Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

This week I mainly focused on reading and watching Scott Pilgrim. In the past Scott Pilgrim was an all time favorite comic that I used to read. When the live action film came out I was so pleased with it. It’s unfortunate how many films these days are being created from graphic novels and comics. The only reason I think it is unfortunate is because how unimportant comics are. Most people stay away from creating them or do them as side projects, because of how time consuming they are and chances are the work won’t be recognized. Especially in the indie comic world, being known is a really hard thing to do. With all that being said, people still make comics and it’s great, because the love for comics is still really relevant.

I chose to read Scott Pilgrim because my love for the punk rock thrasher comics. I love when comics are over the top with everything they are presenting, because it makes it more enjoyable. We take more away from it then we would if it was written as a book or children’s book. Scott Pilgrim is a great example of over the top; Scott falls in love with this American delivery girl Ramona Flowers and must defeat her seven deadly exes in order to date her. The comic itself does a great job at making it very punk and over the top with visuals and dialog, but on the other hand the movie featuring Michael Cera is OVER THE TOP.

Let me explain, the visuals created for this movie make it play exactly how you would read a comic or play an old style video game. There are several scenes where different little visuals will appear to explain a situation or just glorify it. The best example is the scene where Scott kisses Ramona for the first time, the screen turns pink and little hearts are all around them. Even when Scott fights Ramona’s first ex boyfriend they are fighting as if they were in a game of street fighter, ITS AMAZING. I hope more moviemakers take something from this film, because the way they adapted a comic is genius and makes the world of Scott Pilgrim even better.

Transmetropolitan in class review

1. Transmetropolitan contains lots of symbolism, but I find that corruption and the use of power to slowly turn our world into a dystopia is a big part of this story. The main character Spider is pointing all of this out to us within the first couple pages of the comic. The author wants us to know he left corporate to be free of the corruption and be able to live in peace by himself. At one point he mentions that he fled to the mountains because he had to write what the people wanted to hear, and not the truth.


2. I feel I connected with this story, because I find myself not wanting to do what the person in power wants me to do. Especially with my art and not being able to constantly do what inspires me.

How spider lives for five years is how I really connected with this story. I moved from the mountains of North Carolina to come to school in Florida and it's drastically different. If I had the chance I would love to move back to NC and live a hermit lifestyle.


3. I think this story could EASILY be a anime, all I could think of while reading it was Fooly Cooly. Fooly Cooly's animation style was simple enough, but it played like a manga which I think is really important when adapting mediums.

I wouldn't change anything with how it read because I feel the way the comic is written is very linear and wouldn't be a challenge to adapt. I would even put parts of the strip into the anime to show the original context of the story. I think doing that is important, because it reminds you of the original context as well as gives it a comic book feel.

Anime and Manga

After reading some manga this week, I’ve completely changed my mind about how I feel about this style of comics. There are so many stereotypes and hate directed towards manga and anime that is completely ridiculous, but when I say that I agree that there is a lot of poorly drawn anime. This week I decided to watch all of Fooly Cooly, being a manga and anime I think both mediums represent this anime really well. The anime really makes it obvious that it is an anime; with the way all the characters are drawn as well as how they animate the characters. What I mean by that is when a character is going to kiss another one is zooms in and their lips get huge and its totally ridiculous. I love this though, these small animation stylizations that anime has to offer make it what it is. Especially with Fooly Cooly I really loved the punk music playing with the punk girl on the scooter who brings chaos to Naota life.

This story is a coming of age story all about Naota, I think this story is talking about how crazy things can be, but to be real with yourself. So when the girl on the scooter whacks Naota over the head, he gets this huge lump on his head. The next day people at his school tell him that this girl comes to schools and hits boys over the head and if a lump grows that means they have something dirty they are hiding. Naota being young believed them, so he runs away to find his girl and is approached by the biker girl again. We find out that the lump on his head is a portal for these robots. It seems like it is going to be against him, but the robot is looking out for Naota and destroys this monster that is after him. At the end of the episode they are at Naota’s grandpas bread shop making bread. This show is absolutely insane, I love the animation and story telling this anime has to offer.

