The Meek

I know...I know...another webcomic. I can't help it! They're my favorite! (Partially because there so gosh-darn easy to find, but also because of the type of stories people usually get to tell in them!!)

The Meek is a comic by Der-shing Helmer, and it's super intriguing. I had come across this comic when it first started, but then stepped back and kind of forgot about it due to being too impatient to wait for updates on something so compelling [read: cliff hangers kill me]. This was a great excuse to catch up on a wonderful comic. Unfortunately, the author/artist has been having health problems so the comic has been on hiatus since January.

The art of The Meek is strong in many ways--good anatomy, good colors, nice mood, great environments, so of course that helps make it an easy read. But more than that, the storytelling so far has been able to give a lot of information about who each character is with very few words and pictures. Within a couple pages, the audience already has an understanding of who a new character is, how they work, and what their motives are. It's all done quite subtly.

At this point in the story, the fourth chapter has just been started. Each chapter up to this point had been focusing on a different character, in completely different areas of the world without knowing yet quite how their stories will intertwine. The beginning of the fourth chapter brings us back the characters that were introduced in the first. That is, Angora and Pinter. What I first found really intriguing about this comic was Angora's unabashed nudity, proving that you can have a naked (and female) character run around without being sexualized. She's some kind of jungle girl who has plant-like hair capable of growing flowers, or so she says. In the second chapter, we focus on the ruler of the country, Luca. He design presents a very serious man who doesn't want to be hassled or annoyed, quick to want war. In in the story, however, we see that there is so much more to him. His relationship with his wife shows him to be less sure-of-himself than he presents himself to be, making an absolutely lovable character. His wife also, in just one scene, became my favorite character. But....(spoiler alert) she dies. And quickly. Her murder looks like it's going to be a major catalyst in the rest of this story, unfortunately we're just not there yet.

And there's the downfall of webcomics. When you're contracted to work on a comic, when you're getting money for it, and when there's a larger corporate body spending money for your comic, you are much more likely to be compelled to finish it. Webcomics take much more dedication just to keep up with, especially since the only money you'd get back is usually going to be from donations made from viewers, any money you can make from merchandise, or possibly getting it printed. And then the downside to the printing is that only the die hards will likely buy it, as many people would not see the merit in buying a physical copy of something that they could read for free online.

I really hope that The Meek doesn't become yet another webcomic to fall into a forever-hiatus and drop off the face of the internet. It's a great read so-far, but mostly it just leaves us hanging at this point. Please, get better soon, Der-Shing!

Scott Pilgrim

Scott Pilgrim is something of a triumph for my generation. The humor is basically what anyone currently between the ages of 15-25 absolutely thrives on, what with the video game references, the variety of characters, and the general kookiness of the plot. I'll recap, even though it's kind of unnecessary thanks to the movie version: Scott Pilgrim falls head over heels for the new girl in town, Ramona flowers, and decides that he will do anything to date her. It turns out that's a tall order when Ramona has seven evil ex-boyfriends (one of them is actually an ex-girlfriend) who have formed a league out to destroy her love life and anyone else who might attempt to date her. It's a new twist on the classic "boy must fight for girl's love," except in this case, the girl is a lot cooler than the bumbling idiot of a hero and also the heightened stakes make for absolutely ridiculous circumstances.

The way Scott Pilgrim uses pop culture is brilliant. Some are simple ways that merely help expand on the character's personality, like when Ramona constantly changes her hair color, very counter-culture/hipster/artsy, because of how fickle she is. Often, it's simply for humor, like when Matthew Patel, the first evil ex, attacks Scott with "demon hipster chicks," or when one of the evil ex's is presented as having magical powers since he's vegan, or when a rival band member turns out to be robotic. The world Bryan Lee O'Malley creates is just bursting with these kinds of references. The video games element is amazing within the series and is utilized in so many different ways:
~the fights themselves, with each battle getting progressively harder than the last and building up to the big Boss battle at the end.
~video game style mechanics, like earning lives and leveling up to get better weapons.
~my personal favorite touch, the coins left after each ex is defeated. The literally turn into a pile of pocket change.
~the use of graphics (simulated perfectly within the movie) very similar to the UI of fighter games.

