Death Note

My favorite part of Death Note was definitely the character design for the Shinigami, and really the art in general. This was my first Manga and it had a very different feel than other comics I've read.

In class Stephen mentioned that the production process of mangas was different than that of comics. The bubbles are drawn by the artist and incorporated into the art, rather than being added later by a letterer. I thought that had a nice feel to it.


I really enjoyed the art but the story opened too fast. The whole thing really moves like a 14 year old boy wrote it, and I think that is probably the audience. At the beginning of the story the character finds a book, and almost immediately decides he is going to kill all the murderers in the world. This decision comes fast, and while the character does display some doubt, it seemed a stretch that a kid that is already too caught up in his own concepts of good and bad, would be able to kill so many people in such a short time.

Beasts of Burden

So... I definitely can't say I've ever read anything like Beasts of Burden... and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.
There is something very old fashioned with the art, the water color... and the fact that the characters are all animals compared to the violent and magic lending undertones of the piece...


I think that's why I like it... The combination of sincerity and insincerity reminds me of vulgar cross stitching....

The series is written in a sort of Strange Tales way, and while there is a narrative that follows from one issue to the next, the succession of issues almost feels like a new episode.


I don't really know what to think about the story... the only criticism I'd have is that in Volume 4 some of the action is unclear....

Neil Gaiman New Yorker Article

It was interesting to read Neil Gaiman's biography in the New Yorker. Gaiman is definitely a man who has his hands in every form of media; film, comics, blogs, books... which leaves me wondering more whether or not specific ideas and stories operate better in one media or another, or if it truly is all about execution. There were times I was reading Sandman that I believed it could not be a book, because I was not too attached to the details of the event, and was not given much character insight, or anything that would have left me interested enough in to learn any way that wasn't a quick glance at the page.

The quotes from Gaiman in the article did not help me get a better idea of who he was. I really like his thoughts, they're very clever one-liners, I like the genera he writes in, the macabre Victorian period he draws from and the mythical lore he incorporates. But so far I've only read Sandman and wasn't particularly in love with it.

The most fascinating part of the article was hearing about how Gaiman learned to write comic scripts from Allen Moore. I wonder how that opportunity came about and how long it took to go through the script.


I wonder how he pitched his renovated concept for the Sandman.

Sandman Dream Country

Neil Gaiman's Sandman Dream Country is an interesting approach to a comic book. It takes a theme: dreams and dream lords, and explores it through an almost scholarly narrative. Perhaps its just because I read it before finals week, but it seemed too close to an essay for me to really enjoy.

The first story was about an author who receives a muse from another author who previously tricked her into being his slave. The most interesting parts of this short story was the mythology. Had this not been a comic book, and just been a short story, I wouldn't have finished it. The art was interesting enough for me to stick with it. I would have been more interested if the story had more mythology and was less on the life of writer. The main character of the story, a writer, doesn't show any real guilt about raping and imprisoning the muse. There is no interesting conflict with his relationship to the muse. When the lord of dreams attacks the writer I didn't feel any remorse for the main character as he went insane.
 His going insane was my favorite part of the books, but not favorite enough to justify reading the whole story.

The next chapters were about cats, Shakespeare's midsummer night dream and a woman who looses her face because of the Egyptian dream lord.

Again there were moments in each story that were good:
Vultures from the cat story and the reactions of the demons to Midsummer's Night Dream.

My favorite story was the last one, the euthanasia debate is interesting and seems to have been surfacing a lot lately. 
Friday NYU showed the first year graduate students of 2010's films. One of the documentaries showed a 92 year old woman in Switzerland who wanted to receive Euthanasia but couldn't because the Swiss government did not have sufficient proof that she was going to die soon.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

I was initially turned off from the cover art and the movie, but I really enjoyed the first issue.

The comics moved at a great pace, I was interested in the characters (although it took me a while to notice the difference between some of them... dashes vs dots on cheeks) and its definitely a book where you get out of it what you give. The art style is simple enough that you can easily skim through and understand the story, but the panels are loaded with details such as labels on shirts and hats.

