Free comics at the public library!

I was at the Cincinnati public library, down on Ludlow, picking up books and saw this flyer! So I wanted to pass it on to you all if you're interested!

Final Paper Reminder--Due May 1st via email; Also: What do I mean by research?

A few of you have emailed to ask for guidance about what sorts of research I'm looking for you to include in your final papers, so I thought I'd post what I've been writing to them. 

 What I mean by research: That would mean anything from including interviews with the artists in your analysis to searching venues, such as JStor and Project Muse (both accessible if you log in via the library website), for scholarly articles related to your paper.  You might look up articles about a theme you're interested in (eg animals in Maus, gender in comics, the relationship between manga and U.S. comics), for instance, or you might look for specific research on one of the comics you treat in the work.  You could also use a more general resource on comics, such as a book of comics theory a la McCloud.
 
Here are the books I posted links to early in the semester:



Hillary Chute's Graphic Women

A Comics Studies Reader, Ed. Jeet Heer and Ken Worcester

Michael Chaney's Graphic Subjects

Jared Gardner's Projections: Comics and The History of 21st Century Storytelling

Charles Hatfield's Alternative Comics

Frederick Aldama's Multicultural Comics

Douglas Wolk's Reading Comics

Thierry Groensteen's The System of Comics

Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art

Neil Cohn's The Visual Language of Comics

Randy Duncan's The Power of Comics

Stitches

Sorry for the delay. Graduating makes life crazy.

Stitches, for me, stylistically, was like many mediums in one. The story read for me like an old silent movie; actually, if you go to David Small’s website for Stitches, he has instrumental music that is eerie and goes nicely with Small’s art. Respond with your thoughts on art, music, and mediums and how it influences/aids adolescents, and Small’s adolescence specifically, in how they respond to pain and powerlessness.

With young adult novels trending towards darker themes as of late (Hunger Games, Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars), how do you think Stitches compares to these popular works of fiction?

What did you think of how the memoir ended? (“I didn’t”) How did it affect you? How do you think it affected/affects small?

Comic Extra Credit

I'm not exactly a fantastic artist but I do want to do this for a living some day, and this gave me some good practice. I expect I'll be continuing this comic in the comments if anyone happens to be interested.

It is kind of influenced by the sorts of things I've been watching lately, coming to the end of Falling Skies and having just started Helix.

I hope this is interesting to you guys.

Stitches, Part 1

I have to begin this with an apology for the lateness. 

1. A title card is a lead in to an episode which usually tells a person a little bit about the story that they are about to receive. Small uses this technique throughout his story either to break up the action or to provide insight into the way each part of the story will play out. What do you feel his intent in using the title cards is? Do you think that his application was effective?

2. Small uses a relatively realistic style of drawing to portray himself and the other characters throughout the story. If Scott McCloud is to be believed, this should make it more difficult to place yourself in the character's positions. Do you find this to be true? If not, explain your experience.

3. Pages 61 and 62 show small slipping into a paper and into what seems to be a stomach. What do you feel is the significance of this? What do you feel the stomach is meant to represent? What is the significance of the characters residing in the stomach?

Graphic Novel Extra Credit

            I wrote the short graphic novel The Path as a sort of journey for someone who feels alone. It shows a man gradually becoming distant and alone then eventually becoming stone even though people are there for him. He is being pushed along by this “crown” that increases his mental state and transforms him into a troll like creature. I love stories that are mystical and have a deeper meaning than what they truly show. I love stories that are weird and interesting. The graphic novels that I pulled from for this piece were American Born Chinese’s supernatural and play with nature and Fun Home’s artistic style mixed with some of the works of Jeff Lemire.

            I really love art. Most of my projects these days are sculptures of dinosaurs or movie characters. The change to actual drawing was hard, but I really feel like I pulled it off. The layout of this piece is sort of erratic. I wanted to create a few centers of attention. Those centers being the faces on both the second and third pages taking up most of the pages themselves. I switched between artistic styles throughout. Closer up you are to the objects, the more detailed they look. I love to follow that’s style closely since it makes the drawing process much quicker.

