Week15) RE-Writing of 'the Arrival'

I would say this book is amazingly well done and the artist, Shuan Tan, is great artist. As re-reading this book after I learn about the graphic comics, Maybe this books is not good for someone want to see great character development, but you will still get the idea who is the main character is. The artist expressed the story and also the emotions of the characters without any single words which makes this book amazing, because it requires more detailed visual element in composition, characters' facial expression, and also the mood in every single moment. Although this book sometimes lost you because there are no text which works basic connection between before and after drawings this book is worth to pay attention more to see all the details.

The part I also want to point out was the all the design Shaun Tan did from the beginning and at the end. Until I discuss this book in the class, I did not know that this story is about the immigration. I thought it would be him looking for the someone since he was showing some papers to other people. Anyway after knowing the fact that what story is aiming for I finally could understand the artist's idea putting many weird looking animals, building or anything you could find. The town where he used to live seems really dark and scary place, which shows no hope. This is why he left his family and get a new job in the new place. The new place illustrated beautiful and amazing since he was full of hope. As exposing to other people and new environment, his story was mixed up with others and it shows they are communicating about same experiences of going through with old and new things. It is quite hard to tell when other person's story started, which I had to go back and forth to see the different perspective story.

This is not perfect book, but this is the one of the most impressive book in the all the course I had in the class. It was great experience get to know these type of comics.

Week13) Reconsidering the SuperHero

I would say, the superhero comics are only for who like the superhero characters. if you are not interested in Superhero characters and their stories, the contents of the comics are quite hard to understand. I tried to understand Savage Dragon by Hellboy and it was even hard to define who is who.
However, I could see right away that in this period the artist develops the styles and designs of the each characters also their stories. It have really clear beginning and the ending compared to early SuperHero comics. I don't know the early designs of Hellboy and Dragon, but they look interesting in the aspect of design. The most impressed part of the character design was the shape language of the each Characters. I really enjoyed this amazing art.

I could see why people still want to bring back the SuperHero characters into comics and the movies, they are really attractive figures although they are not even human. 

Week13) Changing Landscape of Licensed Characters - Class writing

As the person who is not familiar to the American SuperHero comics( Even with the movies) this comic was quite refreshing that licensed characters' comic could be done well. When Batman mentioned the 'relationship' of him and Jocker at the beginning of the story, it immediately remind me very recent batman lego movie because it made good comedy about their 'relationship'. It quite seemed romantic in the movie because Jocker acts like 'why don't you love me as I love you' but it made me laugh. Jocker and Batman, their relationship is really famous. (think about I don't know any story about Batman, no matter it's comics or movies) They are 'fatal' rival and try so hard to 'reach' to each other although their purposes are different. 

 I don't know this is based on the original Batman story, the character developments were nice, especially i liked that part that there is reasonable backstory to push the motivation of Joker's behavior. I always wanted to know how Jocker became like that and what is motivation of his feeling against the society. It was nice to see the flashback of Joker rather than Batman. Only Batman I know is Batman of series of Dark Knight(which I didn't even finish watching it), and I feel this comic was quite closed to the movie. This comic showed every details of the story, it almost feel like movie storyboard. I could feel the mood, character's movement and what they are thinking. My favorite part was that at the very end of the comic, Batman showed his thought about Jocker that he cares about him. He might be only one who deeply cares about him by now. It is totally different from people who Jocker used to called friends, and if you think about Jocker and Batman don't know real identity each other I could see why people see them as 'destiny'. They creates their own world, and only they understand each other. 

It sounds really odd, but I'd like to see Musical base on Batman story. This version of Batman has really good drama in the story and also the plot seems fit to Musical. The duet of Batman and Jocker would be nice because their emotion toward each other is quite deep. The only thing I worried about is what Batman usually do is 'chasing' and super 'action' movement to beat the bad guys. The small stage of the theater might be the limit of their movement but it also would be depends on how the stage is designed. 

week12) Comics by Women

I was excited to see the comics by women artist because it is about woman artists! The first impression about 'This One Summer' was that the artist has really nice style.

It seemed drawn in some computer program with nice brushes. The artist might used the charcoal brush and these kinds of brushes tend to have traditional qualities but in digital world so you could feel the roughness of the strokes. Personally I am fan of these brush settings and also this comics made me feel to buy the brush. The mood of the comics and the characters' body shapes and the gestures were great overall. The story of this comic focused a girl who visited her family's summer house near by beach and happenings around her including her family and with other girls. The story plot seemed quite flat, this is not the story which has up and down story plot. I think the main girl is going through puberty and experiencing many emotional changes. Something like you will never be same as before.

The mood of 'This One Summer' reminded me Mushishi byYuki Urushibara although they shares nothing in common. But the overall calm, odd sometimes quite cold (in my opinion) many nature drawings made me think of Mushishi.