I don't have a whole lot to say about this other than that I like it, and I just bought the rest of the series.

The Arrival

Its clear that Shaun Tan put a lot of thought into The Arrival's universe. The creatures, technology and environment are all incredible, and Tan takes a lot of time exploring both the environment, and his characters. If the world and the characters were not this strong there is no way I would have sat through this story. Its a strong choice to tell the main characters story, which is immigrating, then waiting for his family to be reunited in the new land for 3 of the 4 chapters. Allowing the main character to explore the world while he waits allows us to understand both the foreign environment, where other characters in the new environment come into play, and the time spent waiting, (because even though there are no words, it is an agonizing wait.)

I would rather have explored and learned more about the world Tan created through actions and conflict, rather than following a character waiting, wandering, getting set up in his new apartment.

The style of drawing and page layouts, with the waiting of the story makes it more exhausting. I like that the drawings are like photos from the 1800's, but would again, like them with a less waiting story.

(Sorry this scan is horrible.) This page illustrates a few different interesting deliberate choices.
The first being the use of blurry images (not so much on this page, the blurs are more accented later on, chapter II I believe, as the main character wakes up to his cat like guppy creature telling him something) to indicate the state of characters weakness.
Another is the use of angles, when looking at the dad in the final panel the girl is looking up at him in a low angle shot. This choice is very dramatic and not totally maintained through the rest of the page. Maybe it is only used this once, at the end of the page, as a punch line?
It is also interesting that the POV is not the main character. The whole piece feels like memories (everything drawn like a photo album) maybe the character we are following is not the main, and the little girl is. I don't know.
This page doesn't capture it as well as the first page, where there is a series where the father is packing up his suit case, but another trait of this piece is how slow it does. Which on the one hand captures the moments extremely well, and makes us aware of how slow waiting is. On the other hand, its a little painful.

I just got out of a storyboarding class where I showed my professor my boards and he brought up an interesting point about the movement in a page. I hadn't ever thought about composition in his terms, but he brought up that the moment from one page, through shapes and lines, will help lead our eyes from one panel to the other, and started showing me how. I marked this page before class today, because it was a little disorienting, or strange that we move from the man walking in one direction to a 180 degree flip where he is moving in the other, towards the back corner of the page (again not a good copy). But after the class maybe it makes sense with the movement of the guppy cat. I don't know, I'm still trying to figure this one out, for some reason this page disorients me/stands out to me.

BONE

 I remember first picking up Bone in '97 (I know because my Aunt sent it to me with a pack of the trading cards and a calendar from that year) and reading the over-sized comic with my dad. It was the only book I owned that wouldn't fit on the shelf, we had to keep it next to the atlas. We read up to The Dragon Slayer, which was all that was out at the time, but that's as far as we got. A few years back I tried to find my old copies of the book, but it seems my mothers favorite slogan "if in doubt throw it out" finally related itself to something other than lettuce. It was great to finally be able to pick up the series again, I read the series in 2 days.

The art, characters, conversation and the structure are incredible. I really enjoyed it.
pg 249 Art of carrying on a conversation and the stupid rat creature on the left always brings up quiche... again happens on 484, quiche rat is on left

pg 258 it disquieted me that he went on watch and wrote a letter, the way this was inserted was strange but i'm not so sure its a good point.

pg 283 i like how the background functions to portray the mod, and how the dream panels are all the same horizontal shapes.


pg 334 interesting dramatic motivation, but not totally logical, don't understand why, if Grandma Ben was going to walk off, she would have announced herself by opening the door. but still fun

pg387 grandma ben looks like joan of arc.

pg 497, the way the villagers have changed the log into a wall is very Zelda-y actually all of the villager mentality that we overhear feels like walking around Zelda. Also, apparently Zelda is a recognized proper noun in spell check.

pg 754 and 755 i like how the two actions are proceeding in different directions, that plus the rain makes it feel even further out.

pg 916 i like how the scythe is given a back story.  Instead of making it just the Grim Reaper icon... or at least to transcend it.

