Half of a perfect circle

Asterios Polyp is one of the best graphic novels I have ever read. The story is good, but what makes it GREAT is the art. There are countless different art style going on in Asterios, and they are there not only for the visual, but for the story telling as well. Different style means different personality, condition, feeling, emotion and situation. Polyp himself is mostly a poly constructed person, which representing he is all about function, logic and close to “emotionless”. His world is all about making sense and everything need to function in the way that they are suppose to. (That’s why when his house got burn down by lighting he take it rather hard as none of those things are suppose to happen)

There are a range of different type of storytelling using different types of element, lines, colors, shapes, facial, word and more. One of the most interesting things I found it’s the mix of style when Polyp first meets Hana. They were drawn in two totally different art style (representing personality), and when they start to talk they both has taken the other’s art style and mix within their own. It is visual story telling at its best; not even the best facial emotion drawing can tell a person’s emotion that clear. Polpy’s dialog bubble is always squire and Hana is circle, again, its visual story telling using every element that’s on the page. There in a scene where Polyp visit Hava in the classroom where she is teaching some students, and when they meet the box around that shot become circle to represent they are now a whole instead of individual.

 The use of flashback and what could have been is another great element of the book. Having the “DEAD” twin brother to tell the story of Polyp is a really interesting and fresh style. I realize there is no black ink at all in the whole book, and I think that’s really unique for a graphic novel. I am not sure what was the reason or purpose behind it, but it’s sure interesting to see that. In the end I think Asterios Polyp is more about the icon, shape, lines and color that’s connecting to the reader instead of reading the story itself.

ブラック・ジャック

Black Jack is a manga written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, who was also the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba and many other famous Japanese manga. He was basically the Japanese version of Walt Disney…well not in term of style. I had been always a big fan of Osamu’s work, but for some reason I never like Black Jack that much when I was a child. I think I was scared by the strange look of the character when I first read it, and never had a chance to return to it ever since. Black Jack is considering the best character that Osamu had ever created by Osamu himself, and I can’t agree more.

It is more of manga for teen and adult, and there are many medical references that children will just never understand. Perhaps that’s one of the reason I never read Black Jack when I was little. The character is a unique hero type, which is always on the grey line of being a hero or a villain. As a black market doctor Black Jack mostly ask a crazy high amount of payment in return for his surgery, and that’s one of the biggest arguments that put him on the border of being a villain. He makes an argument against that by asking how much is worth of life. If you think your life is the most important thing then you shouldn’t worry about how much money you spend, and any price that can save a life is consider to be way too cheap. I personally totally agree with him, as it doesn’t matter how much money you have, as once you are dead it’s all over anyway.

Osamu used a stereotype characters in all of his manga, and basically draw the same type of people with one model and repeat them over and over again throughout all his mangas. This allow the reader easily understand the situation and can focus more on the story.

Black Jack had changed its style more and more toward children after the death of Osamu, and slowly become something that’s almost too childish for adult to read. However Black Jack had became an animated series…well two totally different styles of animated series. One is a realistic and dark Black Jack focusing on the realistic world and the darker side of the story, the other one is a cute and funny style focusing on the lesson that children should learn after watching it.

ABC...D...

(I have no idea who he is, and I don't have the right of this photo but this is what normally a ABC looksl like)

ABC

American born Chinese is an interesting and fresh take on telling a story. I read the story of the monkey king like a hundred times when I was a child, and I must say Gene Luen’s monkey king is really close to the original. It is in a way a WHAT IF story and the mix with a real Chinese boy is a really interesting direction. I love how the story tells you a little about the king and it all turn out to be in the same world. The connection of each character really surprises me, and I love the “all-perfect” Asian guy who turns out to be the monkey king.

The artist use really simple iconic characters and keep the dialog simple too. It is really easy to read and because all those characters are so iconic and simple, it is easy for us to make a personal connection. The takes on the story of a Chinese boy trying to live in an American school isn’t the most unique story, but the way it tell it is fun and easily enjoyable. I think many Chinese or Asians had the same problem trying to blend in to the society, and we all know kids can be really mean. That Chinese boy had done some really stupid stuff to try to blend in and afro hair is really funny.

