The Bat Man!

I just remembered I never blogged about when I read Bat Man comics!
I probably read some when I was little, if my brother had them, but I honestly don't remember anything about them, so when I went to read some superhero comics I went for BatMan.One of m friends loves Batman, and I remember watching some of the movies when I was younger so I figured I'd give it a read. I started with some of the originals, bat man in the 40s.Its not that funny looking back at it, but when I was reading it I laughed when they called him "The Bat Man!" .. But yeah, not really that funny anymore. I remember thinking also, "thats what comics look like". I dont know what it was that made me think thats what comics should look like. Now that I think about it, I'd tag a long with my brother when he'd go to the comic book stores and even though I wasnt around in the 40s I dont think the style batman comics were made later changed to too much. Although, I never ended up getting around to looking at the later comics.

Kick-Ass kicked ass :D

I saw Kick-Ass when it came out but that was a while ago, and I never read it until the other day. I hadn't seen it in a while so I kind of forgot about what happened at some parts but when I read them I was just as shocked as when I first watched it. The parts where he gets stabbed and hit by a car, and when Hit Girl first came into the whole piece. That was brutal! I remember my jaw dropping at both parts of the movie, and again when I read it. I loved it though, that was a pretty graphic novel ;) I want to watch the movie again. I hope theres a sequel, since it obviously ends with the possibility of another part. I look forward to both the film and the graphic novel.

I love these! I read some Leisure Town and some White Ninja.

I really liked leisure town because it was done with photos and toys, which is something i like to combine, so it inspired me. I'm going to talk to my brother to see if we can make some comics.


white ninja doesn't want to eat veggies
The White Ninja comics reminded me of the stupid stuff my friends and i would watch / read in early high school, like on ebaumsworld. They're pretty funny, some are completely stupid and make no sense but for the most part they're pretty retardedfunny. I feel like people these days have such short attention spans now that these small online comics everywhere on the internet are perfect, and even the humor, its surprising how many people exist with this stupid sense of humor, but im glad to be a part of it. I see a lot of comics online via StumbleUpon, and i like to read them once in a while.

stumble

I was using Stumble Upon to try and get some inspiration and since I know we'll be looking at online comics soon I figured I'd share it.
Unfortunately it didn't quite inspire me like i'd hope for my photo class or native american class, but at least it got me reading some more comics and blogging.

Daddy's Girl

I went to the library to pick out some comics for the week of women writers. I picked La Perdida - to get some practice on my spanish reading, and Daddy's Girl, cause I figured, I love my dad!

Well, I got caught up with other class work and work-work,and didn't even want to try reading in spanish, so I haven't looked at it yet. And Daddy's Girl.. I should have probably at least open the book before I check it out. I did not know that was the kind of daddy's girl the story was about. I was pretty shocked to see the father do his thing to his daughter right in the first few pages of the book!
I felt bad for the girl, having to deal with her father like that all those years, and even later on in high school with the other guys that raped her. I can't actually relate, but that fucking sucks.

However, I do still plan on reading La Perdida since its in Mexico and my family's Mexican!

The Photographer

I bought this book at the beginning of the semester, since I'm a photographer, I figured this would be a good choice.
I liked the combination of drawings with photography, and also the combination of selected images and the contact sheet / film strips. Documentary photography really inspires me, it's always been my favorite type of photography. The Photographer was more than documentary photography because it was supplemented by drawings that had more information than what normally would be in just photos.

Ben Goossens

I found this photograph online and I immediately thought back to Shaun Tan's The Arrival. I had to share it.
Its this pretty awesome surrealist photographer.I wish I could come up with surrealistic things to photograph but I can't. So heres Ben Goossens photo Big town exodus

Buddha

I just checked out Buddha from the library. So we'll see how that goes.
I wasn't really sure what to expect at the beginning before I even read it. Since I knew nothing about comics or graphic novels before this course, I especially didn't know what to expect when I saw I'd have to read manga. I'm not sure exactly when in my life I even heard the term manga, but I know I was young, and I guess then I heard it was like anime porn or something. I never looked into it, I assume since that's what my knowledge was about it, I never even went to learn about it because not only did anime never really interest me but why would i want to read or look at anime porn.

Anyways, I suppose I still had that idea in my head, so when I went to check out some book for this section of my reading I decided to go with the title that seemed less threatening? I've been getting into buddhism a bit anyways so I figured I'd give it a shot. There was some nudity in it, but nothing really too bad as I had imagined. (Not that I was imagining anything in specific!haha) I've only read the first volume so far, so the second could possibly prove my preconceived ideas!