I love the series
Made me cry
I like that the belief system of the bones is more modern and fits us even though we can physically relate to the image of the valley dwellers. Although in Scott McCloud's comics he mentioned that we can more redily relate to more abstracted figures.

I love Bartleby and the Red Dragon.



Points: page155 Tom Looks a little like Rasl

JOKER Origin story, Batman #1 (Spring 1940)

Like "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" the Joker was based off of an earlier issue of The Shadow.
Bob Kane's Joker is more fleshed out than the character appearing in The Shadow's Grim Joker, and whereas the first issue of Batman was a brief imitation of another story, the Joker is enriched. The story too covers a wider scope than Police HQ and Crime Scenes.

This issue begins with an older couple listen to The Joker as he publicly broadcasts his threats. The murders themselves are again very similar to the style of deaths in the beginning of "The Partners of Peril" but there is something to showing an old couple listening to the radio, the mob boss reacting in public to The Joker's kills, that adds depth to Gotham.

Also the language used in the comic is great, very period. (Haymaker) And some of the fight scenes read like boxing matches, which is no longer the same popular, widely broadcasted sport.

From this new creation of the Joker, the Joker's public announcements continue with the character. In the Burton movie Jack Nicholson, as The Joker, holds a parade to deplore his gas, in The Animated Series Christmas episode The Joker holds a special broadcast taking over all radio stations, and in the most recent movie, "The Dark Knight," Heath Ledger as The Joker announces, like in this comic, who he will kill in advance, and eventually sets public threats, bombing a hospital, and threatening two boats full of people. This public threat and his games, challenges, and wagers, are what really make the character. As a mortician running a crime circle in "The Grim Joker" the character was just strange. The Jokers disguise as the chief of police in this episode is awesome, in "The Grim Joker" the Joker full time acted as one of the members of the crime investigators. I like that the Joker in this simply drugged the real chief police. So much simpler, impulsive.   

The Legend of the BATMAN - Origin Story

I didn't like The Spirit Origin Story because it felt too rushed, too short. The Batman origin story is only 2 pages, but its great. It's simple and, as we've seen throughout adaptations it provides a strong framework for various interpretations. From "Nobody knows who Batman is" by Les Daniels 2005, it sounds like Batman already had a following by the time an origin story was created. I'm sure it was impossible for Bob Kane to know the legacy Batman would leave in films, comics and popular culture, but the lack of detail given to the icon provided a chance for future writers to really play around with the origin, while still hitting Kane's marks.

In the 2005 film "Batman Begins" we rediscover Batman's past. The first page is the same, while the second page explores Batman's training and self discovery. But still the ideas that he studied, that he trained, that he used his wealth in the end and that his costume is a symbol of fear are included. I like though how the inspiration for Bruce Wayne's disguise, and his past are fleshed out.

In Batman Year One by Frank Miller the simplicity of Batman's origin story is used in short form. It can be summed up that: Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered in front of him when he was young. He inherited their fortune. 

This origin story can be thrown in, and has weight to it, it effects the personality.

Wolverine's origin story is similar, his desire to recover his past, and punish those who made him a weapon drives him through several stories. The level on which the origin story creates the character in both Wolverine and Batman is different than that of The Spirit in this way. The Spirit was already fighting crime, he just changed his identity, and gained some powers. Batman and Wolverine undergo physical transformation, but their personalities, obsessions, and morals were created with them.

