LitComics_SalvadorCasellas

"Little Nemo in Slumberland" by Winsor McCay is a collection of weekly comic strips that follow the character it is named after throughout different fantastical adventures. One of the first things I noticed while reading these comic strips, was the way in which images and panels were used to enhance the story. I liked how in most comic the very first panel was used as a title. This way, the story is introduced with a long panel, which sets as in a place and time, with an image,  and also uses type, which creates a cinematic feeling to it.   The second thing that stood out to me is that at the end of every episode, Little Nemo wakes back to reality. McCay uses the same frame of the kid falling out of bed and waking up every single time. That is why I think it is very interesting to see all these comic strips one next to each other because it shows how the author thought about the great variety of things a child can imagine. Every comic has a different plot, location, a...

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 cros...

For this assigned reading I read Neonomicon by Alan Moore. The story started off in the middle of two FBI agents going to interview a psychopath, they are looking into a copycat killer that is copying the man they are interviewing. After this, they go to a club to bust their suspect. He ends up getting away, then they go to his apartment, where they find his mother dead. (I'm not going to summarize the whole thing), I really enjoyed the art style of this graphic novel, it was clear and crisp, it was also detailed but not in a super realistic way. The story of this graphic novel really takes some twists and turns through the whole thing. The one scene in particular that stuck out to me was when the two FBI agents went to investigate the sex cult dungeon and one of them ended up getting shot and the other got raped. This stuck out to me because it was so unexpected, I didn't realize this graphic novel was so gritty. During this scene I had to stop reading for a little bit and c...

For this assignment, I decided to read This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. It is the story of two young girls who only get to see each other when they are both in their summer cottages with their families. They have now known each other since the main protagonist Rose was five. As the summer progresses you can see slight differences between the two, Rose is more mature while Windy is more childish, you can see this start to wear on Rose as she is now more into her teenage years, therefore, more into that sort of thing. What I really like about this comic is the fact that the art style has a very illustrated sort of look, something in contrast with the clean edges of more modern comics. This looks almost as if the protagonist herself had decided to make her life into a comic. I also really like that we only know (For the most part) what Rose knows. aI find the elements of the story that drew me in the most were those of the adults, especially Rose's mom. The subpl...

For this weeks assignment, I read Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli, a great comic. The first thing that stuck out to me was the style of illustration that Mazzucchelli used in this, it has bright blues and muted purples and every character has their own style and shape, and I love all the the jumps from the narrator explaining one thing and then going back to another almost as if he gets distracted. A thing that really interested me was the fact that this story was being told through the eyes of the protagonist's brother who was stillborn. Another thing that I loved where the full page panels that used a lot of elements on them, I can really relate to some of those panels, I can see the careful placement of the the layout, it made me think of posters in graphic design (that is my major). Another thing that really stuck out to me was the use of misdirection in the beginning of the comic, we see the protagonist watching what we assume is a dirty movie (Pornography) with text bub...

For this assigned reading I decided to read Ranma. When I first started reading this comic, there were parts where I had to go back and read twice and even three times, because the gimmick in this comic is that Ranma is a boy who can turn into a woman whenever he/she gets wet. As well as Ranma there is his father, he transforms into a panda whenever he gets wet.  I think the concept is executed in a way that really works. I think the dynamic between Ranma and the three girls he lives with is something that I wish was explored further, instead they keep coming back to some jock in the school who likes both Ranma in his girl form and one of the girls Renma lives with. I really enjoyed the subtle hints through the comic of how Ranma was starting to also fall for the same girl the jock was after. The art style was very clean and exaggerated. I of crouse loved the fact that it was in black and white, the contrast really works well for the action that is happening in the comic. I think...

For this weeks assignment I read two comics, I read Corto Maltese and Persepolis. both comics had a black and white aesthetic that I have come to really enjoy over the course of the semester as we keep reading more and more comics that are black and white. The first comic I read was Corto Maltese, from the very first page I could tell I was going to enjoy this one, the whole pirate theme and the style of the illustrations reminded me of comics I would read when I was younger back in Puerto Rico. The story of Corto Maltese revolves around a character of the same name as the comic. Found adrift in the high seas by Captain Rasputin, Corto Maltese is recruited to help make a deal with a German sailor that needs coal, all the while dealing with hostages that Rasputin had taken earlier. The second comic I read was Persepolis, for this comic I really enjoyed the development of the protagonist, from someone who didn't really understand the world transforming into someone who saw and un...

March Book One is the story of John Robert Lewis the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district. In this graphic novel, he details his life and how he got where he is today. Starting out with a flashback to a protest that quickly gets escalated do to the police. It then flashes back toward the present (the inauguration of Obama as president) and we see John Lewis in his office, someone comes in to talk to him and he begins recounting his experiences growing up in the south, how he got into preaching, he recounts the how he met Martin Luther King Jr as well as many other things from his youth. I personally enjoyed the black and white aesthetic this graphic novel has, I think it really emphasizes the seriousness of the content that it speaks about. Some of my favorite panels were the ones that were completely black or completely white accentuating the text inside. There was so much detail through the graphic novel that made it feel much more authentic than it alre...

