Monday, March 12, 2018

March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

The comics March introduced a memoir about a congressman's grown up as a black child and his involvement in the Civil Right Movement afterward. The comics used narration interspersed with flashbacks, sharing short stories such as his experience when he raised chicken in the farm, his first time taking an elevator in a mall, and going to school as a black kid, etc. The short stories in between the conversations made the comics more interesting. It won’t be the same if the narrator talked about his story from the beginning to the end, which might be boring, but the inserted narrative only catches the highlights and made it more to the point and interesting. 

I also like the silhouette effect throughout the story especially when he was recalling his memories. In this image, the angle and use of big black space present a sneaky feeling, which made the audiences felt like something bad is going to happen. It also constructed a depressing atmosphere. Surprisingly, the black and white silhouette doesn’t only tell what the story is about, it also conveys the mood through shadows. 


It is also very interesting to see the second story when the narrator talked about his experience going to the city and seeing the elevators opened his eyes. It is a common experience that many people could relate to as a child; the portray of the mall and the elevator looks exactly the same from my childhood memory. Moreover, the word and image work together very well. There isn’t one driving another— they each tell different information that my eyes need to go from pictures to texts. For example, when he was talking about his first experience riding an elevator, the word described what had happened while the image showed his facial expression of surprise and curiosity.


In general, this memoir was interesting  and it broke my impreesion of memoirs in general, especially ones relate to politics. The story feels more personal and emotionally connected to people.

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