Author Archives: cfinch2

Surchur

I’m not sure if all of these are legitimate, but i’m a big fan of good quotations and she seems to have a few in here.  She talks about the difficulty of grey hair in black and white, something i hadn’t really even thought about, and how she feels about both the writing and the drawing aspects of putting together her works.

http://www.icelebz.com/quotes/alison_bechdel/

Project Muse is great, its where i go for articles when Mason fucks up and doesn’t have them on hand.  This article talks about Fun Home and the way its framed by Joyce and also the extent to which Bechdel acknowledges this influence.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_modern_literature/summary/v032/32.4.freedman.html

And, since this is my last blog post, here are a few more links that I think some may find pretty interesting.

http://www.youcantkilltherooster.com/stories.php?story=10&disp=f

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/deb6d878ce/the-avett-brothers-slight-figure-of-speech?utm_medium=columbia-email&utm_source=theavettbrothers&utm_campaign=columbia-emailtheavettbrothers20091123

and because i’m a Gaiman nerd

http://io9.com/5086663/5-ways-that-sandman-changed-the-world

aaaand if batman and spiderman were lazy or retarded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G18jhC3b53A

First Reader – There’s a lot going on

Let me start by saying that I agree with Jessica in that this book has a few similarities to Jimmy Corrigan, but it is more of a true to life story, where Jimmy Corrigan was an aspect of everyday life (nostalgia/depression/anxiety) pushed to the extreme and embodied in a narrative.  The whole bi-polar/manic-depressive thing really hit home with me, as I’ve had a few friends that, around that age, just sort of snapped and, before it was diagnosed, made quite a few mistakes reminiscent of this.  The embodiment of a man in the prime of his life struggling with the everyday and the monotony is haunting, and the juxtaposition of Santiago’s art style with a collage of photographs of real life gives an extra dimension to the effect and style of the book.  It took me a bit to get used to it, and i don’t know if i ever fully did; it may have distanced me more than anything.  Call me close-minded but when I read a comic, I can get lost in the world, as manufactured and drawn as it may be, but when this comic threw scents of reality at me, it kind of pulled me back out of it all.  This comic, to me, is the inverse of some of the Superhero ones that we started the class with, maybe not in message or mood, but in drive.  Watchmen, Dark Knight, Maus, all of these are pretty much plot driven, but in MDH, there wasn’t much plot to be had.  I will say one thing though; Omar is very much human, there’s no doubt about that.

Respondent – Ending and stuff

I realize that this is a little late, but that’s better than never I hope.  Commenting on the structure of Persepolis, I’m not quite sure that its fair to be pleased or displeased with the ending.  True, reading some sort of narrative, our mind strives for the idea of a wholly symmetrical completion of the story, but for a work such as this, that’s not the point of it all.  In fiction, the craft of the story is often the focus, with the events just as important, but relying on the way that they are presented.  With any sort of non-fiction, the reverse is in order.  The brunt of the work that the reader must be concerned with is the events, with the stylistic elements there to add the creator’s appropriate slant.  I know I’m generalizing here, but bear with me.  To say you like or do not like the ending is to marginalize, in a way, the point of the story in the first place.  A narrative such as this is not just here for our entertainment, but for our stimulus and historical reckoning as well.  Whether we’re pleased or displeased is purely secondary; what is truly important is that we caught the weight of the message the author was conveying.  (Someone please let me know if this rambling makes no sense).  Also, i may come back and add on to this after class today.

Another Interview with Yang

This is a pretty good interview; they sat down with him sometime after he got the Nomination for the National book award.  He talks about what got him into comics in the first place, and what he used to read (Marvel no less). I, Personally, like to know which side of the DC v Marvel  debate published comic authors are on, should they choose a side.  He also talks about whether he uses this as a catharsis for some own personal issues he may have had with his ethnicity.  He also pays homage to works like Maus and Love & Rockets for opening up readers’ and critics’ minds for works of this nature.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=9121

First Reader- Guilt and the photos

I agree with Jessica about this second book to Maus.  Art really does open up about his father and his relationship, and the guilt he feels about not having to be part of a tragedy such as the Holocaust, and that he almost regrets it in a way.  I have felt the same way sometimes, that a simple re-telling of events and stories is not anywhere near doing justice to that part of history, or any other; the only real way to experience it all is to be there yourself.  But at the same time, maybe something like this shouldn’t have to have justice done to it.  I don’t really know if thats the wording i’m looking for; an abysmal streak in human history should be honored, looked at for and example of what not to do and then moved on from.  Moved on from, not forgotten.  This book was just his way of trying to come to terms with it all.

And as far as the real life photos, i think that their placement in the course of the story is well chosen.  Art waited until the end to finally show Vladek, so we went through the story as if it were fiction, picturing whatever face we choose in our minds, and then at the end, we all get to see the real Vladek.  Anna, on the other hand, is shown much sooner, i think to show a face that Art knew and that we could see Vladek missing during his time in Auschwitz.

Respondant – Cats and whatnot

After looking at the original version of Spiegelman’s  three page Maus, I think it really is a great thing that he downplayed the idea of the cat and mouse down to just the talking heads on normal human bodies.  I think the original version was still brutal and realistic in it’s own right, but the representation of dehumanization with so many animal references i think took away from the realism and the emotional connectivity a little bit.  I can understand the cat skull instead of the swastika, but there’s a certain degree of realism that one shouldn’t downplay in a re-telling of a story like this.  The swastika shouldn’t be respected, necessarily, but i’m glad he decided to change it back to the real thing for the final version of Maus, because it’s such a powerful symbol that everyone can relate with, so I feel it draws the reader in closer than the kitty litter and cat skulls of the version before.

I do think that picking cats for the Germans really works for the comic, outside of just the predator/prey realm that it exists in with the Jewish Mice.  I’m not a cat person, so maybe my views on cats are a little slanted, but i don’t really care.  Cats seem to be an indifferent race regardless of what they, or any of their owners, do.  They’ll nonchalantly bring dead mice and birds back to their owners, and they really do everything for their own gain, just like a Nazi for his party.  It’s almost as if they embody the worst parts of human personality, which the inhumanity of the Nazis and the holocaust had in spades.

Searchers: Feasability of Dr. Manhattan

Well i managed to find a few links that might be interesting, so i figured that i’d include them all.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-motion-captured/posts/2009-1-8-an-open-letter-from-watchmen-producers

This is a letter from the producers of the movie version of Watchmen, basically giving their point of view on the transferring of media.  He talks about why it took so long to get the movie of the ground and the difficulties of filming an “unfilmable” graphic novel, because of lack of support, 911, etc.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-accurate-is-watchmen

This was released right before the movie came out, and its a scientific look at just how possible the stuff in this movie/comic book is.  I just think its interesting how the perception has changed from comic books never being taken seriously, to being taken seriously to the point that movie execs and scientists alike are worried about scientific credibility.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/09/alan-moore-on-w.html

Interview with Alan Moore, telling his view on Watchmen and how it was strictly for the comic book medium, and a little more information about him, and other past and future projects.