The Unwritten Volume 1

Going in I had no clue what Unwritten was going to be about, books I assumed.  I was pleasantly surprised with the story and style.  One thing I didn’t really like was the main character.  There was something about Tom that just seemed annoying.  He only really ever talks about how he was left and abandoned by his dad who never said goodbye, did I mention his dad left him?  Tom has a little too much angst to go with his abandonment issues.  I guess it’s a major part of his life and the story, but it just bugged me.  Overall Unwritten was great aside from Tom’s annoying character traits.

MAUS First reading

I’ve heard about MAUS before from friends that read it in high school, but I didn’t really know what to think going into it.  I really liked how the characters were portrayed as animals.  It helps show really how the Jews and Nazis were playing a game of cat and mouse.  The Jews running away and hiding as best as they could only to be found eventually by the predator.  The Poles being shown as Pigs, I didn’t know what to think of at first, but I suppose you can say how pigs and rats can live in harmony with no problem, just as pigs and cats. What I really liked, though, was how the story is told through the author’s father’s stream of consciousness.  How it goes from Holocaust to the father’s house really made the story seem like a first hand account.  The way the author portrays his characters also really makes them seem real.  His father talks like and has all the mannerisms of an old Jewish man. along with his younger self.  As a young bachelor he chooses a richer, duller looking woman over a fun, poor woman.

Joker through the years

After reading the Dark Knight returns I thought that there was no way that this joker could have been approved by the “Comic Code” of the 50’s.  As it turns out he wasn’t.  This NPR article talks about the history of the infamous trickster.  He started out as homicidal maniac like his current incarnation, but when the comic code was instituted he was turned into a whacky tacky, goofball thief.  As the years progressed and the comic code became more lenient the artists and writers made him become a dark, twisted murderer again.