            The writing process took some time. I wasn’t completely sure how I wanted to go with it. I just started drawing and hoped that the story would flow along with it. I’m hoping that the story makes sense. I really enjoyed this course more than any other course this semester. It was on a topic I have so much respect for. Getting to write a short story like this was a dream that I never pursued. I really look forward to checking out other student work.

Extra Credit - Jordan Posey

I didn't actually think of a title, so how about... "Teenage Closet Story on a School Bus" ???

As far as style goes, Bechdel and Waldman mostly influenced the art for this. I wanted to work with a text from literature in the same way that Bechdel did because I liked that dynamic between text and picture in Fun Home. I also attempted the technique used by Waldman that involved changing the art style for a different narrative function. I am slightly worried the difference is not clear enough, but in the panels that are illustrations of the book I was working with, Maurice by E. M. Forster, I tried to use a wispier, looser style with more pencil and less pen. I originally planned to do a lot more and actually use this as just a template/sketch for a more elaborate digital draft, but I underestimated the time commitment. I planned the panels on a separate paper and then drew all of them before filling them. My initial ideas did change from the original plan to this draft, though. I originally picked different passages from Maurice but I changed them to be more relevant to the pictures I wanted to draw. In general I found words/text falling second to art, although I think it would have been more practical to do it the other way.

The story and the concept were two things that were much more difficult for me to come up with. I wanted to either focus on race or sexuality, or both, but I ended up choosing only sexuality because of the book I wanted to work with, Maurice, which is a book about sexuality and class. This is not autobiographical, but instead I wanted to convey feelings I have felt before. Reading a book about homosexuality on a school bus is something that would have caused me great anxiety in high school, and even now. I wanted my character to be so enthralled with the book that they would read it in public, and I wanted it to be sort of ambiguous as to whether he was embarrassed or not. The passages I chose are actually out of order by a few pages, but it made more sense the way I did it. The first is Maurice finally telling his former lover, a man who chose to live a heterosexual life, he is done with him. The second is Maurice embracing his new lover. I wanted the second scene paralleled with the current narrative, of my character shyly telling someone (possibly a romantic interest, who knows), that he is reading a book about homosexuality. This is essentially a story about being in the closet, or not being in the closet. Maurice and his lovers are certainly in the closet so I wanted that contrast, and I wanted it to be ambiguous as to whether my characters were in the closet or not. Whether he is or not, my point was that its always hard to put yourself out there, especially with sexuality.

If anything, I wish I could have differentiated the two styles more so that effect could have been more impactful. I really enjoyed making this though.

Lets talk about stitches

I'm not in charge of this discussion but I figure why not get something up here for anyone who wants to talk about it.  Stitches is an interesting memoir about a boy growing up in an abusive household, patterns of neglect and angst abound.  A few things that have stood out to me as interesting topics are as follows.

1. It is a very quick read in my opinion, in what ways did framing play into that? Does navigation seem easier than in some of our prior texts? Why?

2.  Up to the point of page 150 (for those of you that haven't read ahead), how much of this just seems like over reactive sensitivity to regular every day events in childhood?  I remember myself being yelled at as a child and holding a grudge against that adult for a year and a half, which seems absurd now.

3. In what ways does Davids opinion of characters show through in the style in which they are drawn?  The grandma being an obvious one, but check out the drunk drivers on pg. 71. The book certainly shares emotions through style. What stood out to you?