The style the comic is drawn in makes is really easy to like the characters, they're very simple, yet given distinct personalities. My personal favorites are Wallace, the gay roommate who is absolutely brilliant and practically magical in his meddling in Scott's life, and Kim, who delivers lines with such a perfect deadpan. While I realize that this post is meant to focus on the comic, I really do have to mention how happy I was with the casting and handling of this movie; Wallace was almost even more brilliant in the film. One problem, however, that I had with both versions was Ramona. She didn't seem worth all the fighting to me, especially in the film. In the comic, her past and personality are explored in much more depth than the movie, obviously for time constraints, but taking those parts away from her make her....eh, not so compelling. In a way, I can accept it knowing her backstory from the comics and also because part of the purpose of this story seems to be breaking down the illusions of "the perfect love interest" and "the perfect hero," since both Scott and Ramona are deeply flawed characters.

Overall, I love this series, even the movie version! I'd really love to read more from Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Bad Machinery

Bad Machinery is another webcomic, one that I admit has been on my reading list for a while but didn't get around to reading until it was actually assigned. (Sad, right?) The story centers around a group of British, middle school-aged children who do middle school adventure type things, including solving mysteries! This scores big points with me, personally, because I really miss those types of stories from my childhood. As an added plus, some of these mysteries involve fantastical creatures like selkies, spirits, and aliens.

The humor is great, very British on a few levels, but also very modern--perfect for my generation. Reading from beginning to end (end meaning the most recent page), Charlotte quickly became my favorite character, boisterous and silly, quick to judge, usually smiling, and always full of ideas...mostly bad ideas. The adults, also, are full of interesting personality quirks. For example, the teacher Mr. Beckwith must remind himself that he is an adult and does his best to create a "teacherly" look for his class because that's the way school is supposed to be. His wife, meanwhile, is quite bohemian and dislikes formality when relating to children.

At first, the British slang is a little hard to get used to, but with time I learned the language. I feel like these kinds of posts are meant to go deeper into the meaning of stories, and I'm having trouble doing that with this story since it tends to be fairly surface-level humor. Not that there's not depth to it, it's just more middle schooly. Overall, this comic is extremely enjoyable, and I'd recommend it to anyone with a love of silliness.

Lackadaisy

I first discovered webcomics some time during high school, introduced to them by a friend of a friend. The first ones I remember were Earthsong and Inverloch. What I really found intriguing about this genre was the interactivity with the author/artist and the audience. Both of those webcomics (and many other webcomics) have/had very active forum communities. The author participated actively, listening to what the audience really enjoyed and what they were wondering about with the characters.

Lackadaisy was a comic I came across a couple years ago. The premise is about a speakeasy in Prohibition Era Missouri and the trials that its rumrunners go through. Oh, and all the characters are presented as cats. Not that they really need to be cats, but it really does add something to the comedy of it (and there is a surprising amount of comedy). Tracy Butler has some amazing drawing skills, especially when it comes to rendering textures. It's quite obvious that if she wanted to, the entire comic could be humans, but then in wouldn't be as fun. The expressions really bring these characters to life, especially the manic faces of Rocky. Each of her characters have their own distinct personality, from the demure and cunning Mitzi to the strong and stoic Viktor to the extremely Irish, extremely motherly Nina.

What also makes this webcomic really stand out is the attention to detail and historical accuracy. Reading through the archives is almost like a mini-history lesson as each comic page is often followed by a few comments from the author about when things were invented or came into common use and what kind of jargon and political issues were big at that time. Between the interactivity with the author (who is also the artist) as well as information on the expanded universe, reading the comic becomes more of a cultural experience. I definitely recommend this comic to anyone looking for a laugh, some action, and some really well-developed characters. Oh, and if you like cats. That's good, too.

Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You

Neil Gaimen's Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You was very different from what I expected. Truly, I'm not sure what I had really expected...I guess something more superheroey since that's the focus this week? Coming into this comic, it seems to be par to of a series which I am obviously not previously familiar with. We our introduced to a strange line up of characters, jumping back and forth with mysterious "dream land" pages. These characters end up in the dreamland to help save their friend Barbie, despite their own real life problems. Though at first, I am confused by some of the pacing and things shown at the beginning, but quickly find the characters and begin to appreciate it. But then it takes a turn. Everything gets quickly and unexpectedly violent, weird, and then followed by one of the most cliche storylines I've seen. Even after reaching the end of the book, I'm not sure if it was really that bad or if it was supposed to be kind of cliche and stupid? That storyline, of course, is the whole girl is princess of fantasy dream world inside her head. Sure, he throws in more violence than you'd normally see, but the fact that I myself wrote something of nearly the exact same Wizard of Oz-type story in the 2nd grade I think proves it.

Honestly, what I found most interesting in this story were the "kooky" collection of characters, almost too obviously kooky. Still, the author sets up their personalities and you feel for them. That's pretty good to begin with. The characters in the fantasy world, on the other hand, are bland. Even from the beginning, I was not invested in the second part of the story, the one actually about the main character. The idea of the cuckoo was interesting, having a dream entity who preys on the thoughts of others by becoming accepted and loved by it, but the fact is I just didn't care that much. In some places, I wondered if the text was purposely fighting with the drawings, such as when the Dream King's eyes were described as sparkling when in the drawing they were nothing but a black void. The idea behind "girls want to be princesses" is of course a purposely simplified view, but I can't help but feel that the author doesn't even really understand the ramifications of it, much less what it actually feels like to yearn for your own world as a female.

The ending, post dreamland, was maybe what I found the most entertaining. Barbie dealing with the death of her transgender friend in a town that will forever deny her existence how it was, preferring instead to remember her (or him, in their minds) as a good, God-fearing boy.

Asterios Polyp

I found this comic really interesting, probably my favorite so far in this class. The first part that actually stood out was of course the clean style. Within the opening pages is a profile portrait of the main character, Asterios, stood out with the clean silhouette, the front of the head's shape mirrored in the back of the head like some kind of dented lightbulb. He's a compilation of straight lies and perfect curves.  When his love interest, Hana, is introduced, she is drawn in a style reminiscent of the women in Japanese prints, having those tiny lips, leaf like eyes, and gently sloping neck and shoulders. Immediately, this sets up the major differences in these two characters--organization vs chaos, manmade vs natural. The artist plays a lot with the idea of how we view each ourselves, how we see the world, and how it can affect the way we interact with other people. To get this idea across, Asterios is drawn with light blue straight lines, looking like merely a compilation of simple shapes and forms while Hana is in pink, being shaded with a messy sort of cross hatching. When they finally come together and begin seeing things together, their colors and styles meet in the middle turning purple and being a more "realistic" version of them. So that was an absolutely brilliant translation of an abstract idea into visual means, especially when it's utilized during arguments to show their sudden distance from one another.

Asterios is not a likable man. On the contrary, Hana's character is much sweeter and easier to take in, especially because of her artistic side. Meanwhile, Asterios is a critical, rude, spot-light hogger. Flipping back and forth between the past and present allows the audience to simultaneously watch the demise and redemption of his character, as he loses love and then decides to reclaim it. The host of side characters serve as a very interesting backdrop for Asterios's turning around. Again and again, the artist makes some extremely clever decisions regarding storytelling, using a cube for a speech bubble near the beginning to show the less-than-simple, three part answer. Later, when the wife of the family who takes him in is monologuing about life and supernatural beliefs, the reader is forced to turn the page as her speech moves from right side up, to sideways, to upsidedown, creating a physical experience for the reader. Even the narration, from Asterios's unborn twin brother creates a dual plane that the narrator can spread out in. I really enjoyed the introduction at the beginning, where Asterios sits in a room alone, watching what sounds like porn when later it is reveled that he is watching something much more innocent and important to his character: his secretly video taped memories, and evening cooking for Hana

Once again, the idea of how we see each other and how we interact with one another is a huge. I found the conclusion really interesting, being able to find Hana again only after learning to cling less to himself and his pride, essentially taking what he's learned from spending time with Hana and finally applying it to life. Meanwhile, when he does finally find her, Hana has been subject to the exact same treatment, learning to appreciate the shapes and forms that have always enthralled her exhusband.

