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Week 14 - "Your Letters" is An Absolute Gem

Your Letter by Hyeon A Cho is about a transfer student who finds letters in her desk. The person who wrote the letter provided a series of clues of his whereabouts. So, Sori teams up with a friend, who seems to have had a connection with the owner of the letter, to find out who this person is. This story is a quiet one, but there is never a dull moment. Nothing supernatural happens, although there’s a witch with a magical garden. It’s very Ghibli-esque. The character’s emotions are pure, and their emotions are in sync with the nature of their environment. My own feelings start to feel like a supernatural aspect of me. Sori has such a strong moral code that she doesn’t change very much throughout the entire comic but inspires courage to those around her. Sori stands up for a girl getting bullied, only to become a victim herself. But that doesn’t stop her from protecting another friend, Eugene, who was also a victim of bullying. Not only are the artistic choices visually app
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Week 13 - Thoughts On "The Killing Joke"

I feel bad for the person Arthur Fleck was before he turned into Joker. He’s lived a life of bad luck and poor choices, and everyone processes trauma differently. Some people find the light at the end of the tunnel, while others can't escape that tunnel. The highlight of this story is that both “good" and “bad” characters were faced with equally horrific situations. The difference was that the Joker succumbed to them while the head of the police was not nearly as fazed because he had established morals to live by. Batman confronts the Joker with this genuine desire to rehabilitate Joker, I am convinced that the Joker was moved at that moment, as his final “joke” revealed how incredibly vulnerable he actually is. As much as he wants to be free of misery, he’s terrified to trust anybody, even if it is a friend. He would rather laugh off the pain rather than return to a life of potential misery. Joker is an awful person, yet we refer to him fondly as a pop culture ico
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Week 12 - "This One Summer" Is Amazing

"This One Summer" completely nails what it’s like to be a young girl who just wants to feel included but not having the maturity to be a part of anything. It is a coming-of-age story with the theme of women. This comic is an absolute gem. This is a story only women can write because it’s deeply personal without being uncomfortably invasive.   When you’re young and you see teenagers in a group, you’re curious as to what they’re talking about. You know your boundaries, but you’ll take any opportunities to fit in.   You’re also in this weird period where you’re socially aware of where you and others stand but are still too young to understand why those boundaries exist; you just know not to cross them. Between these gaps is the level of emotional complexity. She is too young to understand the trauma her mother is going through. She justifies her frustration towards her (and girls in general) based on how other people treat each other. At one point, Rose concludes
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Week 11 - “To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand [Asterios Polyp]”

I skimmed through Fun Home and Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel, as well as Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli, decided to read the latter in its entirety, and completely regretted it. I gravitate towards the quiet introspection of lots of mature comics, which is what pulled me into Alison Bechdel's work. I thought the same for Asterios Polyp, as the beautiful colors and thoughtful compositions was what guaranteed so. But the nature of Asterios Polyp is just plain obnoxious. I’m going to talk about how much I hate Asterios Polyp.  The tone is consistently exclusive, self-righteous, and pretentious.  But wait, isn’t that the whole point of the story? Yes, but it's excessive. Asterios Polyp interpreted life through principles and dualities.  He spent his entire life thinking about what could have been if his brother had been born instead. By the end of the story, he begins to accept reality for what it is and not in theories… but he’s still unlikeable because th
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Week 10 - Quick Thoughts on Manga

During our class discussion, we talked about the nature of old Japanese manga and how its shift in mood threw a lot of colleagues off, myself included. In fact, it feels inappropriate in my eyes. Speaking about being inappropriate, the animated version of Barefoot Gen had a particular scene that was pure horror with nothing to gain from it. I am all for freedom of expression, but there was nothing brave about that scene. Someone really animated the atomic bomb scene of people frying and melting and thought, “Wow, I am giving the people exactly what they want. Everyone must face this reality in the most savage way possible because subtlety is for wimps. This is my kink, and you’re gonna accept it.” It was a completely unnecessary and distasteful shock value. I had a conversation about this with my mom, who grew up with Tezuka’s work, and she said that the shift in moods was meant to evaluate good and bad things on an equal plane. "You should acknowledge the bad things that happ
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Week 9 - A Thought on Blacksad

I’ve been meaning to read Blacksad for a really long time. I haven’t read nor watched much noir, but the art was what pulled me in. I love that the authors are just as concerned with beauty as they are with other aspects of the story. The composition in each panel can stand as its own illustration.  What’s so beautiful about the watercolor medium is that it is very flexible; the colors can start off faint but are buildable to a saturated color. This makes it very easy to create smooth translations for vastly different moods from scene to scene.  I read the first volume of Blacksad, which is centered on the murder of an alluring movie star, whom I noticed has relatively less anthropomorphic features than the men do. Speaking in Scott McCloud's terms, why is that Blacksad, whose facial features appear more cat than human, is viewed as an iconic figure, while this femme fatale, whose appearance is vice versa, is more representative? If the representational style is indicative
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Week 8 - American Born Chinese and Stereotype

American Born Chinese (ABC) is a fun and endearing piece of work. Its humor roots from the neutrality of situations, which is totally my taste. I was curious as to how the sitcom plot was relevant to the main plot, but it was, in fact, Jin’s fantasy of living a normal life as a white American. Had he not been born Chinese, he believes life could’ve been much simpler. He personifies his culture as an annoying person with no depth, an obstacle that haunts him. The entire ordeal is patronizing and mean-spirited but is perceived as humorous. I personally have been ridiculed or patronized for struggling to connect with my cultural identity.   This is why I empathize with Jin as an Asian American myself. A fish out of the water, you have no choice but to assimilate, otherwise, you’re asking for attention, even if you never intended to. To disassociate yourself from your culture is to see it as lesser than the one you were forced to assimilate in. What makes this a mature piece of work
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