This is one reason why revenge is such a powerful narrative device. By implying the concept of revenge one makes assumptions about the society, the world, the identity and the sanity of the avenger. The loss of a family, or a loved one, is enough for a member of the audience to understand revenge. If the audience does not understand the motivation for the revenge, the character seems unstable.
Revenge happens because society does not grant justice to the avenger. Usually the revenge happens outside of societies methods. Gotham city is corrupt, and for Batman to seek justice he must fight his way around the law. Outside of society.
The revenge also deals with a loss of identity, which is what makes Wolverine's revenge powerful. Bruce Wayne looses his parents, which effects his identity from son to orphan (in a blunt/direct statement). The Shadow looses his physical identity, but the portion of his world we had seen, the portion of his life, did not change. He was positively identified as a detective, in his death this identity did not change.
Idk, its 3 in the morning and I'm playing around with these ideas. Let me know what you think.

May, 1939 The Batman! (The Case of the Chemical Syndicate)

Going into this issue of Batman I had read that Bill Finger was influenced by Walter B. Gibson's issue of The Shadow "The Partners of Peril" and I knew that the premise was the same, but I didn't assume that the comic would be a sparknotes of the fiction. There isn't much to say for the writing. Some of the dialogue indicates, not trusting the images enough, but its fine.

Today in my storyboarding class the professor recommended keeping a bible of every day things, anything that is interesting. Floor patterns, furniture, etc. I had heard this before, from I think it was the Art Crumb documentary Crumb, in which the famous cartoonist goes through Polaroids he's kept of telephone poles and buildings.

With this in mind I went back through the batman comics, and I noticed that there aren't telephone poles or even much detail in the background.

Most of the backgrounds in the comic are different gradients. I didn't notice the flat space this created, or the lack of background detail while I was reading it, but it works, its something I didn't really think of before. Which makes the items in the room more prop like. The details all do set the tone, and aren't ever in excess in the frame. The technology is very period, and each of the suits has excellent, and different texture.

The negative space is lighter than the filled space, which has a darker grade.

Rasl: The Drift

I haven't seen a face like Rasl's in a long time. I know from the interviews from Jeff Smith about Rasl that he wasn't trying to create a good guy, that he wanted his character to have low morals. It interesting then how he created his character.

The roundness and pug nose of RASL, the heavy eye brows, both remind me of early American Gangsters, with faces like James Cagney's

Or the man on the left from The Sting. I wish there were a profile image of him, but his nose is shaped very differently than anyone I see on the street these days, and its not just a difference in costume. RASL's long hair and clothes don't scream the 30's, but I can't get past the association of his face. I always associate that style mug with characters like the ones played by Cagney or Bogart, The Ellery Queen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellery_Queen) man. The character with unscrupulous morals, but not really a bad guy, and dispite his associations, usually has a big heart and keen sense of justice.


From the interviews we had listened to in class, I was expecting a character a little less stock, and a little more immoral.

I can't say this story grabbed me. The ideas are cool, and I like the machine's design, but I don't feel the space really exists, or that Smith is choosing the most interesting ways to tell the story.
 (Insert page 31)
There is also a lack of shadows which is interesting for a noir comic. It feels like light is existing everywhere, as opposed to the desert where shadows are generally long or distorted.

Batman Year One

I really enjoyed reading Frank Miller's Batman Year One. There is more gravity to the crime presented in this comic than in other comics we've read this semester. In both The Spirit and The Shadow the crime affects those who have, more or less, willingly participated in it. There still seems to be a sphere in which crime does not exist. But in Batman Year One all of Gotham is supersaturated with crime, and it seems like all Gordan and Batman can do to fight it in a comic world of deep reads, blues and purples, hardly any greens but as highlights.
  Adding to the tone as well is the use of 'gutters' in the comic. Scott McCloud, in his "Understanding Comics" explains gutters as being the space in between panels, in which different amounts of time can exist. This page of the comic is a perfect example of that. The big squares of black note the conscious state of the commissioner as time passes through the actions of Batman.

