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MARCH

MARCH  - John Lewis- What caught my attention was the way the story was told with two different timelines. Starting with John Lewis as an adult, revealing his current accomplishment. Then he began to tell the story of his journey to achieve his dream. The hardships he has to face make it seems like it is almost impossible for him to get what he wanted. Not to mention there has been occasion where he came so close to taking action like after his meeting with Martin Luther King. However, due to the danger the family would be facing, his parents weren’t supportive of his action. This was such a depressing moment; it was hard for me to continue reading. Right after John’s heart was broken; the story was cut to his adult self. This kept me reading to find how he get there, without taking any shortcut. It was also interesting how loving he is to his chickens, one of the most common farm animal. They are almost destined to be eaten, but John still bond and love each of them. It sh
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WIDE WORLD OF COMICS - BLACK SAD

BLACKSAD  A Silent Hell - Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido - Blacksad is such a beautifully executed comic, the artist picked watercolor which is very hard to control. As a result scenes where lighting is high in contrast, many studies has to be done to make sure the composition read well and the tone is suitable for the mood. The two artists are also not afraid to challenge themselves. For example, the scene where Blacksad ate with Thomas under the trees, which creates intricate cast shadow on them, but they managed to make everything still readable. Or the scene in Statoc’s office, with an insane number of people, buildings and balloons. The way the story was delivered was thought out quite well. The characters are illustrated as animals suitable for the street stories, and the animal chosen for the characters describe a lot about the characters. I also noticed female characters tends to have more human features than male.

MANGA

MANGA - YAOI Too Close For Love Cinderella Boy Yaoi is definitely one of the popular genre of manga, especially in Asia. During my trip to Japan, I would find a yaoi section in all the bookstores. Some even have a big inappropriate poster hung up in front of the aisle. I find yaoi very different from other popular manga genres like Shonen or Shojo. While Shonen and specially shojo has a very slow process of developing feeling between couples, Yaoi manga is much more direct and erotic. This is because Yaoi are girl’s fantasy of gay men love life, while most of it is untrue or unlikely to happen in real life. The stories tend to be quite cheesy and predictable. Oddly, a lot of yaoi like to have couples relate in the same family (usually not by blood), like Too Close For Love .

PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP ALMANAC

PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP ALMANAC  This book was very entertaining to read. They seem like comics that I would come across online. I like how simple and straightforward the art and jokes are. The style of art ranges from round simple silhouette to rendered figures, which is very interesting. The simplicity of the art makes it more relevant and funny, while the rendered pages are very pleasing to look at.   I enjoy short comics like this because they are easy to skim through when you eat or wait for something. The stories are spontaneous between pages, you never know what is up next. There aren’t any continuous narrative so it is easy to stop reading when we need to, but because it is so funny I keep want to keep reading more.   This book is hilarious, I’m glad I got to read it during final week. This is what I needed.  

ASTRO CITY

ASTRO CITY  -Kurt Busiek- Personally, I am not a super big fan of superhero comics. But I appreciate that for Astro City, readers don’t need to follow the Marvel Universe to pick up the series like Batman. The story is also very interest and unique because the point of view it’s been told. Readers get to see what a daily life of a superhero would be like. Like “whatever happened to the man of tomorrow”, these series show how many superheroes sacrificed for society including their love life. In-Class Q&A  What is your reaction to the text u just read? In common superhero comic, there are very minimal deaths. Only the villain or a few commoners would die. So, I was shocked when each of superman’s good friend dies one by one. I never expect a superhero comic to be so brutal with most of the main characters dying at the end. Superman broke his oath of not killing, leading to his suicide was another surprising factor. But the artist ended the story well with Mrs
PERSEPOLIS I like how the artist decided to pick graphic novel as a medium to convey her story. Since not a lot of people would know a lot about the Islamic revolution including myself, graphic novels make it easier for readers to visualize it. The story began when Marjane was 10, just like most readers, she is trying to understand what is happening in her society. We get a very personal point of view in how it affected her and her politically active family. When Marjane studied in Austria, she realized no one understands the world as she grew up from. They either have no knowledge or very limited opinion about it. She began to find interest in educating people about Iran, which is one of the reasons she wrote the book. Despite the fact that the revolution and chaos, people do have very different lives from the narrow point of view Iran is shown through media. The government doesn’t reflect on all of the citizens.

ASTERIOS POLYP

ASTERIOS POLYP -David Mazzucchelli- The logic of the comic is quite contradicting since the protagonist is a respectful architecture and professor, however, his design has never been built. But it works well with the fun and spontaneous stories and characters. The visual narrative is very strong with the bold choice of color and style of art. No character is drawn in the same style of art showing that everyone is different in their own way. Each one also has their own font in their word bubbles. When there is some kind of connection between characters, they will be drawn in the same manner and I believe this is a very strong visual narrative element. It also comes to my attention that the panels are autonomous compared to other structural comics with panels right next to each other. Asterios has very well-spaced between panels and illustration making it easy for us to read and skim through the comic. Sometimes a whole page would be reserved for one illustration without