Author Archives: chandrabrandon

Respondent to: Fun Home (2nd Week)

I have to say that I disagree with your perception of Fun Home.  As an avaricious reader, not only do I welcome lofty literary references, but I don’t mind, no, enjoy finding out about new writers and books through references made in whatever material I’m digesting.  I’m also an English major, so I fit into your imagined demographic of who would like this book. I don’t think that Bechdel used these references superficially, every reference had a purpose within the story. The Importance of Being Earnest is glaringly symbolic in regards to her father’s secret life. The Albert Camus references are integral to dissecting the anatomy of suicide. I don’t think the author went in circles in her repeated anaylsis. I don’t think that she could concretely say who her father was and what he intended the day that he stepped in front of that Sunbeam truck. I think that her perception probably changes everytime she runs the memories through her head, it’s never the same story twice. She’s examining the fluid quality of her memories, what she recalls versus what she wrote in her diary, her memories of her father and her mother’s revelations. Bechdel won me over with her courageous honesty and sense of humor. She is more “real” to me than the other authors and auto-biographies that we explored in this course. The list as requested:

Favorite: Jimmy Corrigan- This has become one of my favorite books I have ever read. The language is absolute poetry, go back and check out  the segment of his grandfather (as young Jimmy) snuffing out his oil lamp at bedtime, or the part where he askes his mother if she’ll recognize him in Heaven. I LOVE how all the components wrap up together, and the ending is perfect. Yes, I said it. Perfect. (I’m pretty sure I am totally alone on this one.)

2. Maus- the story just doesn’t let you go, and the author’s conflict with his father is relatable to anyone with parents.

3. Fun Home- see above

4. Watchmen- Loved the art, the story, the twist at the end, the alternate history/reality, loved Rorschach. I think this needs to be judged on it’s own merits, completely aside from the movie.

5. Uzumaki- remarkably original, genuinely creepy and I loved the artwork. I had never read manga before reading this and I’m actually checking out horror manga now.

6. The Dark Knight Returns- This got me into superhero comics/graphic novels. I loved the grit and I’m a sucker for anti-heroes, so I loved Frank Miller’s portrayal of Batman (“the goddamn Batman”.) I agree, the artwork is  beautiful.

7. In My Darkest Hour– I liked this because it actually drew me in despite the fact that I loathed the main character. I was fascinated by what a cockroach Omar is and I thought the story was told in an interesting way- hints being dropped through emails, notes, photographs. I like bizarre, original, artwork so I appreciated the grotesque collages. I didn’t find the story non-sensical at all, I think it follows a  linear path.

8. American Born Chinese– this book is totally entertaining and a fun read, but I don’t feel that Yang is making any unique or interesting statements about race and identity. Actually, the book is completely one-dimensional; rejecting your cultural identity is bad, it’s better to just be yourself. Nothing groundbreaking there. As I’ve mentioned before on Twitter, does race= cultural identity? The author seems to think so, which is pretty insulting. And there are only Asian and white kids at this school?? I would like to know how African Americans and Jewish people fit into the statements and assumptions being made in this book. I’m also not huge on Christian imagery, and the author seems to jam it into the readers face at the expense of the storyline.

9. The Complete Persepolis- this book is just a tedious read. Young Marjane is a bratty, entitled, know-it-all who transitions into a self-satisfied adult. I’m not saying the story is without value, I knew virtually nothing about this period in Iran’s history before reading the book. I have since added Waltzing with Bashir to my Netflix list.

Searchers- Fun Home and other disturbing families in graphic novels

When I first saw Fun Home on the syllabus, I mistook it for another novel revolving around a daughter and father called Daddy’s Girl.  Daddy’s Girl  is an incredibly disturbing, semi-auto-biographical, account of incest. It originally ran as a strip in New York Press in the 90’s, and was published in 1995. It won the Ignatz Award, fell out of print, but is now available in hard back form as of 2008, a testament to the power of the story.  The author’s family unfortunately completely denies any abuse took place, but Dreschler’s sister who witnessed most of the abuse (although was not abused herself) acts as a witness to the veracity of the author’s story. Her parents, and the rest of her family except for her one sister, stopped speaking to her after the strip was published. The strips feature the protagonist “Lily” being sexually abused on a nightly basis by her father while her sister pretends to sleep. Lily’s father makes her feel guilty about the abuse (as many abusers do, tragically layering guilt onto the pain of the abuse itself) and she feels that she is the “seducer” and tries to protect her mother from the truth, although it’s suggested throughout the novel that her mother may be aware of it.  The second part of the novel features a girl named “Franny” who is raped by a drug dealer in the woods, and then becomes consumed with guilt and shame for placing herself in the situation that resulted in the attack. Both protagonists are vulnerable girls (Franny is the lonely, new girl in town, desperate to make friends) suffering at the hands of older, male abusers. There are some parallels between Fun Home and Daddy’s Girl in the exploration of the relationship between father’s and daughters, how painful the truth can be, the denial of dysfunction and the desperation to appear normal to the outside world.