Maus by Art Spiegelman is a great graphic novel detailing the relationship between a son and a father, the journey of a Jewish man during the second world war and the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis. It manages to tell all of these stories in such a human and compelling way while also using mice as Jews, Cats as Nazis and pigs as the polish people. I most definitely think that this anthropomorphization of the animals reflects on how the different parties, Jews, Nazis, Poles all saw each other through the war, not as humans but as different species. Something else that really stood out to me was the artwork from this graphic novel. It really surprised me that there was so much detail in every single panel, while also remaining very simple and straightforward to understand. From simple things like drawing characters face with a line on the profile to make it seem like they are worried about something or someone, to important details like the armbands they used to identify jews dra...

For this assignment, I read Mr. Natural. I really liked the art style of this series, it was kind of goofy and wacky, also touching on some very disturbing material at times. The first story that I read was Sunny Side Up with Mr. Natural. What I found interesting about this one is the fact that he seems to be breaking the fourth wall most of the time. Pointing at us and even talking to us, an example of this is on the third panel. Also, it seems as if there are some real meta things going on in this one, like the person peeking from under the grass in the first panel, making it seem like its just a prop, some sort of cloth printed to seem like grass. Made me think of whats behind this stage like backdrop that we see. I then went on to read the rest of the stories in the comic, and wow, I never thought a comic would be so dirty. Even after being warned by the teacher in class, I was completely shocked at the materials they put in this comics. I was expecting a little sex or someone ...

When reading A Contract With God by Will Eisner, a story about a Jewish boy who always followed the will of God and made a contract with God, he moved to New York City and grew up there until he was a grown man, he adopted an orphaned baby who he named Rachel. After many years Rachel died of an illness and he was left all alone, so he threw his contract away and decided to buy the building he was living in and renounce his religious ways. He became a tycoon, buying up buildings. One day he decides to come back to his faith, so he asks the priests from his synagogue to draw up a new contract between him and god in return for the ownership of the very first building he bought, the one he lived in with Rachel. After the deal was complete he dies of a heart attack. Something that really stood out to me from this Novel, apart from the really interesting story and the way it made me want to keep reading and knowing more was the way it was laid out on the page, no panels, just one illustrat...

When reading Action Comics #1 I really liked the way they used the space on the page, the layout of the panels and the variety of the sizes for the panels really help the flow of how I read the stories. Speaking specifically about Superman, I enjoyed the way they introduced Superman and the way they clearly laid out all the groundwork for what he was to become and what he is. From simple things like the panel stating "A scientific explanation of Clark Kent's amazing strength" or his showmanship on panels 60 through panel 70.  As well as the basis for the costume and secret identity of our beloved superhero. Something I also found interesting is the difference between the Superman artwork, very colorful and alive. Using distinct colors for the foreground, background, and details and then reading the Chuck Dawson which did not have any color, it seemed like it was harder for them to make that distinction between foreground and background and opted to use a lot of empty ...

"Little Nemo in Slumberland" by Winsor McCay is a collection of weekly comic strips that follow the character it is named after throughout different fantastical adventures. One of the first things I noticed while reading these comic strips, was the way in which images and panels were used to enhance the story. I liked how in most comic the very first panel was used as a title. This way, the story is introduced with a long panel, which sets as in a place and time, with an image,  and also uses type, which creates a cinematic feeling to it.  The second thing that stood out to me is that at the end of every episode, Little Nemo wakes back to reality. McCay uses the same frame of the kid falling out of bed and waking up every single time. That is why I think it is very interesting to see all these comic strips one next to each other because it shows how the author thought about the great variety of things a child can imagine. Every comic has a different plot, location, and ch...

When reading the book "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud several things that stood out to me that were very interesting. The first is the use of space on each page, how he uses different sized panels to emphasize another panel or the use of breaking the character away from the panel, similarly in page 9 where the character's arm breaks the space and moves from one panel to another. However, as I mentioned in class another thing that stood out to me was when he started talking about how faces in comics are just symbols and the simpler the face the easier it is to projects oneself into the character. This is something that is taught in phycology classes when learning about the human psyche, where humans have a natural instinct to project oneself onto others as well as inanimate objects, that is why we are able to recognize faces so easily even when there is no face actually present. On page 64 there is a panel that I found very interesting and it is the one that ta...

In this first slide, we can see a man slumped up by the stairs, presumably injured, while a woman in a black dress does some sort of pose in the foreground, maybe having hurt the man? In the next slide, we see a giant, almost anthropomorphized chicken or rooster looking over a woman that is lying on a cot. The third slide shows two anthropomorphized rooster/chicken standing over what seems to be a grave, with a woman in it. The fourth slide seems similar to the third, two anthropomorphized rooster/chicken are shown nealing over a woman in a chamber The Fifth, the rooster man is leaving a room where there is a dead body The Sixth, two women dancing while the rooster man sneaks thru a secret door The Seventh, roosters-man eating inside a tent, while two women look on in disgust The Last, Scary looking rooster-man seems to hunt two young ladies thru a hall.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a mesmerizing journey into a foreign land by a man trying to help his family survive. The whole time he is faced with having to understand and trying to be understood in this land, trying to make it as close to a home as he can, all the while making money for his loved ones back at his actual home. This story is told only using illustrations, no text is ever visible to guide us. This works extremely well because of the detail that is packed into every frame, and the sequences from one panel to another are extremely short where we see everything being played out in front of us, like an analog animation, or a strip of film. When it is not doing this "strip of film" effect it is doing something as powerful and as important, it is showing us panel after panel of detail that will then be pieced together in the next "strip" to finish telling the story where those details are pertinent. One of the "scenes" from this graphic novel t...