Persepolis

For this week I read Persepolis which I think is absolutely fantastic. There is a huge stereotype towards Iranians which mostly deals with them being evil terrorists. Persepolis helps break that horrible stereotype, by following the autobiographical story of Marjane Satrapi. The book to me helps stand as a reminder that we are all human, and not everyone is evil.
I'm pretty amazed the book is currently in the process of being banned in schools in Chicago. They are claiming banning Persepolis would help cut down on gun crime. Persepolis is not about promoting violence at all. It is an incredibly important work of literature that all students should read because it talks about a culture unfamiliar to us. Plus there is a horrible stereotype about Iranians that causes discrimination and profiling.

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

I think out of this whole semester of reading comics, Daniel Clowes is probably one of my favorites. I read like a velvet glove cast in iron, which was incredibly surreal and dream like. I read up on the inspiration behind the story which was about dreams he would have, and some of his ex wifes dreams as well. The story perfectly captures the feeling that all the strange and odd are totally normal in this world. It sure makes for a far more interesting story than any Windsor McCay comic. The title "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" refers to one of my favorite badass old movies Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! which everybody should watch. It's very fitting

I really like how most of Daniel Clowes work is how he depicts everyday life which very ugly and bizarre. Every one looks like they crawled out of a Wal-Mart at 2 a.m. Or if they look remotely normal they are probably the most strange and fucked up person. Like the cops in the book that pull over a prostitute, and rape her. They look perfectly normal but their true disgusting selves are masked by their "normal" appearance. 

Manga week

Well Manga Week kind of turned into three weeks of manga confusion. So I ended up reading a lot of Manga. At first I read a bunch of short stories by Junji Ito. All of Junji Ito stories are all horror stories. He uses very detailed grungy imagery to drive home the point that it is a horror story, and a bit of a shock factor. His stories are generally incredibly creepy, bizarre, and fun to read. I also feel like his stories are sometimes a bit lacking, and a bit shallow. In some stories he relies more on the images to scare the viewer, like "The Woman Next Door". Other stories like Uzumaki which is about the curse of the spiral, are very focused on all these supernatural events that  just keep getting worse. The scariness of the story is more of just a pure shock factor, instead of a more psychological factor.  Also Uzumaki's ending to me is unsatisfying because it just feels like this is how the world is, and there is nothing you can do about it.

After the guest lecture I wanted to contrast with some of my manga choices with some shoujo manga. Which is geared more for  a teenage female audience.  I read a pretty popular shojou manga called. Ouran High School Host Club. It takes place in a incredibly wealthy respected high school, and the main character has received a scholarship to attend. She is mistaken for a man by the school's host club. Due to a set of unfortunate events she is in debt to the host club, and is forced into joining the club to pay off her debt. It has the two most important elements in any shoujo manga teenage love, and mistaken identity. If I were 14 when reading this, I think I would be really into it. Pretty much any romantic story to me at that time would interest me. Most shoujo reminds me of the Shakespeare play Twelfth Night, because of the mistaken identities, a giant cast of people, and all the crazy love triangles.

Maus

For this week I read Maus by Art Spiegelman, which just immediately sucked me in. The story is surprisingly well paced, and it moves rather quickly. I like when a chapter ends the characters in the book are tired, and want to take a break. I really enjoyed the build of of events happening in the story. You are not immediately thrown into the concentration camps. In the book I remember the father not wanting the son to talk about his life before the concentration camp because it had nothing to do with the story.Which I disagree knowing more about a characters backstory, and who they were before these events happened makes you feel more for the characters. The father son relationship is very interesting because of how emotionally distant it is. The son wants his father to be there for him emotionally. I'm sure the father wants the same thing but because of what has happened to him it's almost impossible for him to express this to his son.

This book was made in 1991 I'm just very surprised it took so long for graphic novels to be finally viewed as serious pieces of literature. It definitely carves the way for graphic novels like Blankets, and Asterios Polyp to be taken seriously. I'm a little surprised how ineffective Will Eisner's graphic novels were. I think why this novel was able to be taken so serious was because of the subject matter of the novel. Anything dealing with the holocaust is going to be a very serious, and heavy topic in history. It will automatically not be grouped for just kids which is fantastic. Just like the anime we watched in class dealing with the bombings of Hiroshima. Both works bring awareness and understanding to the events. Both of these events  It is defiantly a stepping stone showing graphic novels can be taken seriously with the right subject matter. One of my favorite graphic novel writers, Luke Pearson does this in his books

Also I am a big fan of the style of this graphic novel. It looks like the artist made all the panels out of linoleum cut prints. Art spiegelman's style defiantly reminds me of some of the crude styles from underground comics which i really enjoy. The style gives it more of this serious tone that is a bit dark. I don't think Maus would be as effective if it had more of a Carl Barks style to it. Which would honestly be pretty creepy.

I have a few comics suggestions as well if anybody is interested Luke Pearson's Everything We Miss is an amazing read.

Underground Comics

I've been looking forward to the underground comic week for sometime now.  I enjoy absurd in your face comics dealing with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I read mostly gay comix, tits and clits, and a few Robert Crumb comics.
I really enjoyed Robert Crumbs work, but I was really put off at the amount of text per image panel. The beautiful grungy images were just so over powered with the text that was incorporated poorly.

The tits and clits comics besides from having an awesome name, were funny and enjoyable. It was awesome to know that it was an all woman publication. I'm all for sex-positive feminism, and sexual freedom. All the stories were focused on women, and their desires. Also I thought that the vibrator ads were very perfect for this publication.

Gay Comix also had really interesting short stories. Gay comics had more of an array of stories from sex hungry gay men to lesbians looking for love. Again it's awesome that everybody that contributed to gay comix were openly gay. Most of the stories in this comic seem like a bit autobiographical. I remember one comic about a guy going to a gay bar looking for a man to have sex, and just thinking about his family and how they view him. This story reminded me of one of my friends from back home and how he about his family and himself. The story about the bisexual girl, and her journey of coming out was really charming. It was a very personal story that she shared with the world, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to her.

Body Talk

I'm really disappointed in myself for not picking up Will Eisner sooner. I read Will Eisner's New York City, life in the big city. The language used for the titles of the short stories was just amazing. One in particular that really stood out to me was Jericho which pretty much is just the destruction of a facade of a building.
Then other stories like The Last Man are really relatable to people who have lived in NYC. Where it's a guy rushing to get on a subway car thats too full, and is left to wait for another car. This even has happened to me way too many times.

The Comic book

This week I focused on Carl Barks, and Herge. As a child I grew up reading, and consuming everything TinTin related so needless to say I was very excited for this week. This is the first time I have read any Carl Barks, but I can understand the universal appeal of his stories. Especially the stories with Uncle Scrooge, I just really enjoy the idea of an old miser that is a duck and swims in pools of his money. The stories are entertaining enough, and are very safe stories with not much risque behavior like in TinTin. Where they often get drunk and sometimes say pretty racist things.

When reading TinTin I went on a huge nostalgia trip to when I was seven. I remember receiving a few TinTin books from my aunt, and when I started to read them I was hooked. I reread the books so many times. For a brief period I also had a giant crush on TinTin, and had the hopes of one day growing up and marrying him. After many years, and crushed dreams of marrying a fictional character  TinTin is exciting, and still very enjoyable.