Riley- lit of comics

Week thirteen: reconsidering the superhero All New X-Men (2013) by Brian Michael Bendis I have always loved Marvel, from the comics to the movies to even the toys. X-Men is especially dear to me. The different way that the mutants are portrayed, as a type of minority in their society, is much more interesting than the regular superhero stories.

Week twelve: comics by women This One Summer  by the Tamaki cousins I enjoyed this 2014 graphic novel by the Tamaki cousins because of its visually appealing style as well as its seemingly mundane yet engaging plot.  This coming of age story focuses on a single summer shared between two friends named Rose and Windy, who are both young girls. They spend the summer together with family in a tiny beach town called Awago Beach. This graphic novel explores youth in a very personal way. It isn't glamorous or anything like many coming of age stories are often portrayed as. It deals with some tense events and themes that some teenagers and pre teens may have to face in real life. 

Week eleven: comics as contemporary literature Asterios Polyp  by David Mazzucchelli This 2009 graphic novel by American cartoonist David Mazzucchelli immediately caught my attention with its bold colors and style. Some pages featured very visually interesting layouts that differ from the usual format of comics, which includes many of the ones that we have been reading in this class. The story revolves around a man named Asterios Polyp, who is an architect and a college professor from New York. As seen in the art as well as the story itself, this graphic novel "explores the idea of duality," which I find to be very fascinating. 

Week ten: manga and the Japanese comics tradition Astro Cat (1986)  by Osamu Tezuka This manga focuses on a young boy named Tsugio and a small cat that he found, who looks remarkably like the popular manga character, Astro Boy. This inspired the name Astro for the cat. Very early in the story, Tsugio and Astro get hit by a car, which turned out to be driven by aliens who used their otherworldly technology to revive the two (as well as his bicycle) and return them as if nothing had happened. The aliens referenced Tsugio's memory when reviving Astro, causing them to give Astro all the powers of Astro Boy by mistake. I thoroughly enjoyed this whimsical origin story, as well as the following adventures that Tsugio and Astro encounter as the story progresses. 

Week nine: a wide world of comics Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi For this week's reading, which focused primarily on European works, I was able to find Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, Persepolis, online and available for viewing. From what I read of this graphic novel, I was surprised by how much I found myself enjoying it. It is an autobiographical story of the author's childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Before reading this, I was not very familiar with the events and intense situations of the time (the 1980's). After I was drawn in by the uniquely simplified and appealing art style, I remained captivated by the real history and the childhood perspective from which the events were explained. Although serious, this viewpoint allowed for a less grim outlook than what may be expected based only on the subject matter. Marjane was very religious as a young child. The novel continuously depicts her daily "big discussion with God." These conve

Week eight: stereotype and the ethics of representation Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse In terms of storytelling, I find some stereotypes unnecessary, especially if they are just being used to try to be offensive. I do think, however, that stereotypes can be used in a tasteful way in order to tell a story. This is the case with either fiction or non fiction. It can also be in works that are categorized somewhere in between, such as Howard Cruse's "Stuck Rubber Baby". The American cartoonist wrote this graphic novel in 1995 and drew inspiration from his experiences of growing up in Alabama. In this graphic novel, the main protagonist, named Toland Polk, is a gay white male who lives in the American South in the 1950's and 60's. Toland becomes heavily involved with the black community and the civil rights movement of the time. Unlike his white community, the black community seems to accept him more for who he is and his morals. The novel deals with realit

Week seven: Maus and the legitimization of the graphic novel Maus  by Art Spiegelman  Art Spiegelman's  Maus  takes the horrifying event of the Holocaust and explores it in a more palatable way in order to give the reader a sense of entertainment as they learn about the past experiences of his family. The events are explained through the author's interview with his father, who was a Holocaust survivor. This perspective makes the personal details unique to the father while also keeping it relatable to the reader because it isn't a direct first-hand account.  This graphic novel manages to tell its story in a somewhat fun way without making light of the subject matter. The most creative and significant way that Spiegelman achieved this was with the personification of animals to represent different nationalities and religions. For example, Jewish people are depicted as mice, German people are depicted as cats, and Polish people are depicted as pigs. This is a clever

Week six: underground comics O.K. Comics  by Bruce Walthers Originating from the 1960's and 1970's, most underground comics are meant to be very offensive. They often include violence and sexually explicit content, meant to shock and intrigue readers. Some of these comics, however, may not be intentionally offensive. Sometimes the creators simply make what they want and tell the story that they want to tell, and it just happens to be rude enough to be categorized under the generally adult comics. For example, O.K. Comics is an otherwise mundane comic that includes cursing and adult language.

Week five: body talk A Contract With God- Will Eisner Will Eisner was a very popular American cartoonist and writer who coined the term "graphic novel". In his famous graphic novel titled "A Contract With God", Eisner uses darker visuals and topics that create a more realistic feeling theme to the situations and events. "A Contract With God" heavily features monologue style text to tell the stories, similarly to how a traditional novel is formatted. This being a graphic novel, however, there are of course images that go along with the words, which were also a product of Eisner's creation. The story doesn't simply rely on one or the other (words or images), it is told by those two aspects working together. Although this format is less appealing to me as a reader, I understand the purpose of them and find it interesting that Will Eisner and many graphic novelists after him realized the demand for comics to expand their reach and increase the va

Week four: the comic book The Adventures of Tin Tin by Hergé In 1954's "Explorers on the Moon",  the characters fly in an atomic rocket and land on the surface of Earth's Moon. As of the time this comic was made, humans had not yet done so in real life. With Tin Tin being the first (even if it's just in this fictional story) to step foot on the moon was surely inspirational and fascinating to children and adults alike. While keeping the loose basis of reality and science,  Hergé livens up the story with the charming characters as well as some entertaining villains that tag along for the adventure. Although the continuous potential danger is realistic, the tone never gets too serious, only more exciting. Personally, I much prefer when a comic maintains this friendly level of suspense. I find it off-putting when something that I seek entertainment in develops a darker tone unexpectedly. Another thing I enjoy about this week's reading, and something that