Lit. of Comics & The Graphic Narrative

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 beca...

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...

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 indic...

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 ...