I really like the story and the style of this comic. Although it's black and white, it showed good atmosphere changes. Actually I think her choice drawing without colors was good because it provided more imagination of colors and mood.

week11) Comics as contemporary literature

I have never seen this great storytelling graphic novel. To be honest his art style is not my taste, although I enjoyed his shape language of characters. If you see only the cover, you might think the colors were too simple compared other artist who painted the drawings with rich colors, it's not well-described drawing with details.. you might be lost where you should find great thing in this book.  However, in terms of visual storytelling, I am sure he could be the one of the tops. 

Especially the part of Asteios and his wife's fist meeting blew my mind. How David showed that they influence each other and how Hana thought the 'spot light' is moving on to her was beautifully illustrated. The reason of simple colors were to show visually to the readers how the characters' thought develops.

Also I liked the part the drawings and text were placed unexpected places. He also developed the the form of square panel so that the drawings could be free in a way to express his aesthetics. 

Week 9 ) a wide world of comics

This week is about the European comic with traditional and religious values. Literally I could see the author needs extra effort to make it believable and no-offensive


I personally did not feel the contents of comic have religious perspective or element than I expected. although the characters literally mention God, but i did not see it as religious content. it might be i am exposed to many kinds of fantasy based on religious story. The authors these days twist the religious contents to make the fiction out of it.

One of the stories by Moebius it has pretty interesting starting plot there, I think. I wished there would be further more. how the god reacts to the this person's decision and things that he would make later. 

The artwork wise it was pretty awesome. It still based on the line work and simple colors, but still conveys the important sense according to story.

Week7) maus and the legitimization of the graphic novel

Maus, the first 'graphic novel' , was really great. Even with some pages, I already noticed the differences between the previous ones and this one.

The first thing I noticed that it is very long story compared to the others. It even takes some pages to start 'main' story of Maus. It was really like reading a book with many nice drawings. Maus's storyteller is the son, Artie, but the main story is not about him, his father,Vladek. His experience in the time period World War I and Nazi.

The story starts with the flash back, which made this book feel like someone is actually talking about their life next to you or you are reading a book of a person's life. In this book the readers could learn about the main characters more and more as you go through. Unlike jumping in the story, or big happening, it shows every details in the order. 

it was really great to see the past and the present at the same page. 

I also amazed by how the author made the each pages pretty also readable. The bubbles are even designed base on the place, other drawings within the same panel, which made me so glad by just seeing well designed and organized panels. 

This story dragged me into the story really well, and made me feel in the same way with the characters. 

Week 6) Underground Comics

Usually the words with 'underground' doesn't really sound good because there are the reason why majority poeple doesn't like it. So when I heard 'underground comics' i thought it would be really different comics compare to the previous comics.

First of all, the efforts on the underground comics were not heavy. The drawing style was the obvious differences that the artist used simple line works less details. With the simple story, i think it suit to the simple line works.  And with the simple storytelling, characters became more relatable unlike the hero or a person who like to travel around.

What I enjoyed the most was that since it was the 'underground' comic, which mean that less regulation. Im pretty sure that the artist who worked on underground comics had more freedom to express themselves and the character unlike the mainstream comics, since it was targeting as many people possible. It might be one of the advance underground comic artist would enjoy about. Sometimes the 'nice' words do not work at time at the certain circumstances.

but it could not avoid the fact that some authors overused their freedom. I do not know it accused the issue at that time too, but now their some sexual/ racism approaches might brought argument.

Week 5) Body talk : Eisnor & Thompson

As the description said, Eisnor and Thompson had more clarity and emotional content compared to a lot of the previous works. The action were the main resources to tell who is the character and the story itself. However on the Graphic novel area, the authors started to consider the importance of the emotions and the mood. 

As going through one of the Eisnor's work, the Spirit,  I noticed that not only he kept the style of the old storytelling, focusing on the character's motivation and the result, but also it was successful to see the clear characters' faces and their emotions. The surprising part was he did not make big changes from the old style. 

Look at their faces and how clearly we could see it. One is begging and one is questioning and not really concern about what the left said. With the text the drawings were wonderfully worked. Also Eisnor liked to show overacted poses, which I respected and amazed by the most because the each drawings were just like one frame of the animation with good poses. 

Craig Thompson's works so amazing. This is the early comic/ graphic novel similar to recent form of it. Like Eisnor, it is so much clear with the pose and the facial expression. But I personally believe he added more on this.  Unlike previous lined up and grouped together panels Thompson started to break up the things here. He knew that how to use the empty space, unlined box, and where he should emphasize with more drawings. I did not expect i would see someone using the empty space in this period. Also where I liked about was that with just bit more of the drawing of the situation, he could bring up the mood of the every shots too. 

Week4) Comic books

The comic book is the one of the best media of storytelling to me. I have read many stories through the comic book not only entertaining ones but also educational ones too. It is the most easy way to get to know the content of the book because comic books visually tell you.

