For this week, I wanted to go back to a graphic novel that I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, in the middle of the year, My Friend Dahmer. I learned a whole lot more about Dahmer and had the chance to see the film for myself. I added a little further commentary on the story/polished it based on further findings. "This week I decided to read My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf, which I actually had no idea was a graphic novel before it became a film just a few years ago. The book tells the story of the author Derf throughout his last few years in high school and his "friendship" with classmate Jeffrey Dahmer, who later went on to become one of America's most notorious serial killers. Personally there's not a whole lot that stands out about the graphic novel visually. The drawings are fun/get pretty exaggerated at times and it's formatted like a normal graphic novel. The drawings are rather flat and evoke the look of a bizarre television cartoon. However, a...
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 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. ...
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