American Born Chinese

This one had a bit of a twist ending for me. But I'll get to that in a bit. First, the style: It's simple, but colored, generally very likable and  cartoony. The language built with the paneling and breaking up chapters (especially between three different stories) reads very easily and quickly. I could hardly believe when I had reached the end of this book from it moving so quickly and easily.

[More to come....]

Maus

Art Spiegelman's Maus...heart-breaking and real without the offense of those underground comics. At least, the offense isn't coming from the comic itself, but rather from history. Of course those Holocaust stories really hit hard; they always do. After so many, though, they start to blend together. My generation has just been bombarded with this stuff again and again, and I'm afraid the result is that we've gotten a bit numb to it, despite knowing the awfulness of it all.

Maus, however, digs deeper. What was really interesting is seeing how the medium interacts with the story. The comic has a lot of text. A lot. At first glance, you don't even need the pictures. They're so simple, rarely overpowering the text itself. However, the imagery of the separation of different cultures into animals plays some really important roles in relation to the story. First, that the simplification helps us to take in another Holocaust story. Second, that it shows how simple-minded, paltry, and down-right stupid separating people is based on things like race and religion. Third, of course, is the symbolism of the cats vs. mice, where cats are the evil, aggressors and mice the vulnerable, hated ones. (Personally, I found it funny that the Americans were depicted as dogs, of course chasing cats away. When Swedes were briefly shown as deer, I was kind of glad that part of my background got such a neat animal.)

More than all that symbolism and all that terror and tragedy is the story of learning to deal. The fact that this story is biographical/autobiographical makes it both harder and easier to connect for myself. On the one hand, the behaviors are very real, not over-the-top cheesy or at all romanticized. On the other, their still drawn so simply. For that moment when we see the author working at his desk and later with his therapist, where we can see the mice masks that they wear over their human faces...it nearly melts the barrier between story and reality. And the questioning of Art's relationship with Vladek is completely understandable and heartbreaking. What makes a hero? Surviving a war? What really survived? Who was left when it was done, and what was really left of them? And then, was the life that Vladek was living by the end of the story really worth it all? It's fairly classic old age, but with such extreme amounts of tension and frugality, making him a pain to everyone around him. It gets rather depressing, thinking about what it means to live and such. But the ending, where Vladek is reaching the end of his story, and we know that he has died, it doesn't seem so worthless. Obviously, his son lived on. He was able to share this story. And maybe that's what life is about, sharing stories--connecting with others so that you know that the separation between frogs and cats and dogs shouldn't have anything to do with humans separating themselves from one another.

Underground Comics

This is a couple weeks late...but honestly, I just wasn't sure how to respond. I don't care what kind of pretentious mental gymnastics you have to do to consider them "important" or "artistic," I'm just going to say they kind of suck. Basically, just the taste of them I got from skimming gave the impression that their makers had missed some major fundamental development along the way. Obviously, huge amounts of political unrest ("totally reflects the time!") and extreme sexism, racism, and other isms ("totally raw, dude!"). All in all, most of these comics seemed to make people feel okay with their darkest, lowest interests in some cases and, on the other end of the spectrum, to simply "offend." Offending doesn't make for much of a purpose. Like trying to please everyone around you, living off of their offense leaves one with very little personality of his or her own.

Subject matter aside, I had trouble reading just because of the art styles used. These "artists" would obviously be rather useless drawing anything else. I know what you're going to say: "They didn't need to draw anything else. Just drawing their characters in their style was all they needed to get whatever message across." Yeah, but...ya know, that's not too interesting from an artistic viewpoint. Basically, these comics leave a lot to be desired. I've seen some of these same types of things reflected in webcomics today, but usually not quite as offensive material-wise. I guess they're the awkward teenage phase of the development of comics, the one where you look back and either shake your head while smiling that it happened or else try your best to suppress it's existence and your knowledge of it. Oy, can we not do that again?