4. This novel is entirely in black and white, are there any scenes that you would consider adding color?

5. What did you think of the style of this memoir? Was it more effective than the priors? Why?

A normal Day in the life of a College Mom-Jillian's Extra credit

So, my apologies for the progressively deteriorating artwork, but I'm more of a landscape drawer than a people drawer. I chose to describe a somewhat normal day in my life because it wouldn't take an entire book to fill. Some questions that need to be answered: I am an insulin dependent Type 1 Diabetic, that's why there text like "blood sugar" and "test." My daughter Autumn is more important than being overwhelmed about getting into grad school or finding a job, but I do work diligently so that she gets everything she needs and wants. Oh, and yes, some days its seems like I've been awake about 15 minutes before someone tells me to leave for the shuttle.
I'm more influenced by text and story rather than the artwork. I think my influences had very little effect on what I was trying to get at in the scene. Lynda Barry's collage and sort of jumbled text style certainly had an influence as I was making this, but I think if I had more time, and energy, it would certainly have other influences. I used an old Manga drawing book to come up with my first page. There is something stylistically pleasing about Manga. I like it, this is my best attempt at drawing it.
As a form, I like how its easy to hide away superfluous details with panels skipping time periods, like its 6:45am and then its 7:00am.

AC Original Comic Submission

Hello folks. Just a fair warning that some of the images are graphic. If you'd rather not see that I wouldn't recommend reading on (many apologies!)

Canoed

HigherEd Anxiety

I'm not very artistic. I may be a writer but that doesn't make me an artist. My specialty is factual writing, not creative. The name of HigherEd Anxiety was inspired from one of my favorite movies that I recently watched (Mel Brook's High Anxiety). My comic focuses on what has been dominating my thoughts lately – graduation and my future. My humble artistic skills are brought to you by InDesign.

Lynda Barry's One!Hundred!Demons! was fresh in my memory when I started on this, and I let her inspire me. Though Barry's comic is much more detailed and colorful, I tried to mimic her message. Graduation is a rite of passage, and many of Barry's demons reflected issues that we face in childhood and during our rites of passage. My demons in this comic are self doubt and stress. They are represented by snapping teeth eating away at me. Barry struggles to overcome her demons in each chapter of her comic just as I struggle to overcome mine in the comic above. After I formally introduce my demons, the next frame shows me trying to beat them off with a newspaper. I primarily chose newspaper as my weapon of choice because it represents my career choice. But it also shows how I view these demons – beatable. You use newspaper to sway away an annoying bug that's buzzing around your head. My demons of self doubt and stress are just that, annoyances in my head that I need to just swat away.

I also channeled Art Spiegelman's Maus in my comic. I always found his use of masks as interesting. They represented the different races, but also provided a sort of anonymity. Spiegelman said in an interview with The Comics Journal that one reason he chose to represent the characters in animal masks is that it allows the readers to envision themselves in the story. Scott McCloud echos this sentiment in Understanding Comics, he said that humans will look for human characteristics in objects, so they will try to relate to those objects and will pay more attention to them. I chose to represent myself as a minimalistic stick figure in an attempt to employ McCloud and Spiegelman's theory. The figure is a blank slate that audience members can drop themselves into, it doesn't even have a face or any details that would point to a certain gender. I also think that the topic is a popular one that many soon-to-be graduates can relate to.

Austin Marck extra credit

I am not an artist. It is laughable when I try to draw something in any context.  I come from a family of skilled cartoonists. I have cousins with art in fine galleries living luxurious lifestyles on their passion. My father was exceptional, when I stumbled upon his artwork that he had kept hidden away for years I thought it was  an almanac of some of the great masters, but no it was his old doodles. The man was extremely talented. Those gifts and skills despite any efforts of my own do not exist.  Pictionary is harder than writing complicated software or doing a case study, "drawsomething" was uninstalled after 10 minutes of using it.  

Enough of that, onto what the comic is about.  My best friend has a cat, who has far too much personality for his own good.  He can not meow, but he can make a bit of a noise, something like a whisper. He's been spoiled, after being a stray for most of his adult life he knows how to push enough buttons to get what he wants. He will hold a lengthy conversation about his needs and your duties until his demands are met.  We've coined him the councilman.  Much to the same avail as the monkey kings son becomes human in "American Born Chinese" this cat or "The Councilman" takes on the personality of a person in the home.  Both have some strange vendetta towards people in some context certainly.  One being resolved over bubble tea, and the other more ruthless of the two only resolved over turkey.  The amount of thought I put into this was far and beyond what I had expected.

