V for Vendetta

This is one of the best dystopian stories ever. I love the matrix, but V for Vendetta has a certain, hmm.. English sensibility to it.

I especially liked the wordless ending. Who is that guard supposed to be?

I agree with what it says on the back of the book: ...V for Vendetta is everything comics weren't supposed to be.

England Prevails.

V for vendetta, pt 2.

First, I'd like to say that the sparse, almost hazy and indistinct colors used in this book adds to the actual tone/mood of the plot: that is to say, a dark, clandestine, dystopian sort of atmosphere.

The first several pages of the second part were really wierd, but interesting. A prelude to the chapters to come, but in actual musical form as well. I can't really read music. I don't know if this piece was actually used in the movie, but maybe it was.

I think that the graphic novel form does more justice to the theme of the story, in that it delivers elements of the plot more directly and effectively to the reader than the movie. The colors, the use of panels, and the block text (to name a few) all add to the tone of the plot, and besides, since its a vis-a-vis situation (the book and the reader) , the reader will become more engrossed, more invested, more absorbed with the story. Granted, the movie is more realistic, but is that better when dealing with the subject of dystopia? I think if the movie had more noir elements (black and white, maybe), it would have been a bit better. I like it nonetheless, of course.

V for Vendetta, pt. 1

I saw the movie around two years ago, just when it came out. I guess I was kinda surprised to find that Evey Hammond was supposed to be a prostitute; that might even have made the movie a little more interesting. That said, I thought that Natalie Portman did a great job of portraying the emotions that Evey Hammond must have felt. The scene where she is put into solitary confinement by V is especially convincing.

More on this, in a little bit.

Wrapping up McCloud

I think chapter seven was the most important chapter in the book. It didn't focus on comics and aspects of comics alone, but tried to integrate them into the general world of art. I actually hand-wrote the six steps in my notes (for another class, because I was doing the reading in another class. I was bored.):

1. Idea/Purpose: The impulses, ideas, emptions, philosophies, purpose of the work; the work's content.
2. Form: Book? Poem? Song? Painting? Sculpture?
3. Idiom: The "School" of art, the vocabulary of styles or gestures, subject matter, the genre of the work.
4. Structure: Putting it all together, what to include, what to leave out, how to arrange, how to compose the work.
5. Craft: Constructing the work, applying skills, practical knowledge, invention, problem solving, getting the job done.
6. Surface: Production values, finishing, the aspects most apparent on first superficial exposure to the work.

What is most important, as dramatically mentioned in the book is:

The Desire to be Heard,
The Will to Learn,
and The Ability to See.

Any artist, for any genre/medium, can benefit from these six steps in some way. I don't want to call myself an artist (yet), for the sake of modesty, but if I was an artist, I'd say I was struggling between steps 2 and 3. Ok, just to be clear: I play the guitar, and although I've been attracted to many styles since I've started playing (metal, punk, classical, jazz, reggae, dub, ska, etc. you name it), I've more or less stuck to Blues guitar now. I think many a guitarist chooses this genre, this style of playing, but not many can get past it and move on: their vocabulary and phrasing become limited, because they restrict themselves to only one style. Which is precisely my problem.

I need a source of inspiration, some jolt or shock in my life, to get my creative juices flowing again; then I can move on to the next steps.

The frustrated artist.

living in line, show and tell.

Ok, so these chapters were about the power of pictures to evoke an emotional response (vital to noat just comics but all visual-based art) in viewers and the power of words and pictures combined.
After reading chapter 5, I realized how abstract pictures can be unless we assign meaning to them. After reading chapter 6, I realized how words can be used to assign pictures meaning, and how, combined, words and pictures are not just crass products of commercialism but a high medium of art.

watchmen 1-4

What was interesting was Rorschach's face. No doubt named after the Rorschach's ink blot test. There were no two ink patterns on his face were the same; with every different panel, so was his face different. So, the Rorschach test judges a person's personality by what he/she sees in the ink pattern. I first thought that Rorschach (the character) might be schizophrenic (or is the reader supposed to be?), but then I read on pg. 19, third panel, top right corner, "Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?" So he isn't Schizophrenic.

While reading through chapter one, I kinda got an idea of what Watchmen might be about. If I were to use a phrase to describe it, I'd say: "The Incredibles for adults."

I'd write more, but for the sake of brevity, I'll stop.