The black panels again note Batman's helplessness/unconsciousness:

Details like this are personal, which is another aspect of Batman Year One that sets it apart from the earlier comics we've been reading. Batman is very human, unlike The Spirit, who, in his origin story, instantly gives up his life to become the ultimate detective, or The Shadow who miraculously solves crimes off screen, or senses danger through superhuman, yet unexplained skills. Miller shows Batman failing, and learning how to become the vigilantly icon he is today. He explains to the audience how Batman manages to achieve what he does. This exposition of his strengths and weaknesses makes Batman more human, more relate-able.

Desolation Jones

To review the script for Desolation Jones, I've had to read it twice. The first time through I was expecting something more along the lines of a film script or a detailed story board, but was surprised by the script's lack of specification (which is not to say the script is visually lacking, its not, it reads very fluently, less like a set of step by step instructions on how the comic should be created and more like a story.)
An array in the level of detail in the script illustrated key events, as Warren Ellis takes time to describe environments and characters to set up the tone at certain moments:

(Page 1)Pic 2
Cut to: a middle-aged WOMAN, sitting in a big chair, reading from a cardboard folder. Again, the distortion, the chair seeming massive, her hands ballooned by the weird focus into immense talons.

While more frequently omitting specification at others:
"Pic 4;
Jones on the phone, still trying to wake up."

I feel that the difference in these moments has left an impression different than that that may have been picked up reading the comic, which I still have not read. It'll be interesting to see if the flow of the story is effected by the affinity created by having details drawn out. Diminishing the contrast between: "Still trying to wake up" and "the chair seeming massive, her hands ballooned by the weird focus into immense talons."

Ellis gives a lot of freedom to J.H. Williams III to choose how to cover a majority of the stories action. Although at other moments Ellis describes the method he wants Williams III to illustrate in (the angle he should shade from, etc.)
I wonder how many images were sent back and forth between the William III and Ellis, whether or not this script should be treated like a script that is being pitched for story or for production. From the perspective of our class, I've been treating it like production, which may be why it seems so odd to me, although this is the only comic script I've read.

Reading it simply as a script, a very powerful element of is Ellis's creation of a space and character:
"A light source from above bounces off her little glasses, so that we cannot see her eyes."
There is a logic to how the practicality of the space effects the tone of the piece,
which made the script so enjoyable to read. And the characters are drawn very clearly.

The link to the script can be found on Warren Ellis's site at:
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7954

The Spirit/Batman by Darwin Cooke

The idea to combine Batman and the Spirit is fun, but the comic Batman/The Spirit doesn't really develop too far beyond getting the two vigilantes together.
The first half of the story is told through parallel action, using different color schemes to indicate the different cities. Gotham seems darker, using cooler tones, while Central City is covered in warmer and lighter colors. The contrast between the two cities is minimal enough to prevent Central City and Gotham from being completely alien to each other, but at moments the affinity between the two cities is too great, and may be confusing. Like most parallel action, as the action converges, the number of panels inbetween the actions become fewer.
Aside from form, it is interesting that the villains initiate the bridge between Gotham and Central City. Either Plato or Aristotle writes that when man secludes himself from society it is unhealthy and the root of villainy/evil in men, yet here we have the heroes being secluded while the villains fraternize with each other across cities. The fight for evil is more organized and offensive, while the fight for good is counteractive. Although maybe this makes the fight of good seem overwhelmed, so that the audience roots for the underdog. I’m not sure.
For this comic overall I would have liked to see a larger sense of the noir in the illustrations and more development on characters. I know that the characters have already been developed to the point of icons, but I feel that the concept would have been better served if more time were taken to sit with the characters.