As person who never read the American/ Western comic books before, the early comics were more focusing on the acting or story development without knowing who are the characters. Maybe we would learn as going through the story more, but the media i have consumed they introduce the characters or the concept in the early part of the stories. It was unusual to see that starting the story with just brief description like this; this is from the Superman, reason of choosing this that Superman is the one of American character I familiar with, which helped me understand who is the character, Clark, when I saw this. However, just imagining people back in the days, read it at first time and guess who is Clark would be hard to them. The Author just brought up the characters name without telling who has this name.  

Since the many stories were developed on the perspective of the author, not on the character's view, it was refreshing to see that the stories were actually feeling like someone is telling you the stories. And personally I really want to know why the comic script/ comic books are written in capital letters. It's hard to read.. 

Week3) Comic scripts

Some people or maybe most of people in the USA have good memory with the comic script or at least the memory playing with the newspaper. The comics comes with the newspaper might increase your interest on the newspaper. However, I personally do not have any memory with the comics or newspaper because my family did not subscribed any of newspaper. The only time seeing newspaper was when my dad brought the newspaper from his workplace. And even if my family subscribed the newspapers, it cannot be that big part of your life compared to people living in the USA because the comic script is not big thing in my country.

It was refreshing and exciting to see really entertaining comics around those period. The characters in the comics they were dreaming, going to the adventured, making unexpected friends, something you could hardly imagine at that time. It would be wonderful to have these media in my country at same period. It still has really basic forms but it works perfectly well. The each stories fit for the daily newspaper sized and it carried pretty well. I could see people waiting the next episodes to see where or what would happen next. Also now I finally can see this would work as my childhood TV shows to children too!

Mainly I was amazed by was Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland.  The costumes, design, characters and the contents itself are so beautifully done. It was hard to believe that it was published on just newspaper. Also this comic script required to used its own technique to print it out, and many people dedicated on this. This fact blew me out. 

Week 2) Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

In the Understanding Comics by McCloud it not only explains the definition of comics but also let the readers think what is the comic as an art. In general idea, the comic has been known for the kids or underrated than the text formed book, although the images helps people to get the concept of the idea without any education, ages or social status unlikely the regular book. As an artist, this reminds me the importance of the core idea, the form of the art and how I could make the reader perceive my work. 

This books starts with telling the differences between the other forms of the arts; illustration, movie, animation etc., which I’ve never thought deeply enough although I am studying the animation. As defining the comics in the context form, I re-realized that comic is not just sequence images. This is more complex form of images.

The interesting part was when McCloud compared Japanese comics and western culture based comics, how they approach to the story. The differences were too obvious by just seeing how these cultures constructed the panels and how they use it. As showing the techniques of storytelling of the comic; moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subjective to subjective, scene-to-scene, aspect to aspect, and non sequitur McCloud says that scene-to-scene, slow cinematic movement, was applied in Japanese comics more compare to western culture. He added that it must be based on the how they do the storytelling not only just for the techniques. The western culture tends to straightly go to the goal or the point what they are trying to say while the eastern culture usually implies the point, circling around. Simply, if the main point shows on the beginning of the context, it is western, if on the last, it is eastern.

As an artist, and as a person who already has the experience making the comics, the context of this book was not new to me. However, it would be better he explains or compares more about the panel/ frames because this is most of people having problem. I do not know much about the American or European comics but Japanese manga has the more complicated techniques of using panels. Therefore although many artists have story, concept, characters etc. they are in panic just seeing empty white space. 

Week 2) The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The essential way to narrate the story in the graphic comics usually considered with the combination of nice drawings and the words. In this way, the characters think and communicate each other. This is how the author develops the story in the comics. In Shaun Tan's work, The Arrival, however, he shows only drawings could effectively tell the story without the any words.  Personally I got shock on the quality of the each drawing with no words in there. It feels like watching movie without the sound. Automatically this music played in my head. It helped me to read the mood better and focus on this book more.
 

The comic I have read through my whole life is a basically Japanese comic, manga, which has the so many techniques on it. Compare to the manga, this work is very simple; mostly equal mount of space for each drawing, no bubbles for the words, no sound effects, no tones etc. Literally it was continuous nice drawings. This is why I had trouble to get the idea what Shaun Tan exactly tried to show. I was confused until the ending came out that the daughter helped other immigrants in the town. To read the real story, I needed to go back and forth to get the Shaun Tan’s idea. At the beginning, when his wife reaches out the hand over the husband’s hands, I thought her hand is husband’s. It would be clearer if the drawing were with the sound effect. On the recalling scene of the old man who shared the food with the husband, it seemed currently happening in there.

However, without the other techniques, he did amazing job through smart way. In the scene of the days passing by on the ship, he only drew the clouds and it works really well!

Also when the husband confused with the new world, language people, it visually shows the character's strange and weird feeling about the new things.