Indie Comics

I decided to read Asterios Poylp this week, and was so impressed with the art and writing of it. Current indie comics are all doing this slice of life writing style. Were the writer takes a certain story they want to tell and they will just end it as soon as it becomes not as interesting. In Asterios he does this whole story about how he lost his wife and he has nothing else to live for so he gets on a train and just goes as far as he can go with the money he has in his pocket. Where he learns how much he misses her and goes to find her, I think this is the slice of life story that he is looking for. He brings us in to tell us the backstory of it and then explains what he is going to do then as soon as he gets to her the story ends. This is one of those stories that could last forever, because it’s presented as a life story. He could continue this story with what happens to Asterios and his wife. I think this is a big characteristic of indie comics these days. Another story that meets this is This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki. This story is all about two girls who do a yearly vacation with their families during the summer. The story lasts through one summer and it basically is all about these two girl going through childhood and coming of age. They realize what is right and what is wrong, they observe older people and try to understand what is going on. I think these two stories are similar in the sense that they tell a story in a short period and end it without fully resolving the conflict that they had during the story.

On another note, I think the art in Asterios is amazing it tells the story without even having to read the speech bubbles. The color he uses to set the mood is incredible, for example he uses reds and pinks whenever there is anger, sexual tension, or when he is in love. Being an illustrator I really appreciate when other illustrators use color theory to push the story.

This one Summer and the adventure of Women in comics

There was a long period of time when women were not allowed to illustrate comics there was a sudden boom of amazing women illustrators putting their stories out there. Most of these stories were created for young adults or younger women who were starting to experience life. These stories were meant to be lessons or just stories that entertained the youth. After reading this one summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki I fell in love with the comic’s women were making. This one summer is all about two girls who vacation together ever summer on the same island. They are starting to get older and are interested in the local gossip having to deal with the boys and girls. They watch and observe the boys and how they treat girls. I think they do this because of Windy’s mom; she is a feminist and is very critical of most men. We find out that she takes Windy on a lot of her lesbian camps and feminist groups. So Windy and Rose are observing these boys talking about women they are having sex with and it makes them very comfortable. They can’t seem to understand why they would treat humans like objects. They don’t ever say they don’t like it; they are just intrigued and want to see more.

I think the push for the whole “slice of life” stories have been really interesting. The indie comic world has definitely picked it up and made it a motif of lots of different writers and illustrators. I think this story is a great example of this; essentially this story could go on forever the way it is written.  The writer tells us this happens ever summer and we should expect it to continue on and on. So each summer these two girls meet up could be a totally different graphic novel. Anyways, I think this story is beautiful in the sense that it isn’t restricted and how real it feels. We all have been in that position, were we look up to people that are older than us and observe them. This story feels limitless and timeless in the way it is written. As humans I think we will always be observing others and learning from them.http://41.media.tumblr.com/8011195b6d4311081aad580cca66b784/tumblr_n69djkPbIB1tyhqkfo5_1280.jpg

Maus and Barefoot Gen

I knew reading the material for this week would be lots of fun, but be really difficult. I’m a big fan of World War Two stories and history so this week was easier for me. The first piece of literature that I read this week was Barefoot Gen.. First I want to say the comparison between the anime and the manga is very strong. The artist who adapted the manga did a very good job with keeping the beauty of the beginning of the film and the absolute horror the story has to tell in the second half. Work like this really makes the medium seem very adaptable and any story could be told through a comic or anime.  Anyways, Barefoot Gen is a great story with real facts and the shows the real horror of World War Two. At the beginning of the story we are introduced to Gen and his little brother Shinji, and we immediately feel for these kids. They are working in the field with their father and are starving, because there is an overall shortage of food in the city of Hiroshima.  The way this is written we are already forced to feel sorrow for these kids. The story itself is already known before you read it; because everyone should know all the things we did to Hiroshima during World War Two.  I think this story has a lot of comparisons to Maus in the way it is reflecting on what happened during the War.

Maus really pushed the way of story telling at that time, the way the artist depicted different groups in the story is really smart. The Jews are mice and the Germans are mice and the polish people that weren’t Jewish were depicted as pigs. I think that made the story more relatable in a way.  The artist put the different kind of people into categories for the reader can immediately understand the segregation these people undertook. The reason I think its relatable is because with story telling there is lots of description to differentiate the groups in the story, but with the three different animals we immediately know the groups and can understand them immediately. Also, with World War Two Hitler was committing genocide to these groups of people. So grouping them like this makes so much sense for the story.

Anyways, with the story I think the beauty of this story is how it is written. A father and son interaction reflecting on his experience is genius; it feels very authentic and true. I think what Maus did for the comic world was revolutionary because now all stories written in graphic novel form can be literally anything. We can’t have any pre-conceived ideas of the story, because now there is no limit to what story can be written and drawn. Before most comics were made for kids or just were really playful and cute to fit the Sunday newspaper.