Just to be clear, this book is very graphic and very disturbing.  I felt nauseated reading it, and you can’t easily shake the dirty feeling away after the book ends.

http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2008/04/28/debbie-drechsler-on-daddys-girl/   Interview with author from 2008 when the book was re-printed.

Another better interview, from Vice from 1996 when the strips first came out  http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2006/05/22/ten-years-ago-in-vice-daddys-little-slut/#more-4407

Searchers- Interview with Santiago about his Roberto Clemente graphic novel biography

http://www.bugsandcranks.com/the-clubhouse/baseball/an-interview-with-wilfred-santiago-author-of-21-a-graphic-novel-about-roberto-clemente/

 

Wilfred Santiago’s graphic novel, 21, about the life of Roberto Clemente came out in 2008, unbeknownst to me. I was somewhat surprised that Santiago is  an avid baseball fan, with the impression I gathered from him after reading In my Darkest Hour.  He mentions in the interview that 21 reveals his influences and passions before getting into comics, and that he began collecting baseball cards at the same time he started collecting comic books. Santiago’s other books are erotic graphic novels; Pink and The Thorn Garden, clearly he’s an eclectic writer. The common thread between his stories seem to be the biographical (or auto-biographical) material.  At the end of the interview he shares a response in line with my assumptions about his personality: 

“I do have some issues with the institution of organized baseball, professional sports in general. Too many things turn me off. So I don’t enjoy watching baseball as much as I liked playing it as a child.”

Santiago; not a fan of institution.

First Readers: “The Complete Persepolis”: Innocence and the Morality of Children

   As I read the first few pages of The Complete Persepolis I felt alienated from the protagonist. I couldn’t relate to her conversations with God nor her desire to be a prophet. The first 15 pages I struggled to empathize with her pious yearnings and her saccharine, unquestioned devotion to religion. I also felt the artwork distanced me from any real connection to the characters. Afterall, when the characters are difficult to tell apart due to the complete lack of human detail (even the expression lines that appeared in American Born Chineselended some emotion and humanity to the cartoonish characters) it’s hard to react to the storyline. After finishing half of the book, I realized that the artwork served as a foil to the serious and provocative content within the book’s pages. When I reached page 33 I began to understand Marjane and remembered a time when I was a child and when good and bad seemed so obvious. Her childish sense of injustice and rage was similar to my own reaction as I read the story of her maid’s cruel rejection. Marjane has a deep sense of what the world should be versus her reality. Reading further, I recalled times in my own childhood when my conscience was easily (too easily) swayed by my parents or peers. Marjane wants to nail Ramin to a tree because his father admitted to killing people. She quickly recants, but only because her mother admonishes her violent plan and Ramin explains that his father killed communists who are evil. Further on when Marjane hears about the torture that one of her family’s friends endures while in prison, and her mother’s negative opinion of forgiveness, she once again changes her stance on the virtue of forgiveness. On page 52 her pathetic, naive sense of right and wrong is laughable; “I wasn’t completely wrong when I said he wasn’t on a trip.” Marjane even goes the extent of making up stories of her father’s torture, ironically lying to bring her family honor. Even while her Uncle Anoosh tells her the story of his imprisonment she can’t help but gleefully compare it to Laly’s father’s imprisonment.

In Marjane’s childish logic, she sees everyone as either wholly good or bad; hero or insignificant. Marjane can’t comprehend someone forfeiting a courageous end in order to save his own life. Satrapi is incredibly honest and blunt in her treatment of her childhood self. She clearly admits to her own naivete. However, that sense of guilelessness quickly dissipates as Marjane is faced with an increasingly violent reality.

Response: Likeability vs Realism

As a reader I didn’t find Jin neccesarily likeable, but I could relate to him. Jin represents those painful, awkward, moments of adolescence that everyone experiences. Jin isn’t a wholly likeable character because he’s a reminder of all of our embarrassing moments and teenage angst. I think it’s easy for readers well into their college years and older to look back at that time in their  development and cringe, and watching Jin fumble through his school days and social life is definitely cringe-inducing i.e. on page 95 “Huh huh..at least I didn’t rake the breast.” I think Jin not standing up for himself is realistic (definitely not admirable), I think we all had moments of impotent rage in our adolescence that we didn’t know how to address. Who hasn’t wanted to tell off a popular kid only to cowardly back down and  later  fantasize revenge? I think what makes Jin easy to dislike is his treatment of Wei-Chen. Jin is desperate to distance himself from his cultural identity which has been the source of teasing and torment. It’s kind of heartbreaking to read how Wei-Chen describes Jin to Suzy when they’re locked in the closet when Jin tried to resist even befriending him in the first place. Yang is brilliant at accurately depicting the fickle nature of adolescent friendship without patronizing the reader with a big “here’s what we all learned” message. I think Jin gallantly standing up for himself and his friends would ring as false and unrealistic with most readers. The passivity which allows racism is definitely exasperating, and yet unfortunately very real. As terrible as it sounds, there’s something about the hardness and callousness of youth that makes overt racism seem more okay than it is in adulthood (for example the classmate asking Jin if he eats dogs), or perhaps racist adults are better at hiding their prejudiced views.