For some reason I feel that the story doesn’t have a good …or perhaps “HAPPY” ending, and we never really know what happened to the girl he liked and how he is doing in school. The story is really realistic as lots of those things are true, and most of the Asian think being white is better. I used to go to this high school in Taiwan where many girls change their hair color to blond. After graduating from high school I took a month travelling in Asia with one of my friend, and wherever we go he will always be really popular due to his skin color.

American Born Chinese is also known as ABC, and I think it is much different then what it was like before. Many ABC will come back to Taiwan for summer and most of them can speak Chinese, but doesn’t because they feel speaking English somehow make them better. My friends and I don’t really like those ABC, as they speak English to each other, and act like they are better all the time…which is totally not like that boy in the comic. Most of the time ABC had a richer family, and likely to buy a sport car and drunk driving around…well that’s just my experience with ABC back home. I don’t think your skin color matter to your behavior, as it’s where you growing up that will change your behavior. If you are born in America and go to school like everyone else I don’t think you will be too different from everyone else. However I feel America is still a country to judge people on his color, which is really strange for a country with such mix of different nationality.



Mice In Pig Mask

(Shame Mask)

Personally I felt that Maus is more of a novel than a comic, and its drawings are there to help the words. It can be a good novel without picture, but it can’t be a good comic without those narrations. The use of animal as real character and “Human” as cartoon character in the story is really interesting, as it totally take away the individual out of the nation and race. The goal and perspective of each race is therefore clear and reasonable to the reader. We don’t question why the cat is trying to get the mice, because that’s what cat does, and this can be apply and explain why the Nazi is out to get the Jews.

The use of animal also makes a horrible tale of massive murders more light hearted, and enjoyable to read. Seeing lots dead animal is easier than seeing lots dead people, and perhaps that’s one of the reason this is a comic that even a child can enjoy reading. I wonder why the polish is portrayed as the pig in the story…

It shows a realistic take on the event, and there is no hero in this horrible tale. The use of father and son conversation helps to bring some perspective to “us” as the reader  to relate the story, and perhaps the reaction from the son is close what most of the people nowadays will feel. Just like the son, we as the reader are reading this story in a point of view of an outsider, and it is good that the story is not forcing us to read it and experience it as we are there…as we can never understand how it actually feel like to be in the Holocaust.

The story brings us in and out of the past and present, and this helps the viewer to take a break from the intense story that’s going on during the holocaust. This is good for the story to progress some discussion and reflection on what we just experience, and that some time to process those events in our head. The art style also changes from the past and the present, as the past is always somewhat chaotic and the present is nice and quit…peaceful. The past is about action and the present is about reflection.

I love the ending most of all, and the best part is how we can totally see the emotion and thought between the two. The father is sorry for what he did and hoping the son can forgive him and still be around him, but the son is totally sicken by his father’s past action and now is walking away …it’s really sad and a create a strong emotional contrast and shows how things in the past can affect things in the present.

Okay...

I am going to start this blog by saying “Someone actually spent time to create this?!!!” I just can’t believe that there are artists that were willing to sit down and thought “ok, I am gona draw Mickey Mouse porn.” I read the Mickey Mouse Meets the Air Pirates Funnies, and first of all it is not funny, and secondly the drawings aren’t good at all. Some of the pages feel like some high school kid’s work, and sometime it makes me question about the artist’s ability to draw. I understand that underground comic is something that doesn’t get pay well, and no people really take it seriously but I think there is a line of “quick drawing” and “bad drawing”. The underground comic may had bring the adult to the comic book world, but reading a mouse have sex with another mouse isn’t a nice picture. In a way I wonder why would any normal adult that actually want to buy this. I am fine with reading drug use or sexual content in any media, but reading about a mouse having sex with a butterfly is nothing that makes you have nightmare for the rest of your life.

Maybe I had complained too much already, and there are many underground comics that cover strange themes, but this is by far the worst. I also take a look at some other underground comic like the Tijuana Bibles, which is basically short porn with no storyline. However what make the Tijuana Bibles ok is the fact that is about human, and the drawing is good enough so we can see what is what.

