mean, the idea of mecha Hitler’s brain being put into an ape is pretty ridiculous, and also being eaten alive by a giant kauji fish-creature thing and fighting undead pirates in its stomach was silly. Also, I enjoyed how action-driven the story was. A lot of punching, and a lot of explosions, just the way I like it!

Is Nazism a reoccurring theme in the series? Because there seemed to be a lot of Nazi stuff in it. 

A complaint I have about Wake the Devil was how confusing it was. The plot seemed all over the place and hard to follow in places like the beginning, where you would think it’d be well-established, but I found myself lost…maybe that’s just me. Also, the pages were very, very text-heavy, which I thought was very disorienting. So, you have these panels filled with text that doesn’t make that much sense to me. It was a very confusing experience, to say the least :( 

Week 12 (yes, I did it!)

I read Rat Queens, and I thought that it was so awesome, that I looked up the other issues and read those too! I absolutely adore the whole medieval-fantasy setting, it’s a guilty pleasure to me, and I’m all about epic adventures, magical warfare, and fantasy violence, that stuff is super cool! 

The story follows the happenings of an elven mage, a cleric, a dorky dwarven chick, and a tiny weirdo who likes thievery and candy. The characters have so much appeal to me, because their personalities and dynamics with each other are very rich and organic. They don’t feel like the typical heroic, good guy-vigilantes that the townsfolk look up to; instead, they are given evident flaws and are shown making mistakes like any normal person would. We can’t relate to fantasy characters in some fantastical universe, but we can relate to what these characters experience as they go through conflicts. 

There was also a good balance of seriousness and comedy relief. All of the seriousness seemed to be centered more around Hannah and Dee, but all of the funny moments happened between small adventures that Betty and Violet would go on (that one part where they go sledding and meet a friendly, candy-hoarding dragon was so adorable). Although all of these characters are unique in their own way, they synergize well when they all come together, and make a badass, monster-slaying team. 

Also, of course I have to mention the art style. I looked it up, and it turns out the first volume was illustrated by three different artists, then the second volume (2017) had a different artist. Regardless of whoever drew the thing, the illustrations were absolutely gorgeous regardless. Everything was colorful and had very establishing backgrounds to give a great sense of the fantasy world that the story takes place in. It was dynamic and colorful, and the effects for the magic particles looked so nice. The style reminded me of the Team Fortress 2 comics before the artist changed, it’s probably the thick lines and saturated color (this is referring to the first volume of Rat Queens). 

Below I have examples of how the style changed over time (psst, the last one is my favorite!)

Week 11

For this week, I read A History of Violence. 
I guess you could call this graphic novel a suspense thriller, because the fast pacing of it and dark, exciting undertones really keep you on-edge the whole time.
The story follows a cafe owner named Tom McKenna. One day, an armed robber and his sidekick showed up to McKenna's cafe, and McKenna killed the gunman in defense of his restaurant. This scene attracted the attention of the local mafia, and its lead hitman, Torrino, swears that he and McKenna have encountered in the past (Torrino wears the severed finger of his assailant on a pendent around his neck, and McKenna just so happens to be missing a finger).
Like the title suggests, this graphic novel is very violent, complete with imagery of hospitalized patients getting stabbed in the throats, people falling off of buildings and landing in the street, chainsaw fights (you can only assume what those would look like), torture scenes, etc.

The visuals are shocking, yet really cool, and the art style of this comic just furthers that. The illustrations are very messy-looking, scribbly, and utilize heavy crosshatching for values. Some of the things that actually happen in a few of the scenes are bad enough to imagine, but the roughness of the drawings actually make the imagery appear far more painful and intense than they already are; they are given an almost chaotic feel, and it's easy to see the life and action of the drawings through the style. If the drawings were more refined, it would probably be less effective in capturing the intensity and action of the scenarios.
Below are examples of how awesome the messy crosshatching looks, and also cool, morbid imagery :)

Week 10

I kinda like manga. Even though I feel like I watch more anime than read manga nowadays, it's still very enjoyable. This week, I read Battle Angel, and I really enjoyed it. I really liked the universe that the story was set in, it had a dry grittiness to it, despite being set in the future...kind of like the Borderlands games.
The story follows a cyborg who was refurbished from the Scrapyard by a doctor/scientist guy, and becomes a bounty hunter warrior. The idea of cyborgs and dystopian future is cool an all, but what really attracted me to this manga was the illustration. I'm really into high action and dynamic movements, and it's conveyed so nicely in Battle Angel. Since the scenes are high action and there's a lot of movement, the panels are illustrated in a sequential way, and rightly so, because if there were less drawings in an action scene, the intensity of what ever is happening would come across as stale and boring. Having enough drawings to make a shot look more animated is vital when it comes to action.

Here's an example that I liked:

Another thing that I especially liked about this manga was the style. I'm pretty picky when it comes to manga and anime, because I only become invested in the ones that are very stylized. I really dislike the shoujo style; it looks too generic and makes my eyes hurt. If the style looks like something that I've seen before in some other anime/manga, I tend to stray away from it. Like, my top three favorite anime are One Punch Man, Kill la Kill, and Mob Psycho 100. Heck, the One Punch Man manga (not the original drawn by ONE himself, the one following the anime) was absolutely gorgeous to me. Very dynamic, high action, and a great variation of drawing style. Battle Angel gave me those same vibes when I read it, since the visual appeal is related.

Week 9

This week, I read Moebius' Heavy Metal comic. I don't have much experience or knowledge in this comic influence, and what little I know about the culture of this comes from the "Major Boobage" episode of South Park. 
It had a very good first impression on me. I thought this comic had very nice visual appeal, but in a very trippy way. It was colorful and bright, and gave a very otherworldly sensation. It was made up of various short comics by a number of different artists, but each of them seemed to take place on another world or dimension, or something, which was awesome to me. I'm really into all of the sci-fi themes, and any sort of unrealistic setting.
Many of the stories that were in the comic were easy to understand without the dialogue, which goes to show that the visual storytelling was very well done, and the illustrations were very clear and easy to read.
This comic also seemed to have a level of sophistication for an adult comic, than a typical American Underground Comic would. The Heavy Metal comic did have some provocative tones in it, like gore and sexual themes, but it seemed to be implemented purely for aesthetic reasons, where as an American comic would have done it solely for the sake of provoking people.
It was a nice change, and over, the experience was really cool.