MarkEvanLim_LitComics

This week we were tasked to read a non-fictional comic called March. Off the bat, I really enjoyed how the presented the information that it was fun to read and learn all about racial history and segregation. Being international, a lot of this was new to me and was interesting to learn about - like how even the restrooms were segregated. The art style was also very expressive and clear to read, I enjoyed the style presented as it complemented the narrative as a lot of heart and personality was imbued into these chapters. While the main story was about the segregation and activist, a significant chunk of the story revolves around John's childhood and experiences growing up. Those experiences translated to facts when first reading them and found myself learning a lot about this topic that way. This is one of the rare cases that the comic did not really mater what style or panel layout is was presented in but I just cared about the story and kept me reading and flipping through

This week, we had the chance to read the graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelma. I found this graphic novel to be highly metaphorical with dealing with such a traumatic event. Through making me way through the narrative, I was very surprised at the honest response the author was able to tell and did not have any reservations - one of the benefits of the graphic novel format.  Like mentioned in class, this book reminded me a lot like Animal Farm and choosing to portray the animals in Maus to represent the different sides as a cat, frog, dog. The anamorphic nature of these characters made it visually plesant to read despite the subject matter but upon further investigation, turning the Nazi's into cats and the Jews in to mice can either make me chuckle at its brilliance or feel sad about the matter. Overall I appreciate the opportunity I had to read Maus and would definitely suggest it to people to at least read a bit of it.

Today in class, we had the chance to experience the animated feature, Barefoot Gen by  Keiji Nakazawa. This movie handled mature subject matters but presented it in a more "tolerable" way. A pattern that seemed prevalent in the film was the idea of leading the audience on via hope. Hope that things will get better if you keep watching - Coupled with the main characters of cute young children, it had me glued to my seat watching. Another interested fact was perspective. Perspective from the other side of the story where we can see how they reacted and viewed the event, something not possible in a live action film.  While I am not a fan of anime or the style of animation, the story and the innocence of kids going through this event, similar to me watching this for the first time was very interesting and gives us a glimpse into the history of the event at Hiroshima

For this week, on the topic of Underground Comics, I choose to read one of the comics from Howard the Duck. This was my first experience and chance to read such a comic and I found it very interesting and unique rather than insulting or vulgar. The comic artists were able to take content like sexuality or vulgarity and make it "entertaining" to look at it. I love the design of Howard and love his presence throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so seeing his origin story was helpful to place him in the grand scheme of things. The illustrative style and colors were very Stan Lee or common for a Marvel comic but I felt, because maybe it was considered and underground comic, alot of the panels and drawings were more contrasted than usual. Blacks seemed harsher and whites really popped out of the page - feeling like a film noir type of look. Colors used were minimal and were not too saturated, it was only pushed to that extreme saturation to emphasize a particular aspect