From what I’ve seen of other’s posts, I’m glad to see that people aren’t afraid to defend their favorites. Considering that the semester is nearly over, I think such a reflective exercise is appropriate. In that same vein, I’m giving each book an “award.” I will try to keep it brief.

The Grammy for Most Played Out goes to… Persepolis. I think it’s a great book and I don’t think it’s overrated, but so many people have read it/talked about it/reviewed it/reread it that it’s just become too much. It’s like when they’ve played Toadies’ “Possum Kingdom” on DC101 for the nth time and you just want to scream. Oh dear, and now I’ve gone and compared Persepolis to Toadies.

The Emmy for Most Passive Character goes to… Kirie in Uzumaki. This book was a quick, sickly addictive read, but why was she SO SO passive? And why did she stay when her boyfriend kept telling her how freaking terrible the town was?

The Tony for Least Realistic Portrayal of Bipolar Disorder goes to… In My Darkest Hour. I totally agree with Pierce that it should’ve been called The Pathetic Misadventures of a Womanizing, Self-Pitying Douchebag. While the presenters did a good job of sharing some interesting insights, I still did not like this book. I thought it was a superficial representation of bipolar disorder and it didn’t strike me as being particularly “nightmarish.” It was a wannabe thug trying to tell a deep story and failing.

The Country Music Award for Ghettoest Production Style goes to… Jimmy Corrigan. It was a frustrating read (intellectually and physically, what with the book falling apart), but it provided good discussion, so it can’t be all bad. People seemed to either love or hate this book and although I didn’t like it, I can see that such a characteristic means that it is probably worth analyzing.

The Teen Choice Award for Most Esoteric goes to… Fun Home. I thought I would appreciate the literary allusions more, but instead they seemed to embody the pretension that comes with literary criticism that Bechdel tries to avoid. Someone mentioned that they would probably never reread Fun Home and it definitely wasn’t their favorite book, but they understood why it was important to the fabric of the course. Ditto, ditto, DITTO.

The Golden Globe for Fanboy’s Choice Award…is a tie! Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. This tie fascinates me because I devoured DKR and I loathed reading Watchmen. Reading Watchmen was like reading any “classic”– I hated it the whole time until I finished it and, I had to grudgingly admit I understood why so many consider it to be the Bible of modern comics.

The MTV VMA for Most Harmless goes to… American Born Chinese. It seems like after all is said and done, American Born Chinese has landed in people’s “meh” pile. I think we had a lot of interesting things to say about it in class, but it doesn’t seem to have a strong lasting power in people’s minds.

The Oscar for Causing a Little Resentment Toward An American Tail goes to… Maus. I used to love An American Tail when I was a kid, but as soon as I found out that Art Spiegelman had to rush to publish Maus just so people wouldn’t associate it with the movie, I got a little annoyed at Steven Spielberg. I don’t know if he actually ripped Spiegelman off, but it all sounds rather shady.

Well hm, like all award shows, that ran way too long. This post seems really cynical and sarcastic now, but I didn’t mean it that way. I hope it was just an entertaining way of looking back on the semester and feel free to disagree.