In the Air Pirates Funnies it brings realistic human characters in to those cartoon characters, and most of them are either whore or pervert. They all have clear story to tell, and most of the time the “bad” guy lose in the end. Beside the nudity, animal sex, drug use and what not, it still holds the basic idea of a comic at the time. It also has some dark adult humor in it, such as when Mickey is crying about why won’t anybody fuck him…I am sure that will be funny if you bring that in to a casual conversation with someone:   

    Older Brother: Hey Lucy what are you watching?

                Younger Sister: I am watching Mickey Mouse!

                OB: Oh really? I never like that character that much…

                YS: Why? Don’t you think Mickey is cute?

                OB: No.

                YS: I think Mickey is cute.

                OB: Oh yea? If he is so cute why won’t anyone fuck him?

                YS: ….

I am not sure if that is a good joke, but I am sure whoever came up with that joke must thought that’s the funniest thing ever.

The Hero with no superpower!?

Spirit is a character created by Will Eisner back in the 1940s, he can’t fly like superman (or leaps) and he doesn’t have super-human strength. Spirit is one of those characters that connect to everyday people, and because he is so “normal” it allow the readers to believe that they can do it too. We can’t connect to things we don’t understand or not familiar with, and that’s why Spirit as a character can raise alone with Superman and Batman at the time. Spirit had way deeper story lines and thought than most of the comic at the time, as its hero can’t just fly to the criminal and solve the crime with his laser eyes. The story goes through the process of thinking and mistakes before the hero can reach success, and most of the time it ends with the hero making a joke. The spirit defiantly brings the comic in to another level of narrative storytelling, and many others soon fallow its style. As a reader reading it today I won’t say the Spirit is a comic with deep thought and ideas, but I am sure it is compare to the other comics back in the day. 

Eisner believed that we need to show the emotion using every parts of the character in order to connect that emotion to the reader, and not only using the face but the clothes he is wearing as well. However, how do we show emotion using clothes, or a hat? I think what we can use is the expression of the lines and shapes of the objects to farther enhance the character’s emotion, and everything must be seem as a whole not as separated objects. That means what’s important is the shape, lines and colors of the character instead of his facial expression, and what the face is doing is just enhancing the emotion that’s already in the character. A good drawing should be able to show emotion without facial expression or words, as the body language and lines connect to people in a deeper way.   

Superman leaps in to the sky...?!

 I never had a chance to read the original superman comic or even the latest superman comic, but in my mind superman’s most iconic power is the ability to fly…and I find it shocking that I was wrong. In fact Superman can only leap for about 1/8^th mile according to the net, and is to my understanding that not before may 1943 that people can say that superman can fly without being questioned. While flying is surely a cooler super power than leaping everywhere, the history and reason behind it is even more interesting than this super power.

There are many funny and interesting things that I want to point out when superman first come out, and many of them has change since then. The “thinking” bobbles is almost the same as a “speech” bobbles back in the time, and no wonder why they had changed that in to the cloud shape that we see today…it was really confusing sometime.

The first superman only has thirteen pages, and it’s really hard to tell the epic origin story of an original superhero in so few pages. The artist therefore made the story move as fast as possible, and took great advantage use of the narrator, as half of the story was told in those words. I think is really funny how they shows example of superman’s power can be “real” by showing us the ants and the grasshoppers…so why is superman call superman? Not Antman or Hopperman? Sure superman sounds much cooler.

The style of narrative change due to the limited pages, and almost every character feel extremely aggressive. Superman feels a little crazy to me because he keeps leaping around and punches people for some not very developed reason. I also realize there are a lot of yellow in the comic, I don’t know if that’s a popular color in that time or if the technology of printing had something to do with it, but lots novel cover art in the old days also use lots yellow.

In the end I have to say that it’s always nice to learn something in a comic, and as most of the reader are children its good for the parent to know their kids are learning something such as when Superman said: ”Birds site on the telephone wires and they aren’t electrocuted…so human can walk on it too, unless we touch a telephone-pole and are grounded…OOPS!”