I got through it pretty quick, not that there was that much to read anyways, but I found myself wanting to continue reading till I finished - at least the section. I liked the drawings in them but the way they spoke surprised me at times. I didn't find some of the dialogue believable, if you will, but seeing that it was published in the early 2000's, I understand the authors choices, but at times I didn't see it too fitting.

I'm looking forward to reading volume two, and finding out about the baby that was just born, Siddhartha.

back to the underground

Just read the Tijuana Bible. In all honesty I usually get uncomfortable and don't want to read things like that, but I’m not sure why this one didn’t really bother me as much. I suppose when I read it my mind read it as a joke pretty much. I guess spending most of my time around guys that kind of already talk like that I read it in a joking/playful way. Perhaps I get offended by it in the past, because why would people talk to each other that way. I thought Tillie The Fire Woman was pretty funny, I didn’t even see that ending coming.
I remember growing up, my dad always had joke books around the house — he used to have a radio show where he’d say jokes for 4 hours every weekend – and he had some sexy spanish joke books if you will. The illustrations in Tijuana Bible kind of reminded me of the drawings that they had in the joke books, and I feel like Tillie, or something similar to ir probably would have been in a joke book like that.

Happy Birthday

I saw this on Google this morning as the main Google name image for the day. I remembered The Spirit, and immediately knew it was about Will Eisner. There would have been absolutely no chance I would have known that last year. I knew nothing about comics before taking this class other than Charles Shultz did Peanuts so I was pretty impressed when I clicked on it and saw I was right. so, today is Will Eisners 94th birthday so, Happy Birthday to him.

That's all for this blog, I just wanted to share it.
I'm looking forward to reading some more comics and writing about it over break.

Maus

Like most of the things I've read for this class this semester, I didn't know what to expect from Art Spiegleman and Maus. I checked it out from the library and that was when I noticed the swastika on the cover.
As I started reading it I thought of the video we just watched about Robert Crumb and how his work was autobiographical. I liked how he had himself in this novel and the story was told from his perspective and conversations with his father.
I also thought it was funny that the mouse character of the mother Anja and Vladek's girlfriend Lucia looked identical but he was talking about how Lucia was much more good-looking then Anja.
Art used animals as his characters to portray the different people at the time. He used the stereotypes of animals and compared them to sereotypes of the Jews, and Germans and what not. The jews were portrayed as mice and the Germans we're cats.

underground comics

One of the comics I read looked just like Archie, except the underground version of Archie.. Cherry was in it too. The characters all looked similar, but the content was definitely different.

Will Eisner

Little Nemo +

Loved Little Nemo!
Calvin and Hobbes!
Peanuts!

I loved Little Nemo. I thought it was really cool that the comics were all part of a recurring dream, and that they'd end with him falling out of bed. I really wanted to know what was going to happen but he'd wake up. It reminds me of my dreams, because I have some crazy ones sometimes and then I wake up and I get upset I won't know what was going to happen in the rest of it.
Calvin and Hobbes I used to read when I was younger. I couldn't relate to him though, my imagination was never like that! I wasn't really sure what was happening either, because it was all in his head but I couldn't imagine what his parents or friends were thinking or seeing. Cody showed me a clip from Robot Chicken where they were making fun of exactly what I was thinking.

I thought it was pretty funny.

And Peanuts was another comic I used to read when I was younger. I liked all these a lot. :) I remember my grandma wold always save to comics from the newspapers to give to my brother an I, and peanuts were one of my favorites, along with Garfield. And when I was in elementary school I would read Garfield comics in my spanish class as my homework since I was the only one who already spoke it, and I lived on Garfield street!

understanding comics

The Arrival

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book when I heard that it was wordless. I was confused as to how I was supposed to read a wordless novel, but I went and bought it anyways, and I'm glad I did. I'm a photography major so I saw the images kind of like pictures. It was odd at first, I tried to figure out what things meant and what things were, but I realized, I didn't have to try to figure it out in my own language because that's what life is really like for immigrants, I'm sure. Not having any idea what anything is.
I was confused about when he opened his luggage in his new place and his family was sitting at a table inside. That part confused me, but that was about it. I really enjoyed all the details in the images, Shaun Tan must have some imagination to come up with this new world like that.