Will Eisner - Week 5

When I first started Contract With God, I did not realize how sad it was going to be. It starts off at such a quick low and in the character development of Frimme Hersh you start feeling sad for him and what is going on with his life so fast. It really is written very well and the imagery used for each page works incredibly well with the writing. Each one of the stories in Contract With God was interesting though and they all had this feeling of sadness that you couldn’t help but feel for some characters and aspects of their lives. After the second one, when I got onto the third I was literally just like waiting for the sad part to come and feel bad for the character. It really is just written with such emotion.

            I think Eisner does a really good job though of mixing the two (story and imagery), but as bigger focus on the story. The imagery wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for these stories so I think that fact that he just really nails you right in the heart with these stories the artwork just exemplifies the story that much more emotionally. Good work, Will Eisner for hitting the feels on this one.

Comic Books - Week 4

Comic Books. Superman, Batman, The Human Torch, etc. These are the stories and characters I believe people most closely associate comic books with and think about when even simply the word “comic” is spoken. I read a couple of these because honestly these are what most interest my in the comic and graphic narrative world. These are things that I personally grew up being seen turned into movies and I would always want to go see. Comic books with superheroes, I feel, is what most young boys are interested in and I think that this has a profound effect on what we read or even want to see in movies still today. For example I cant even comprehend how many of my friends want to go see that because they've "read the comics" or "seen some of the writing and stories before." The crazy unnatural characters, the fight scenes, and the good guy always winning over the bad evil character. How can you not want to hear about that?

Now, what I found interesting to me are the comics that I haven’t seen (basically any without superheroes). I read some of the other styles such as the Disney comics as well as the EC Comics. It’s interesting to me because I just don’t know why I never saw these. I think they’re just as engaging and good as the superhero comics, but I have never really read any of these.

Nemo, Krazy-Kat, & Charlie Brown - Week 3

“Nemo in Slumberland”

I found “Nemo in Slumberland” to be very strange but also very interesting. I’m not someone who has read many comics or graphic novels etc. but this one seemed very different than any of the comics strip style stories that I have ever seen. I really enjoy how every story starts and ends with him in bed and you find out he was dreaming so the consistency I think I enjoy but also enjoy how varied the adventures and dreams are that Nemo goes on. Also the clowns are all really creepy when they’re used.

“Krazy-Kat”

Now compared to Nemo this was an entirely different type of comic strip. Stripped down the core basics of some squiggled rough characters and words this comic I found to actually be pretty funny. I liked how they’re just short sweet and to the point with a little hook in the third or fourth box. If you don’t want to read a full narrative or just want a little laugh I think these are great. Some of the wording is a bit older fashioned I think but still all the “Krazy-Kat” comics are fairly easy to read and quite entertaining in my opinion.

“Peanuts”  

What’s not to love about “Peanuts” and Charlie Brown and the whole gang? This to me is one of the most classic comics of all time next to things like Batman, etc. I loved looking at the 1950s comics to see what the characters looked like from his first stories and to see how the characters haved changed and also what remained the same through all the years of “Peanuts”.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

    When I started The Arrival I was almost confused at first how it could be a whole story of just pictures. After reading the images and going page by page I was really impressed with how easy it actually is to just read this. As a motion designer we have to create storyboards quite often and this is like story boarding to me but without all the extra markings which are not even necessary. As you are reading through this story these images really capture the moods and feelings that are trying to be portrayed by the man as well as everyone and everything going on around him. You feel his sadness at certain times and you can sense his feeling of struggles and confusion as he goes to the new place. I really like how time passing is shown through this with using an object or environment and having it be changing slightly picture to picture with a lot of them on the page. I also found it interesting how they made the character show what he was looking for when he was asking for something, with using a book and drawing pictures because the people could not understand what he was trying to say because of a language barrier in the new land. The way the character is depicted through the story along with other characters like the old man in the factory help to tell the story with the way they are staged as well as with their facial expressions and reactions to things that were happening. I really enjoyed this piece and thought it was a great read.