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lmst340-Assignment Fourteen "21st Century"

For this assigned reading I read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Johnen Vasquez. I really dig the art style of this comic, the sketch messy look really works for the theme of it. The black and white also gives it more of a crazy look. I found that the main character of Johnny is actually very intelligent, it seems as tho Vasquez intended him to be a commentary on modern society as a whole. For example, when the guy comes around with a questionnaire and talks to the lady in the beginning of the second comic, she seems surprisingly calm even commenting about how she doesn't want to miss Oprah. As well as when Johnny is answering his questions while yes insane as a whole I find that it had some commentary about today's media and violence normalization that might actually have some truth behind it. Another thing I found really interesting is the nonsequiturs in some of the comics, for example in the comic where Johnny is eating a taco and killing someone it suddenly cuts to two crossing guards getting possessed and battling it out, very interesting choice as it might confuse some readers, I really found them entertaining. My only complaint about this comic is the fact that sometimes form takes over function, the text bubbles were sometimes really hard to read, some of them I had to zoom in to understand, I feel like that while yes it helps the overall theme of this comic maybe the author should reconsider this choice.

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