Overall, I definitely agree that Jin isn’t likeable, but Yang didn’t insult the reader by presenting a sugar-coated story.

Group 3 Searchers Art Spiegelman’s “Getting in Touch with My Inner Racist”

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1997/09/getting-touch-my-inner-racist

 

In this article Art Spiegelman recalls a shameful incident from his past when he’s forced to discuss racism with his children.  It’s interesting to compare this story to Vladek’s reaction to the hitchhiker.  Spiegelman admits that he used a  racial slur to intentionally offend the orderly who denied him a much needed bathroom trip. It’s difficult to say which is worse; Vladek, a survivor of the most terrible result of prejudice and intolerance, who is repelled buy the idea of picking up a black hitchhiker or Art who admits to having a black friend in his youth and who grew up in a more progressive time calling someone a name he knows will wound them. Spiegelman doesn’t try to romanticize his father’s identity in Maus and in this article he doesn’t try to sugar-coat his own bad behavior.

First Reader- Reality in Watchmen

 In Watchmen the divide between art/time/memory and reality is so blurred the notion of “life imitating art” is visible on nearly every page.  On page 14 of Chapter 7 when Dan and Laurie first make love an ad for “Nostalgia” perfume is on the television in the background (“Unforgettable you”. Even the slogan is a line from a song about memory- Nat Cole “Unforgettable”). “Nostalgia” perfume is featured in several panels thereafter, page 25 in Chapter 7 a large billboard is visible in the background that reads “Oh, how the ghost of you clings….Nostalgia”. In Chapter 8 “Nostalgia” appears again on the cover page of Chapter 9 and on page 24 Laurie breaks a bottle “Nostalgia” destroying the complex structure that Jon built on Mars.  It’s interesting that this product appears throughout the novel as a piece of the reality of their world, along with The Black Freighter. The reoccurence of these images ties in the emotional and violent turmoil of the characters. The Black Freighter, the ship of death, seems to parallel the nuclear holocaust lurking on the horizon. Memories also play a vivid role in Watchmen. Laurie realizes who her real father is in Chapter 9 as she re-lives a moment with a snow globe in her childhood.  Memories have a real, however, abstract root in reality. On page 6 of Chapter 9 Jon explains that: “There is no future. There is no past. Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.”  The memories of the past still exist in their own tiny worlds, like time capsules that re-play at the first suggestion of nostalgia.

Masked Heroes in Real Life: “Master Legend” – Searchers

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/25020634/the_legend_of_master_legend

 

This is a long article (definitely worth the read) from Rolling Stone about masked crime fighters in real life. The article features Master Legend and his sidekick Ace, who wage war against the powers of evil, in the Orlando, FL area, specifically. Master Legend reminds me of the “self-made” heroes from Watchmen like Nite Owl or Silk Spectre.

 “Like other real life super-heroes, Master Legend is not an orphan from a distant dying sun or the mutated product of a gamma-ray experiment gone awry. He is not an eccentric billionaire moonlighting as a crime fighter. He is, as he puts it, ‘just a man hellbent on battling evil.'”

Master Legend’s crime fighting uniform is made of puncture proof rubber, although he admits a knife has never been close enough to test the material. His “Batmobile” is his trusty 1986 Nissan pickup truck. There are other heroes like Master Legend, living in our midst, many of them are listed on the “World Superhero Registry”. Some heroes are even police-sanctioned and in communication with police officers and chiefs all over the country.

“If there existed a Master Legend Issue 1, it would flash back 26 years to his origin story in New Orleans, where the teenage hero’s identity was forged in poverty and abuse. ‘My momma and daddy were not good people,’ he says. ‘Through them, I saw how cruel the world can be.’

To be honest that last line made my stomach hurt, I wish Master Legend would publish an auto-biography.

“Project Girl Wonder” Robin in “The Dark Knight Returns”- Searchers

http://henryjenkins.org/2009/06/an_interview_with_mary_borsell.html

This link is to an interview with Mary Borsellino who authored Boy and Girl Wonders: Robin in Cultural Context. The interview explores the conception of Robin, who has been played by a girl twice in the Batman series, the first time by Stephanie Brown, who even sewed her own red skirt to match her costume.  The first time Robin was played by a “Girl Wonder” the idea was “handled clumsily with obvious institutional sexism” (Borsellino). Stephanie Brown was controversially tortured with a drill, killed and promptly forgotten by Batman. Borsellino makes some interesting points about the concept of the “Side-Kick”….often the side-kick represents a group already marginalized by society, whether it’s through gender, race, or physical ability.  Robin, played by Carrie Kelley in The Dark Knight Returns becomes a “transgender” figure, as she is even more androgynous in costume than civilian life, she’s even referred to as a “boy” on the news.  Stephanie Brown’s Robin was quite androgynous as well, before becoming Robin she was “Spoiler” who even fooled her own father into believing she was a boy. However, Borsellino seems hyper-sensitive to the gritty and realistic dialogue in The Dark Knight Returns; I think the salty language matches Miller’s vision of Gotham City and it’s inhabitants.  Her feminist criticism The Dark Knight Returns can only accomplish so much, although her theories about Robin are worth taking a look at.