Weekly Roundup (February 1-3)

If you’re in group 5, you’re responsible for this week’s weekly roundup. Each student in the group will highlight one key moment from the previous week’s online and in-class discussions. To recall the syllabus:

Follow this formula for the highlights: describe the moment (provide the context and the facts about what you saw, read, or heard), interpret the meaning of the moment (what does it mean?), and evaluate its significance (in other words, why was the moment important?).

You can post your highlight in the comments below.

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Professor Sample

Mark Sample is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at George Mason University, where he researches and teaches contemporary and experimental literature, electronic literature, graphic novels, and videogames.

6 thoughts on “Weekly Roundup (February 1-3)”

  1. One thing that stood out to me during our conversation on GODS’ MAN was the discussion of viewer or reader. When you first open the book you are technically viewing each page instead of reading because they are all pictures and no words. But when we look at pictures, we interpret the meaning of them and in some ways that is also like reading each picture. The biggest difference I believe in just reading and reading/viewing is that because there are no direct words towards the viewer there are situations where people end up interpreting the picture differently. An example of that happened in class where one person said that when the guy saw the Money Woman over and over again with other men that it might have actually been happening and it wasn’t all in his head. Others believed that it was him just loosing his mind and making himself see her over and over again. It even could be that he did see her a few times with other men and then started to see her in his mind later. If there were words that we could read we would have a clearer picture of whats going on, therefore there would be no confusion. Since we don’t, though, this book is more or less a viewing than a reading.

  2. In class we talked a lot about the binaries and dualities represented in Gods’ Man. Some of these were good vs. evil, black white, corrupt city vs. pure country, etc. We only saw these after analyzing the “novel in woodcuts”. These deeper meanings found in a book from 1929 with no words is pretty astounding. It shows that graphic narrative as far back as 1929 had literary merit and wasn’t strictly entertainment. Lynd Ward paved the way for the modern graphic narrative to form.

  3. What I took away most from Gods’ Man is how easily details are overlooked. There were several instances in class where a theme or object was pointed out that I didn’t consider. One of the most striking to me was the possibility of the artist’s tie: his inability to tie it; the parallel to it being a noose, especially when he strangles the guard with it; the idea that it is the artist’s own brand. This idea ties into the larger theme of creation versus commerce, which is one of the main themes we discussed in class. I had considered this theme in my own readings of the story, but didn’t explore it in depth as we did in class. It just goes to show that even a story without words has a lot to say.

  4. During class discussion over Gods’ Man, we addressed Lynn’s style and choice of medium, and its effectiveness in playing on binary themes (i.e., black v. white, good v. evil, purity v. corruption, etc.). One observation that really stuck with me was the way the coins looked like communion wafers. Should Ward had been intentional about this imagery (likely), there is this metaphorical sense that currency (or rather, the love of currency) is the foundation and very doctrine of evil, whereas sacramental bread is a foundational and significant symbol of God’s goodness in the Christian Church. I found this observation strikingly important, because binary themes were not only prevalent between particular panels and throughout the overall course of the novel, but in close “reading”, irony was found oozing in a single image standing on its own.

  5. This week we talked about the title of Lynn Ward’s “Gods’ Man”. There were questions to what  Ward was trying to communicate through his title. Ward, of course, attempted to explore this idea simply with The use of woodcut images. This forces the viewer to take an almost animistic view of world that surrounds them in comic/book–what have you. There is a lot of symbolism in front of you As a reader. There are suns and mountains juxtaposed against dollar signs and oppressive cityscapes. This will play out in The mind in a weird way and it brings The reader back to The significance of the title. It seems As though many diffrent symbols represented The many “gods” who the protagonist must contend with in this story.

  6. In discussing the images in Gods’ Man the use of light and dark was brought up. Lynd Ward uses the contrast that woodcuts force on the artist to create scenes that recall German expressionist art. One example that comes to mind is the 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The elaborate sets used in this film are an obvious influence on the twisted cityscapes Lynd Ward draws in Gods’ Man. The confusing and dark atmosphere of the city is built up by these methods, making the use of light and dark key to the success of the artwork. The interplay between dark and light accents some of the dualities in the book such as the juxtaposition between the city and the rural area.

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