Manga Blurbs

Something that I found curious about ‘Mushi-shi’ the first time I read it is that this manga does not have a continuing story arc. The chapters are set up more like “mini-sodes” and then we’re off to a different mischief making spirit in the next chapter. The story does keep the same protagonist though; Ginko, a witchdoctor type of character who has the knowledge to dispel or help people live in peace with mushi. I do like how the story is set up so that the sections are literal chapters of Ginko’s life.

I also decided to read some of ‘Buddha’ by Osamu Tezuka. I can’t quite pinpoint the style of this manga yet. I feel like the characters at the very beginning have more details. As the story progresses the people and animals get the same amount of detailing and simplified. ‘Buddha’ takes place in India, but the language is American city slang. The panel layout reads fairly easily though. For some reason it took me a minute to remember that Tezuka made ‘Astro Boy’, which on my list of least favorite series. 

‘Scott Pilgrim’ isn’t something that I would group into manga. I believe the artist is Canadian, and I feel like the style fits more into late Western cartoons. I read the first few volumes from a friend, and greatly enjoyed the humor. (I was disappointed with the movie, there were a few good lines, but I felt like it fell short) The comic has a sassy flair to it and relatable characters. It also reads in the Western left to right, same as ‘Buddha’. Traditional manga reads right to left.

Comics from Across the Pond

I chose to read ‘The Nikopol Trilogy’ by Enki Bilal from our selection this week. In a nutshell the story was very weird. I loved the concept of futuristic, post-nuclear, alien inhabited Europe. Originally I thought the Egyptian god characters were just oddly specific aliens, but they were supposed to be actual, immortal gods. I still don’t understand why they were in Paris (besides “our spaceship broke down and oh by the way Horus has gone renegade).

The first section of the book captured my attention. I was curious as to what was going on and why the main character was significant. Bilal did this wonderful thing, by using a person who was in a time capsule, the reader also got just enough information about how this world functioned as it was explained to the protagonist.

The second section confused me as to if I was in the same storyline. It started out with a female protagonist in London. But then we got flash backs of a continuation from events and characters from the first chapter. These sudden cuts were very jarring. The change of protagonist sucked me out of the story, to be honest. I kept reading to see if Nikopol came back. He ends up falling in love with the female alien introduced. She skips around the world with Nikopol and Horus and ends up bearing Horus’s child, which is seen on the last few pages of the book.  

By the last chapter I was forcing myself to finish. I had to at least read to the end, which was strange as well. I am curious about what happens to Nikopol’s son, but the rest of the story lost my interest.

The art style itself was rather nice. I liked to harsh, bold lines that fit in with the war-ravaged world. On a serious comic note, I do not think the story would have held together without color. The details of the dialogue would have been lost to the reader. Actually, a lot of details would have been lost or difficult, such as hair color or body paint. The color looked like marker or a softer paint effect, and was very well applied.

'March: Book 1' by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

This week we have another graphic novel based off of real events. Stylistically, ‘March: Book 1’ is enticing and realistic without overburdening the reader with detail. The gray scale gives plenty of information in 4 or 5 shades, occasionally going to strictly black and white for emotional effect. The layout of the pages runs smoothly. There is a nice mix between pages full of panels to a single page of one powerful image. This visual breaks are paced excellently and much needed. The only factor that jarred me from the story was when some of the transitions from present to past or vice versa was unclear. I had to search for the little time stamp hidden in the corner of the page. It felt like I just jumped space and time and had to desperately look for a road sign or newspaper.

The story itself is quite engaging. At the time it is portraying, segregation is still going strong. Looking at the dates, it really wasn’t that long ago. It’s intriguing to think of how Mr. Lewis’s life could have been so different if he’d listened to his parents and just “laid low.” He got in trouble for going to school. He probably would have become a minister or chicken farmer if it weren’t for his courage. This was only a third of his story, but Lewis was an integral part of the civil rights movement, being extremely inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. I’m a big supporter of non-violence. And it just made me angry to read about how people treated each other in this book. One particular comment that irked me was one white male saying, “Go back to Africa.” These protesters are American born citizens. It just made me angry.

On a lighter note, I found it quite amusing that they referenced a comic about Martin Luther King Jr. in a comic book that had a section about how much of an inspiration he was to Lewis.

'Maus' by Art Spiegelman

‘Maus’ was a very heavy read. Not excruciatingly long, but the dark subject matter seemed to stretch the book. Knowing that this is a true story evoked different emotions than if it was an alternative history fiction novel. This story made me very sad for what Spiegelman’s father went through, even though he could be unpleasant at times. 

Something important that stood out to me was the use of language in ‘Maus’. The conversations seemed logical and naturally paced. There’s even a point in part two of the story where he pokes fun of how he can edit conversation in his book. His father’s broken English was realistic to me, but over the course of the book got grating to read. I found myself editing his speech in my head to be grammatically correct. Showing his own progress on how he made the book helps the reader understand the long process of converting his father’s memories to pages.

I also think it was smart to portray the “characters” as animals instead of humans. I’m not sure if I could have handled this book if it was full of drawings of tortured people. I would probably just be silently crying the whole time while reading. We have a different connection to animals. It also helped to easily identify the races or religions of the characters. He used another animal’s head as a mask to show how the Jews had to hide their identity as best they could to sneak around. However he did have some struggles with deciding on animal aliases. He made a Frenchman his father met in the camps a frog, but his wife is French and ultimately decided to make her a mouse as well. There is a sibling rivalry between Art and his “ghost-brother” who did not survive the war. I find it strange to be compared to a memory. On the last page of part two, his father calls him his brother’s name, Richieu.

Stylistically, the story is quite simple and this aids the legibility. The art does not compete with the subject matter. There are subtleties in some of the panels that I think are great details. In one cell on page 125 of part one, when his parents are trying to remain free under Germany’s control, the road is actually shaped like a swastika. The chapter illustrations are usually more detailed than the story pages. Most of them are very dark, with both heavy line weight and subject matter.

Underground Comix

I couldn't really get into this week's reading assignment. Nothing against the style of these comics, even though I would deem it a little strange, but the stories don't capture my attention. The books are set up as a collection of short stories. Between "The Book of Mr. Natural," "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers," and "Fat Freddy's Cat" I was mainly bored while reading. I found myself skipping over passages to see if, through just the illustrations, the story got interesting at a later point. 

The "Freak Brothers" and "Fat Freddy's Cat", both by Gilbert Shelton, have an overlapping stoner character. To me "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" is entirely about the mishaps that happen to a group of druggies. The characters reminded me the behavior of a few annoying persons who attended the same high school as I did, only these men have crazier facial hair. The cat is possibly a more vulgar creature than his human companion. There is some humor, but not enough to keep me invested.

I felt slightly better about underground comics after talking about them in class. They’re still not my cup of tea, but I can appreciate some of them a little. A few stories dealt with political problems that the author thought people weren’t paying enough attention to. Drug awareness was a very big part of most of these comics. Showing examples of how messed up your life could get if you continued or developed an addiction. So some of them had “edu-tainment” value.  Others were just completely full of very badly drawn sex, crazily drawn penises, and using women as solely sexual objects. I attempted to read some ‘Zippy’ but I found it to be just crazy. I don’t know if Zippy has a mental disorder or no functioning brain at all.

I won’t have any underground comics on my personal shelf. They aren’t something I could see myself reading in the future and I don’t really feel like picking up any more of the issues I read this week.