Andrew Benson - LMST 340

For this week, to see just how comics have developed today, I decided to check out the webcomics  Out of Skin by Emily Carroll and Trash Mountain by Kelton Sears. I'm not usually one to read webcomics but some of them, like the ones I picked, have a very clever way of telling their stories. When scrolling down, some of them are very creative with their transitions and formatting. Trash Mountain , even though the drawings admittedly are god-awful, has a pretty unique style going for it. Almost every panel in the webcomic is a GIF and combines MS-paint quality character drawings with looped realistic backgrounds/video footage. It almost feels as if Sears is drawing on a movie. He also uses collage techniques, taking realistic photographs and adding them as textures to objects and environments in the story. However, before i knew it, the comic was getting way more bizarre the more I started to scroll down. If I'm being completely honest, i had no idea what was going on. I u

For this week, I decided to read Watchmen , written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. This is one of the most celebrated graphic novels of our time. There's a feature film that was released over a decade ago and a new spinoff TV show that was just released on HBO, and I still have yet to read the book/see any of the visual adaptations, until now. I went down to the library, picked up a copy of the story, sat on my couch, and began reading. Now I can definitely see why this book is so universally loved by millions. Comics and stories about superheroes have been around for nearly a century. They would normally be centered on one individual hero saving the world and stopping crime from dastardly villains. This book, however, goes far and beyond the traditional comic book feel. It seems like this was the story that put superheroes in a realistic setting before movies like The Dark Knight, Logan, and Joker. The tone of the story is very serious and the world the ch

I started to read This One Summer in class, but I never got to finish it. I finally had the chance to do so this week, and it was a pretty entertaining read overall. The drawings are absolutely gorgeous and reminded me of certain ink wash and gouache Photoshop brushes that I really love painting/drawing with. To describe the style of this graphic novel the best I can, it would be if Studio Ghibli movies were crossed over with a CalArts film and then turned into a black and white comic book. It's very appealing regardless. This story reminds me a lot of those modern, awkward teen, coming of age movies like Eighth Grade, Booksmart, and Lady Bird. Not that it's a bad thing, it's just that I feel like I've seen and heard this story about a million times. But its interesting seeing how the main characters in this story start to take a grasp of what adulthood looks like by taking interest in the conversations/experiences of their parents and the teenagers of the village.

After reading, and thoroughly enjoying, such stories like Box Office Poison and the first issue of  Bone in class, I decided to read Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli. I never heard of this story and had no idea what to expect from it. But right off the bat, this was a story that did not disappoint me. The visual style is so beautiful and immersive that you can't take your eyes away from the pages. At its core its a pretty human story but given that its a visual medium, it has the freedom to express itself and go beyond the ordinary. The introduction to our protagonist has a lot of creative visual metaphors/sequences to show what kind of person he is/ the life he had before watching his apartment burn up. Expressive colors and shapes fill every page as contemplative text supports each image (as if I'm receiving a lecture of some kind). The way the book uses is color is pretty interesting. Asterios' flashbacks are in pink and blue while present day sequences are yell

1.) What is your reaction to the text you just read? As a Batman fan, I've sadly never read The Killing Joke before. It was very powerful and pretty disturbing. Each panel is exceptionally well drawn, the compositions are all stellar, and the story is very compelling (despite reading a while back that Alan Moore was very disappointed with this book). The most interesting part of the story was that it centered primarily on the Joker (the antagonist) more so than Batman (the hero). To see a monster character like the Joker be given a very human backstory (and very sad) was intriguing, given that the character's past was almost always a mystery. 2.) What connections did you make with the story that you read? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect. I was able to connect this story with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight films and Tim Burton's 90's Batman movie. In Tim Burton's film, the Joker seemed to be the center of attention a

I will start by saying that I was never a fan of anime or manga. It never really appealed to me as a child nor as a young adult and I'm still not entirely convinced/converted to a fan of the medium. All the classic cartoons and stories like  Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Yo , and Miyazaki films were just never my cup of tea. However, that's not to say that I am against manga and anime at all. I do think it's important to study/read/view this type of medium as it sends vital messages on topics such as family, culture, and respect, and has the power to inspire a wide audience with its storytelling techniques and characters. I do see why people love the medium so much. So for this week, I decided to read  Buddha, Volume 1  by Osamu Tezuka, one of the most influential manga artists in history. The story essentially depicts the beginnings and spiritual quest of the Enlightened One himself and focuses on the poor conditions the people of India were facing during this t