Contract with God

Will Eisner's Contract with God was....unexpected. Between the style, stories, and storytelling, it felt transitional, which of course it was. The drawings find themselves somewhere between charicature and and noir, with very inky lines and shading--sometimes to the point that it's difficult to read the image at a first glance. In the opening pages, for example, we see a man coming in from the rain who is just about melting into his surroundings from the water dripping off his coat and hat. (Eisner sure does loves his rain!)

The stories were much darker than what's been seen in the past, thus they almost work against the drawings, which retain a bit of a goofy stylized quality. But they're so serious, revealing a huge amount of dispair and mediocrity. In the end, it's just to explain the characters of this neighborhood, their hopes and dreams as well as the reality that they will probably never escape.

This is, supposedly, the first use of the word "Graphic Novel," because it's simply not a comic...at least, not the way the comics before were. The first few pages especially read more as illustrations than comic panels due to their openness. The text, as is common, is hand-lettered looking something like how grade schoolers print. Unfortunately, at least to me, this seems to almost make a joke of the seriousness of the situation, as well as the way it's told.

The Adventures of TinTin

With the new movie out so recently, I've been hearing a lot about this series lately. Though I had seen the character before, I had never known anything about the comic itself, except that its popularity was mainly in Europe. After reading it, I can see why it's so insanely popular there...and slightly saddened that I didn't have TinTin as a kid.

Unlike many other comics of the time, it seems to have a certain level of intelligence behind it. Despite how simply they are drawn, the characters are smart, and the writer seems to have had a lot of interest and knowledge of other places and cultures. Traveling across the world makes for surprisingly fun and interesting stories, and TinTin makes for a surprisingly strong character. In the comic I read, TinTin travels to Tibet in search of his friend who may have died in a plane crash (surprisingly dark I thought). He's of course with his loyal, if grumpy companion Captain Haddock as well as his dog Snowy. What shocked me most about this story is that I actually learned things about Tibetan culture. Learning! In a comic! Ha! (Seriously, I was crosschecking information with google as I read out of curiosity, and TinTin was fairly accurate with names and customs.) That isn't to say there isn't a fair amount of stereotyping. It's still there to an extent, but in that naive way that saturates most things from that era. The style it's drawn in really sings with me. The characters are cartoony enough to be likable, but realistic enough in shape and body that they can believably exist in this world.

Little Nemo in Slumberland

Winsor McCay is, of course, a legend in both comics and animation. And reading his comics, you can see how fascinating he found movement and timing. The spatial relationships between panels often comes into play, whether it's utilizing the horizontal movement of a parade, the vertical movement of Nemo falling, or putting one big circle in the middle of the page and having the panels move around it. In one comic, McCay's interest in animation was especially apparent as Nemo was being swung around by a trapeze artist, each panel functioning very much like a frame in animation.

What I personally found most appealing about the comic were the settings and situations. Very dreamlike; they seemed more like a way for McCay to explore several interesting ideas quickly than an actual story, like we're seeing part of his thought process. And of course, there's the classic ending of Nemo waking up at the end of each comic, often falling out of his bed. I laughed every time...

On the other hand, there's a dark side to Little Nemo's adventures. Many of the people he meets seem to meet bad ends, like the glass people and their queen Crystalette who all break into a million pieces when Nemo attempts to sneak a kiss from the queen. The least you could say is that it's depressing, but this tiny child was just responsible for the deaths of a whole bunch of people. Maybe they're not even real, since these adventures of "Slumberland" are so obviously a dream world, but still: those are some dark imaginings for a kid his age.

The Arrival

This post may be a bit late in coming, but I found this book extremely interesting. So let's talk about Shaun Tan's The Arrival.

A wordless comic, one might think, would need to be a relatively simple story in order to get the message clearly across, like those panels they give kids on standardized tests in elementary school to see if their capable of putting events in order. The Arrival, however, challenges that--not just challenges, it breaks that thought into a million pieces. The story is deep and relatable, the images are complicated and well-rendered, the story never once loses it's reader (quite a feat!), and the final result is something that the average, comic-less person may not even count it among other comics.