The Shadow

Possibly one of my new favorite series The Shadow is exactly what I was looking for when I was 12, I wish I would have discovered it earlier. I had heard the radio dramas, which are great, but still have a very "mass market" quality to them. Which makes sense, radio programs were product sponsored, the stories weren't only to entertain, but to entertain a specific demographic. Which turns out is why Margo Lane was created in the radio programs.
That's not to say that the pulp books are not "mass market" just in a different sense. They are the Hardy Boys fused with a Korean Gangster film. Great action, ridiculous briefly introduced scientific contraptions (the truth chair that only appears for a few pages in The Partners of Peril), and incredible gore, which, in ways, makes them both more indulgent and more potentially offensive. Although its hard to gauge what levels of violence were deemed excessive, this is before the mta rating system and Doctor Spock.
It makes sense that Batman was heavily influenced by The Shadow, from elements of his disguise, to the themes of the night, even the style of violence and the city backdrop both vigilantes share. Although The Shadow feels infinitely darker. His world is more violent, and more terminal, Batman doesn't kill as casually (although its always emphasized; The Shadow only kills out of necessity and even then only under pressure.)
What I find most appealing about The Shadow is the tone of the writing. The writing is fast and cliche, but it sets the tone of the piece perfectly, giving it more depth than The Spirit. The Shadow is always described in shades of black, and forms like wisps and vapors. The pacing is quick, but detailed, again more so than The Spirit, which takes 2 frames to tell an action that would make the story seem more fluid in 4 or more. The Shadow doesn't have this frame restraint, the action is thought out, and relatively complex, at least, again, in comparison to The Spirit. At times it is so complex that looking back on it seems ridiculous.
In The Partners of Peril around page 108 there is a scene in which Meriwether, superintendent to a chemical plant (because all comics from this period seem to be obsessed with chemicals) chases The Shadow. Both characters end up continuing the chase on trains loaded with explosives within a compound, that manufactures explosives. The superintendent eventually blows The Shadow's locomotive to smithereens, creating a crater within the compound. While I was reading this I wasn't at all phased, but seconds later, when the Superintendent was back in the office explaining the chase to the detective I realized how absurd the whole thing was. The only reason I was accepted it was the pacing of the story.

The Spirit: Lorelei Rox and The Origin of the Spirit

The Origin of the Spirit is one of the shortest origin stories I've ever read. The Spirit is created within 2 pages, and as soon as he is created, he solves the crime that made him. Most origins stories focus on the heroes past, but The Spirit, at least from what we've read, seems to be doing the same duty, living the same life, that he had been before his "death." He just picks right up where he left off.
The Spirit himself wasn't really created in his origin story, at least not in the sense of Batman or Wolverine, whose creation seems to have a larger impact on their personality. Denny Colt seems to have always been completely obsessed with his job. So loosing his identity only enables him to better do his work. I guess this works in the film noir style. Bogart, or Nicholson (in Chinatown) never seemed to have anything else going on aside from their practice, but I think the different note between the noir in the film world and the noir in the comics, is that the crimes we were watching in classic noir film opened the lives of the detectives. They showed the vulnerabilities of the detectives through their desires, brought to light how unhappy the men were.
The Spirit isn't made more human/vulnerable through his cases, he is kept human through his limitations (being beat and near murdered in Loreli Rox) but its not the same.
Its still undeniable that the style is Film Noir. By looking at the first page of Lorelei Rox you see the light is motivated by tone. Commissioner Dolan is reading in the dark when The Spirit enters the room, but it establishes the feel for the comic. The action is all very blunt, taking place before us.
I think what throws me off the most about this comic, is how fast everything happens, I feel like its too episodic even for a publication with its page limitations and deadlines.

Scott McCloud on Comics TED talk

My favorite part of this speech (that wasn't directly in Understanding Comics) is the exploration of future forms of comics. Online comics are now everywhere, and I think its important we do maintain the difference between comics, and new emerging media. McCloud talks mostly about the necessity for space in comics to maintain its relationship to time, and discusses that motion within a panel defeats the idea of moving from one panel to another. I understand that visual the space is the same with sound, but I have a problem with the new motion comics Marvel has been releasing. They exist as an awkward demi medium between animation and comics. Its important to choose which elements should be added into a new medium, and i'm glad he explores the reasons why some forms work and some don't.


My father always said that one generation studied science so that the next could have the opportunity to turn around and waste it all on the arts.