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.

Maus by Art Speigelman

First of all, when I saw the naming of the title, I think it was pretty interesting. The pronunciation of "Maus" sounds similar to "mouse," which is the character in the story. The story was written by the comic artist Art Spiegelman after World War II, about what the Nazis did to the Jews, and how did it affect their lives afterward. I think the storytelling approach that Spiegelman took was interesting. Instead of showing vivid blood and tortures from the war, he used cute animals mouses to be the characters, and pigs for the German soldiers in the camp. All of the characters were in minimalistic drawing style, and the environment was, too. I understand the author's intention to not use the visuals of real people but a metaphor of mouse instead-- because it would be too brutal to see those cruel scenes. The minimalistic images gave an emotional break for the readers, so they can read it in an emotionally less intense level, just like watching animations. Also, I think the comic is more words driven than visual driven, the words tell a big part of the story, but the visuals were supplementary. 

In the second part of the comic, his dad Vladek talked about his experience in the Nazis concentration camp. I was surprised to see that Vladek met a "nice" German soldier who saved him a couple of times. Vladek taught the soldier English language; in return, the soldier gave him a fitted pair of shoes, clothes, and decent meals (which to him was banquet meals almost). 

He also told a lot of stories about the little things that happened in the camp which I think was interesting, because I didn't see it elsewhere. Most of the movies portrayed the more significant impact of the war but ignored the details, but the comics showed it out. The scene I liked the most was when Vladek brought his friends a belt and a pair of fitted shoes from the soldier-- he didn't forget his friends even if he receives something. It was the little things that Spiegelman portrayed that were very touching. 

Underground Comics: Mr.Natural

The comics Mr. Natural basically surrounded this one character--Mr. Natural and his journeys. First I read the Mr. Natural's 719th meditation, I realized how he actually wrote in the language of mindfulness meditators. He used a lot of words such as "karma," "raise awareness of higher-self," etc. It tapped into the meditation culture well, but it was somewhat cynical towards the people who meditate or the religious groups who believe in higher-self. 

Mr. Natural's characterization is funny, when he was going to refuse the offer by the meditator, he said, "I left a pie in the oven; otherwise I would..." At the same time, he was kind of annoying because he messed up the meditator guys' practice. It seemed like wherever he went, there would be a drama and a mess. His visual characteristic is also pretty iconic-- bald, long white bear, a gown, fat and short body. It's easily recognizable, and I think it might be one of the reasons why he got so famous. 

There were black people in some of the characters in the comics, and they weren't portrayed nicely. One story centered on how a group of black people robbed a beggar's money and required him to give them more later on. They were portrayed as rude and violent. Even the visuals of the black people were portrayed as animals. I don't quite like the stereotypes about the black people here. 

There is another story from Mr. Natural-- Little Johnny Fuckerfaster in the Mr. Natural's comics. It showed a young boy teasing a girl from the street and forced her to perform oral sex for him. The girl seemed to be obedient and ignorant and did so. She was portrayed as a retarded adult baby. I don't like how it portrays women in the context, and I think the visuals are pretty nasty. I don't appreciate how the novel portrays the sex scenes; I think they are pretty disgusting. 

I also took a glance at some other underground comics such as Harold Hedd No.1 and Air Pirates Funnies. The Air Pirates Funnies seemed like a re-creation of Mickey Mouse's stories. The majority of the underground stories contained a lot of sexual violence elements and added a "ruffian mood" in them. It is almost a counter-cultural comics at that time. 

Graphic Novels: A Contract with God by Will Eisner and Blankets by Craig Thompson

I read A Contract With God after reading Donald Duck, and I found that the two are so different from each other. In Donald Duck, the background setting is mostly in the rural area, where there are forest, small houses, etc. However, the setting of the stories in A Contract With God is all in the city, in people's apartment. And the approach, is surprisingly realistic, just like the mood of the magazine Humans of New York, talking about the drama of urbanization. There are a couple things that I found interesting from his novel: 

• In the first few pages, there were words intervene with the graphics instead of limited in a box, and the whole page stands out like a poster. The experience is more interactive, and I appreciate it

• The character’s faces changed in different situations. For example, when Frimme's mistress asked him to sell his old building, her face was suddenly so ugly, showing all the little details of his dislike emotions.

• The theme about immigrants and religions is unique. It’s less like the type of funny, entertaining novels, but a more serious one that reflects a social context. But he made it interesting. 

• One of my favorite sentences is “friends came offering comfort words which he accepted in stony silence.” It was said when the main character's family died, and I think the sentence is constructed nicely. It won't have the same effect if it says "friends came to comfort him, and he didn't say a word." The word "stony silence" describes the atmosphere of heavy and depressing very well. 

After researching, I found that Will Eisner's graphic novel usually tell the history of New York's immigrant communities, particularly Jews, including the novels The Building, A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue and To the Heart of the Storm. Moreover, the Stories reflected the community and society at that time, rather than stories focus on the character styles. 

Wes Craig Craig’s graphic novel Blankets, on the other hand, tells people a lot about the narrator’s psychological thoughts, shown in the stories of his brotherhood and schooling. It is interesting to find out that they were actually based on his brother and his real experience. And a lot of people who have siblings like me can relate to the childhood experience that he wrote about.

Interestingly, both of Craig's and Eisner's novels include the theme of religions. Christianity definately played a role in their novels. Craig had once said, “I'm playing with Islam in the same way I was playing with Christianity in Blankets, which proved that the topic of religion isn't just in one of his novels-- it is a big element in his work. 

In general, I appreciate Craig's graphic style which has exaggeration which presents the characters vividly and brought out the stories. I also like Will Eisner’s topic of the immigrants because they were unique, and they reflect humanities that I haven't see elsewhere.

The Comic Books: Carl Barks & Tintin

After looking at Carl Barks’s paintings of Donald Duck and some research about it, I found something interesting. Donald Duck has traits of a stingy and rigid personality. It seemed like an unpopular personality, but people like its character. I think it is the most successful part of the character recreation— it turned a character with a lot of negative traits into a popular character, through humanization and humor. Donald Scrooge’s character has an outstanding trait that he loves money to an extreme degree. He never forgives any opportunities to find golds. He doesn’t find money only to live a wealthy life, the money he owns surpassed that—it becomes his aspiration to find money, like chasing his dream. He could go sailing or mining for finding golds and doesn’t care whatever he does. As long as he can swim in the sea of gold and money, it makes him feel good; money is his spiritual support. I think it is truly an interesting character how persistent he was. Just like what the social commentaries said: “the character shines through his persistence despite the obstacles.”

Tin Tin on the other hand, usually tells stories about the unexpected things happened in another country. Tin Tin is different from Donald Duck’s stories which he brings people on adventures and opens a whole new word for the readers. But Donald Duck is more about how unusually but funny the characters are, how Donald Duck reacts to the situations, and the interactions between his nephews and him also become the highlights. 

From my observation about the comic books and comic strips, I think comics strip focus on small pieces of stories while the comic books focus on a certain topic or genre as a whole and the type of content is consistent throughout.