I have to admit that the majority of my experiences with only comics have come in the variety of Japanese manga; that said, I was glad to at least be familiar with the presentation of this new medium. Unfortunately, like Phineas, Shooting War was simply way to complicated in it’s delivery for me to completely appreciate the text. I don’t personally have own a laptop newer than 2002 so I had to borrow one of my peer’s laptop’s when I discovered the obvious problems with this micro (or was it macro…) media flash player. What can I say, I don’t do the online thing much…Even with the borrowed, new, seemingly top-of-the-line laptop, I still had issues with the difficulty of fluidity as each page had to load and I would sometimes lose the ability to view the next page with some sort of error message. I received the error messages so much it forced me to “put the book down” and occupy my time elsewhere, something that doesn’t happen with texts. Bayou was better, but not my much.
Still, I love the concept of Shooting War; the title is ALMOST ideal. “Shooting” introducing the idea that the camera is the weapon in the “war”, exchanging film for bullets. Not a new idea, but nicely represented in the title. The camera’s lack of bullets instead uses the lens to provide the focus for the subjectivity of the narration, which forces a lovable appreciation of the “battery life”, “password…login…” type realism that the comic maintains. It helps to remind the reader that the camera is still rolling, and it is providing for your viewing pleasure. There are a number of more things to be said on this comic, of which I will reserve for class but I will conclude that I wish the title were “Shooting Life”. It would have moved up two notches in my book.