Perry Bible Fellowship

There are some highlights of this book that I really love:

First, it has extraordinary art. The delicate patterns of the first couple pages make me feel that I’m not reading a book, I’m seeing the delicate packaging on a luxurious pastry box, and I’m having an exciting journey. The color is not childish at all, in my opinion. It didn’t use the brightest colors in the world— which is usually used in children’s book. However, this pastel colors has some delicacy and sophistication in it, while not losing the playful atmosphere. Nicholas Gurewitch is really good at using colors. It is one of those very aesthetically pleasant comics that gives me inspirations for graphic designs. 

 

Second, it is also very interesting to see four panels, single scene short story. It is precise, and just like walking in the mall, I don’t have to stick in a single store for a long time, I can browse different stores and having fun here and there. 

Third, Gurewitch is also good at using irony tones. He depicted characters with an unexpected tone. For example, he depicted Jesus more playful than that in the Bible. He also personifies butterfly with a humorous monologue of how caterpillars were scared of transforming into butterflies. Another irony was how a happy birthday is a day towards horrifying death. 

 

Superheroes Reconsidered-- Wonder Woman

I am a fan of Wonder Woman. I have never read Wonder Women comics but I have watched its movie that came out last year. I saw there were a lot of similarities between the movie and the comics piece “Wonder Woman Spirit of Truth” by Alex Ross. The character in the comics still carry the spirit of wonder woman—she is powerful, brave, save people from wars and death, especially like children, and she has the magic rope that can catch anything. The basic character traits and thread of the story are the same. 

However, the movie only shows one story about Hitler in World War II, but the comics portray wonder woman from a more International standpoint. She not only save the people from Europe or in the western world, she also save the people from other countries such as China and Muslim countries. When I saw wonder woman saving people in Europe, I appreciate her character traits; but when she dropped into the scene in China saving people from the conflict in the 50s, I was touched. “Wow,” was my first reaction; I was amazed how this powerful human being can be more powerful than the tanks and change the history. This comics really changed my perspective of seeing things, it empowers people to trust their strengths. I always think that there were way too few superhero movies that were set on an eastern background, and it is amazing to see things like that. (Monkey King doesn’t count, he gained power from magic, but I think wonder woman represents and emphasizes human power.)

This One Summer

The story portrays a lot of scenes about social tensions— the tension between Rose and the guy she admired, and the tension between Rose and her mum— an uneasy relationship with friction in every moment they interact.

The main character in the story was Rose, a teen girl went to a vacation place with her family and met with her childhood friend Windy. During the vocation, Rose met a guy at a convenient store. Although she seemed to be interested in him, she didn't dare to talk much with him but secretly finding out his stories with his girlfriend Jenny. Rose didn’t talk with him much but discussed about him with Windy from time to time during the trip. Rose even pretend that she liked scary movies to seem cool to the guy even though she did not seem to enjoy it. The feeling of social awkwardness was shown when she went to the store. 

Besides the social awkwardness she had when she saw the guy, she also had a weird relationship with her mum. Her mum refused to swim and was extremely emotional about it, and she was also scared to have intimacy with her dad— she cracked a plate when he hugged her. Rose thought her mum wanted another baby, so Rose was angry at her mum for it, Rose was also angry at her not having fun and being so tense during the vocation. Not until one night she found out that her mum had a phobia towards the sea because she lost a baby before because of swimming, Rose realized she misunderstood her mum. She understood her mum behavior because of that. 

Reading the story somehow made me uneasy because I also experienced similar social tension as a teen and it had impacted me a lot. However, it was a brilliant work with familiar scenes that readers can relate to, and it had an interesting theme too.

Asterios

I like the story. The story has a lot of reflection elements in it. I especially admire how the author illustrated Asterios’ attitude towards his wife in graphics. It is very hard to illustrate but he got it spot on! It is my favorite scene of the entire story.

The story is also well told with a frequent use of contrast, on the character himself and in the visual effect. At first, the character was introduced as a lazy person lying in bed in a small and dirty room. Then it introduced the character’s background as a successful architect from Oxford, surrounded by the intellectuals. Given the background shows such a big contrast between the character’s past and present, which made people feel sympathy for the character. 

The author is also very effective in depicting the disgusting sense of the environment the character was in. The scene such as meeting the homeless guy enjoy picking noses, and the one of a woman vomiting in the subway station were depicted vividly. The vomiting scene especially, it was colored in yellow which contrast with the rest of the scene and drew people’s eye to it. The visual effect is so powerful that it makes me really feel the disgusting atmosphere. 

It is a story that kept me reading till the end, and it’s interesting to see how the two scenes— past and present met together, and Asterios eventually met with his ex-wife again at the end. I like the story very much.

Ranma 1/2

Ranma 1/2 has been very very popular in China—almost every Chinese has read or at least heard about it in elementary school. Although it wasn’t the type of comics that I liked before (the ones I liked were Doraemon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Crayon Shin-chan), I learned to appreciate more about the comics now I read it.

I think the story sets an interesting character —Ranma, who turned into a girl when he was drenched with cold water, and back to a boy when drenched with hot water. And a significant thread that re-appears throughout the comics was the kettle, and there was an iconic scene which Akane is always handling a kettle of hot water to rinse Ranma when he turned into a girl. The comic has its own characteristics and are easily recognizable. 

However, the first chapter of the story which introduced the character focuses a lot on the fighting itself. Kuno always appears and fought with Ranma for the same reason, and sometimes it makes it boring. 

On the other hand, I found that gender transformation is a re-occurring theme, especially in the Japanese comics or animation. I remember there was another popular movie that centers on the same theme— Your Name, and was also very popular. 

Papyrus The Anger of the Great Sphinx

It’s a story about the prince who took an adventure to look for the princess who sleepwalked out of their palace. The comics greatly reflects the Egyptian arts and culture, and the social context at that time in that culture.

I especially appreciate the art of it. It brings the traditional Egyptian architectures and characters into the story. 

The theme of the story itself —human against nature, also reflects the perspectives of ancient culture, because of their dependency on the environment itself. 

Furthermore, the story incorporates a lot of mythological symbols such as the dragon, the "human storm," the gods who speak, the spirit. All of them show the belief of Egyptian at that time. Unlike the modern comics, the story also teaches people a moral about the consequence of betrayal by showing the bad results of the dragon and the "human storm." 

In general, it is an interesting comic, and I learned a lot about the Egyptian culture, which is very similar to the ancient cultures from other countries. 

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.