Before I wrote this I wanted to have a goal, something for the audience to take away, even if it is silly.  The hope is that the reader will be confused on what exactly reading in the first page and have some closure by the second. The dark space and poor framing was very much intended to make things ugly to contrast the last page. Since the goal of my comic was to be confusing, then after resolute, I think it turned out the way I wanted.A quick change in fonts here and there and color to show who's speaking.     I asked my friend if I could snap a photo of the drawing she did of the cat to share in my comic and she said absolutely.  So that seemed to me like the perfect way to finish off the paper, and getting a picture of the cat checking it out was an absolute bonus.


I've always thought about drawing comics with bad art and interesting ideas, this was a fun way to show myself that I should run the other way as fast as I can.  It was seriously fun and I'm glad I did, but I'll leave the art and structure to the artists. It certainly gave me an appreciation for what they do. I would be happy to write the dialog and maybe go so far as to storyboard a comic in the future assuming that someone could deal with my chicken scratch.
Thanks everyone!

Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me Questions.

Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me Questions.

1. After finishing the entire book what did you feel about the constant changing of panel display? Did it interest you or make you lose interest. What are your thoughts?

2.  The Epilogue unravels the story very subtly and gives you a deeper insight as to what Harvey Pekar was really like.  Does this drastically change your opinion or does it explain his character?

3. His ego and stubborn mindset are prevalent throughout the book.  Do you think that his knowledge and constant obsession has something to do with it?

4.  Does JT seem like a more knowledgeable source about Jewish history? And do you think that Harvey looks down on him because of his age?

5. Does the fact that Harvey was drowned with information as a child have something to do with his ability to write? Do you think that his hatred sprouted his passion?

Not My parents Israel Discussion questions part 2

Let's just get down to the knitty-gritty, everyone is hitting that end of term wall.

1) Harvey Pekar spends a lot of time explaining the Palestine-Israel conflict/war and how he became less enthused with the idea of Jewish Nationalism. Why do you think he barely spoke about the Camp David Accord? For those who are not in the know, the Camp David Accord was where Egypt and Israel signed their peace agreement. Does Pekar sound like he's missing some historically important information or does he sound like a well informed person?

2) Harvey's experiences with the consulate sound terrible. Do you think that Harvey was trying to use the newly formed Israeli state to escape his own problems or did he legitimately think that he could do well? I felt like he was trying to escape because he wasn't doing well and he had been kicked out of the military and he wasn't keeping a steady job. Does Harvey seem jaded? Does the more realistic artwork make him look more grumpy and angry?

3) And last one: The epilogue is Harvey's wife's view of meeting his family at his mother's funeral and his own funeral. Do you think that Harvey and his wife were more cynical about the amount of money given to Israel? Do you think that their opinions on the funeral, the funny over-zealous grievers, and the Rabbi show an accurate portrayal of these people?

Nearing the End!

 I'm so glad to see how interested you are in the Pekar book. As Israel and Palestine are frequently in the news, I think it's useful to take a look at how a writer like Pekar makes sense of his waning sense of support for "the Israel his parents promised him." I hope we can continue the discussion as we finish up with our course!

I've been very impressed with our class discussions this term. My apologies if I haven't always posted on everything you've written (I have a tiny, very demanding baby at home, which is part of why I am teaching online, instead of in-person, as I usually would), but I've been keeping up with reading your discussions and have been so impressed.

Please don't forget to be in touch over the next week or so about your final papers if you'd like feedback or help! Also: don't forget to create and post your extra credit projects if you'd like them to count toward your grade or get feedback from me or the class. 

If you are interested, I am teaching a face-to-face upper level undergrad Capstone seminar on comics in the English department.  It will be similar to this course, reading-wise, but with different materials and face-to-face interaction! I saw that a few of you had already signed up, but there are some spaces left, I believe.  It's fun teaching online, but I have enjoyed meeting some of you in office hours and will enjoy being back in the classroom!

Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me - Part II

1. What did you think of Joyce Brabner's epilogue? 
2. Would Harvey Pekar have wanted a statue made of himself?
3. Why would Pekar's cousin not stand up for his editorial about invasion?
4. How effective was JT Waldman at redefining settings through variety of framing?
5. In what ways did Waldman's art reflect his own commentary about who Pekar was?
6. What was one of the more interesting things you discovered reading this comic?
7. Are there any extra thoughts you want to discuss about Pekar, Waldman, or Israel?

Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me

As history has showed us time and time again, even until the present, racism, discrimination, and ignorance lead people to do horrible things all the time and mistakenly judge others by the acts of few, if there is anything I wish for, it would be for more awareness and open-mindedness when it comes to accepting and respecting anything and anyone that is different. > > > > I can honestly say I was skeptical about posting about this book, I was worried about what would be said about Palestine (being Palestinian-American), and not having heard anything about this book before, I guess I didn’t give it the benefit of the doubt before delving in and reading it. Well, it is true, and as we see time and time again, to never judge a book by its cover, yet we usually do, which is what I mistakenly had done. > > > “Hope, fear, redemption, remembering not to forget…yearning for an impossible future…all the ingredients for a perfect Jewish homeland (p.71)” > > I wasn’t sure how to feel about this, was Pekar being sarcastic? Was he being condescending? What are your thoughts? > > So far, the reading of this book has had me at a standstill, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I wasn’t expecting was a “self-hating Jew.” It was very interesting to see his thought process, and from what I know about the history of Palestine and Israel and how it all came into play, I was at first worried if he in fact was a reliable source. So what do you all think? What do you think about Harvey Pekar so far? Do you think he is reliable? What do you think was Pekar’s point in writing this book? What are you ideas? How do you feel about the colors and graphics? Do you think the images and frames match his narrative? So far, I am interested in seeing what else he has to say, and how he became to be the man he was, what had changed his ideas and thoughts about Israel and Jews, and how it affected the outcome of his life.

Jess's Extra Credit Comic Strip

MY EXTRA CREDIT COMIC STRIP

Wasn't sure how to upload an image into a comment on the extra credit page so I am adding a post here so you can all see the comic strip I made! I made this in an 11x17 InDesign file, so it's uploading to scale. That way you all can read it! Feel free to comment and critique the comic!

Best,
Jess

Here is also a link to my website if you want to check out more of my work!

http://jessicaankeney.com/

Wow, we're down to only 3 more discussion posts and then we're done for the term. It's been so amazing reading all of these diverse and wonderful texts. Anyhoo, lets get to the task at hand.

As many of us have a general basic knowledge of the state of affairs after WWII for many people of the Jewish faith, how accurate do you think Pekar's summation of history is? Do you think that some of what he has said, particularly any of the historical information, is accurate? Do you think his view of the historical contest of the formation of the State of Israel is skewed by his own opinion and his own knowledge?

The panels and scenes where the descriptions of historical information, such as the many fights between different factions of Jews or the panels that are supposed to look like mosaics, look so intricate and detailed. Do you think that Pekar and Waldman were trying to illicit a historical or artistic reaction from these panels? It's almost as though they were familiar with the ancient artistic mosaics and tapestries that are from the region or show battles from the crusades, is there any effort of they're research that you think is missing?

And finally, what do you think of the more realistic style of artwork? Many other texts we've read this term took on more caricature style/ cartoon style that work with their own abilities as artists, where others like Maus, used it as symbolism. Does work for the story that Pekar and Waldman are telling? Would the caricature style worked for this type of story?

One! Hundred! Demons!

(Sorry for the lateness)

I expected something completely different out of this comic based on the title alone. The title, One Hundred Demons, brings to mind dark themes and perhaps a good vs. evil plot. However, reading the comic told a completely different story. It’s a coming of age comic littered with bright colors and characters reminiscent of those I once watch on Saturday morning cartoons.

Now that we’ve finished reading the comic, I would like to explore what exactly Barry’s demons were. The one hundred demons she faces are really just lessons she learned as she grew up, and many of them don’t deserve the ominous title of demon. Why do you think Barry chooses the word demons? What does the word demons mean to you (does it bring to mind religion, or like Barry do you think of inner demons or obstacles that you struggle to overcome?) What do you think were the biggest demons she faced and why?