Last Post

I am sick as a dog. The kind of sick where you lie in bed and not go anywhere, where you have the most painful cough and the nastiest congestion. Sorry, Spencer, but I just couldnt go to class. The last day of class. God, I feel stupid.

I feel like I really learned quite a lot about graphic novels over the semester. I don't view them as simply 'comics' anymore, but as actual books, with just as much meaning to them as textbooks or novels. In short, I have come to respect the medium as an art. I think this course was extremely useful in that matter.

I feel like shit, so I'm going back to bed.

Thank you for everything Spencer.

Palestine

An interesting Graphic Novel. However, after a while, the drawing style seems too ludicrous, and everything that it depicts is hectic, chaotic. Maybe that suits the subject matter of the book. Still, the conflict between Israel and Palestine has been going on since the early 20th century, and even the characters inside the book seem to have grown tired of it. What I mean to say is that the subject is exhausted. On the other hand, this book shows the reminds the world that the conflict is not over. I just wish the drawing had been more like berlin, or V for vendetta: a little more realistic, a little less wierd.

Berlin II 4/16

This book was really good. I completely agree with TIME's blurbs on the back: "[Berlin] will be the longest, most sophisticated work of historical fiction in the medium. Lutes has a natural, clean, European drawing style, much like Herge's Tintin... this book has the density of the best novels."

I always thought Herge had a detailed, highly sophisticated style of drawing. Lutes also does, but in a different way: his use of lines reflect a german quality... 'german engineering,' so to speak. I can't really explain it. Herge definitely drew in an English/French sort of style.

As for density, Berlin really is like a novel. It seems like I've been reading so many graphic novels lately, that I don't really consider them 'comics' as much, but lump them in my mind with novels in general. Because the story is what matters, whether told in pictures, words, written words, or a combination of the three.

There was one particular example of panel use that I thought was pretty cool. On page 197, when kurt and marthe are sitting in a restaurant. In the last two panels, the space in between the two panels act as the glass, with the man on one side and kurt and marthe on the other. I almost didnt catch that, but then I saw the guy's words were getting less bolder as they moved in to the next panel. Then, looking back at the previous panel, I remembered that he had been pounding on the window. Then everything clicked. Not a big deal, i guess, but, how do you even think of that?

Berlin

The first few chapters were very good; the story was gripping. I especially liked how well the author was using the graphic novel medium to bring together and talk about writing and drawing/painting (Art in general) as well as more serious issues such as racism, political factions, and war. The author seems to use Kurt Severing to deal with the latter, while he uses Marthe Muller for the former issues. For example, the discussion among Marthe and her friends about the scientific principles of art (or lack thereof) and the very next chapter when it first snows, are good examples of what the author thinks of the art of the time. When Severing was attending the parade/rally of hindenburg; this is a good example of the journalistic mind of the author revealing itself through the character (a journalist).

fun home

When I did a little background search on Fun home, it said that she spent a long time in carefully photographing herself as each character, then drawing those photos. For example:

I was just wondering then, if she photographed herself in order to draw the panels for her several masturbation and fellatio scenes. That'd be kind of wierd, but then again, I guess it is acceptable as art.

Just wondering.

fun home two

I was sort of right. When I read on, I found that Alison writes on page 196, panel 3 "...A narrative of injustice, of seuxal shame and fear, of life considered expendable. It is tempting to say that, in fact, this IS my father's story." So, its kinda like she's narrating the story for both her and her father. Their life story. A story of two gay people, father and daughter, one who stayed in the closet and ultimately died, and one who came out and discovered new horizons. The funny thing is, no one else in their family turned out to be gay. Only Alison. Genetics are a fickle thing, I guess. Another funny thing is how she speculates after saying the above comment (in the panel, she's smoking a lone cigarette on a pier): "There's a certain emotional expedience to claiming him as a tragic victim of homophobia, but that's a problematic line of thought. For one thing, it makes it harder for me to blame him. And for another, it leads to a particularly literal cul-de-sac. If my father had "come out" in his youth, if he had not met and married my mother... where would that leave me?" I mean, I'm certain people have at least once in their lives thought "what if my parents had never met?" But for Alison, its "what if my dad had come out?"

The fact that Alison did come out, is what sets her apart from her father. Very similar people, albeit with different aesthetic taste, but resembling each other nonetheless. I think she came out because although she knew that she had inevitably become homosexual (I mean, she blames her father), she knew that she could do something about it, differently from her father. I think she realized this (that she was different from her father, or at least wanted to be) at a pretty early age; for example, page 15: "I was spartan to my father's athenian. Modern to his victorian. Butch to his nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete." I guess as she grew up, she found that she could still be homosexual but could use that to rebel against her father. This is the generation gap.

All in all, she just didn't want to be like him. But in a way, she did become like him. The ending lines of the book were really profound and moving. "He did hurtle into the sea, of course. But in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me when I leapt."

Fun home

So I started reading Fun Home and I couldn't put it down. I think it has to do with the fact that I am intrigued by autobiographies and memoirs. And when it's in Comic form, its all the more interesting to read.

Alison's family does bear a striking resemblance to the Addams Family, not so much in appearance as in their actions. So far, although the book largely focuses on Allison and her place in the family (she narrates, so...) I was most taken with her dad. His story is the most tragic. Well, so far anyway. I haven't finished reading the book yet. But the amount of pain and turmoil he must have gone through as a gay man staying in the closet, hiding his true feelings, and trying his utmost hardest to raise a "normal" family, seems incredible. He was manic-depressive, homosexual, and incredibly afraid of not appearing perfectly normal. So sad. And the fact that Allison becomes a lesbian, even though her father hid his homosexuality well, makes me wonder: could it be genetic? I think the psychological traits that eventually brought on full-blown homosexuality in Bruce Bechdel were also embedded in Allison. So, homosexuality isn't genetic, but manic-depression is, and perhaps that plus a negative environment brought it out in Allison.

To be continued...