Furthermore, who is the intended audience? The typical stereotype puts any kind of picture books (including comics, but increasingly less so)  squarely in the category of a children's book, especially when it lacks words. But of course, this story is one that would require a certain level of maturity to fully understand the meaning of it. Coming to a new country/culture by oneself, attempting to learn new ways, is a problem that just about anyone can understand, even if they've never immigrated before. However, I don't see toddlers looking through the book on their own and understanding it.

Personally, I found the side stories to be the best part. That Tan could go off on a short tangent to get across someone else's life story in a way that was both clear and moving was amazing to me. In the end, the story is such a good one, but the medium really makes it shine.

Understanding Comics

For this episode of Comic Responses, we're looking at Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.

Of course, a book about how comics works would have to be a comic. It makes sense, but it gets a little wordy in parts (too much explanation, not enough pictures). Still, McCloud's approach to explaining what comics are, how they work, and why they work was fascinating. Most interesting was the relationship between pictures and words, at what point an image becomes simplified from a photograph to a drawing to a symbol to those series of symbols we call words. Likewise, how unfortunate it is that as artists and writers become more and more precise, the less their work has in common.

The simplification of characters in comics, according to McCloud, ups the relatability of said characters, or our ability to put ourself into the role of the character. Meanwhile, environments are often more defined to give a somewhat accurate depiction of space. While reading this, the comic that came to mind was Bone by Jeff Smith. The main character is little more than a white blob man with a big nose. The other characters, minus the ones actually related to him, are more realistic, classically rendered comic characters. The environments reflect that, too. The monsters of the comic straddle the line between adorable/cartoony and realistic/terrifying, which I expect is exactly what they must be to fulfill their role in the comic as both antagonists and comic relief.

Sure enough, in McCloud's chart of characters relating Reality, Meaning, and The Picture Plane, Bone is placed right next to the simple, dots-and-line face.Publish Post

The same concept is found true in internet memes, especially rage faces. For anyone not familiar with them, they are often crudely drawn faces, simple and unrealistic, expressing emotions hyperboled to the point that people are able to laugh and relate to them. Another similar example of this concept at work is in Japanese Anime, which McCloud just touches on. Often, the faces of anime characters are simplified to the point of a few lines, sometimes with a complete lack of nose.

The Wonky Rooster

Max Ernst: A Week of Kindness or The Seven Deadly Elements

Thursday, Element: blackness, Examples: The rooter's laughter.

First image, someone doing a wonky pose next to a rooster on a ball with a man lying on the ground in the background. I got nothing. Really. Nothing.

Second image, creepy rooster man with huge wings standing over woman tied to table in some sort of dungeon laboratory. Once again, there's a rooster watching in the corner.

Third image, rooster man and (cat?) man standing ver a woman in a grave. Another woman floats over her, either about to throw a sheet into the coffin or else maybe that's like a ghostly ethereal cloth. I first saw it as her the ghost of the woman in the coffin, being split from her, escaping from the mortal bonds, or possibly returning to the body.

Fourth image, the two seem to be talking about how to deal with the writhing ladies laying around. Are they dying? Or are they being revived? Or maybe they're just doing what classically rendered ladies do best.

Fifth, rooster man comes through the door, obviously in agony over the death of his love who has apparently fallen out of bed. Perhaps she's been killed by the chickens who are attempting to stand around non-chalantly.

Last, rooster peaks around the door, watching these people who I believe may be practicing the newest dance craze.

The juxtaposition of the giant rooster man against the realistically rendered environment and classical ladies is kind of a humorous one. At first glance, I'm guessing there's either some kind of sexual metaphor going on here with all the flailing naked ladies or else the rooster's trying to kill them or wake them up (from the dead?) because that's what roosters do. Given the title, maybe he's just making fun of the misery of the flailing ladies. I feel also like we may be getting the story in the wrong order.