Webcomics

I agree wholeheartedly with what you said in class: the future of comics is on the internet. I love buying printed issues and volumes of my favorite comics because I like having a physical copy. I like flipping through the pages and feeling them and seeing the art in person yada yada yada I sound like an old person. But I definitely feel that comics need to make the huge leap to becoming completely digital. Who knows how people are going to monetize on that, but to keep comics alive I think we have to make them (initially) digital.

But on the other hand, I'm not a big reader of webcomics. I haven't found many that I find particularly good or interesting, and many webcomic artists usually give up halfway (and the ones that give up always have the best comics). How I usually find comics is sifting through amazon or a comic store shelf to find anything that seems appealing. But here are a few webcomics I used to read or have kept up with.

A somewhat oldie but definitely a goodie is Ava's Demon. Honestly, I haven't kept up with it for a while but it's a great, ongoing work that I felt brought webcomics to a whole new level. Ava's Demon utilizes a digitally painted style as opposed to being simply drawn, so needless to say the art is gorgeous. But writer and artist Michelle Czajkwoski doesn't stop there. Ava's Demon includes animated scenes with composed music as well, adding a layer of immersion that print comics couldn't do (and only a few webcomics have attempted to do).

Monster Pop! is another webcomic that caught my attention. It's nothing hugely spectacular, but very very cute and relaxing to read. The main character is a cyclops girl named George, and Monster Pop! chronicles her adventures in going to a college with both monsters and humans. The comic is still being produced, and you can see the amount of progression artist Maya Kern has made from when the first chapter to the latest. I think it's a fun read with an interesting world.

If you're looking for a way to make sure the artist and author gets paid for their wonderful web work, comic Giant Days is a good place to start. Available for subscription on Comixology, the slice of life tale follows three college girls in the UK having all kinds of silly college adventures. A cartoony style, big personalities, and tender moments makes Giant Days a really fun read. The comic is also collected in volumes you can buy physically if you're like me and like to hold things like a weird person.

Superheroes Reconsidered

This week was probably one of my favorite weeks reading wise. Mostly because I love how far comic books have come. When someone would say "superhero" you would think of Batman or Superman, DC or Marvel, Justice League or Avengers. But now, I feel that the scope of superhero is much wider than it once was.

Because of the widened scope on what makes a superhero, or even what makes a comic book hero, I feel that comics have flourished into a storytelling format that truly combines art with literature. For me, characters are what make a story. If you don't have thought out characters that reach out to your readers/viewers/indulgers, then why should someone bother engaging?

I believe Brian K Vaughan is a master of characters. He writes such diverse casts with interesting personalities, physical features, and struggles that none of his work feels the same. Like you can't pick up Saga and Ex Machina and think they're within the same universe or connected somehow. I like how different all of his characters read and feel, and when considering the superhero, that's very important.

Superheroes need to have something unique about them that makes them different from all the other superheroes in the world, but still a hero that's super. I've always been a big DC fan since I was a kid, but a lot of their heroes read the same. Tall, brooding, and mysterious with a dark past. Whereas I felt Marvel was never afraid to be more lighthearted while still being serious. Now, Marvel is in some deep shit with their characters for other reasons that aren't so super, but that's due to who runs Marvel now.

I bounced around a few comics, but I mostly read Fables because I'm a big fan of the video game that's based on the series. It definitely was an interesting take on fairy tales, and it's a shame a certain television show ripped off the idea almost exactly, but for its time it was unique. I liked reading fairy tale characters who were not so Disney-like. Whimsy is fun, but in the case of Fables it would make the tone wonky when it's trying to be realistic-ish.

The character of Bigby is so interesting because we're thrown en media res to this situation where the big bad wolf isn't all that bad, but we're craving to know why. And also the character of Snow White is great because, since Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is such an old Disney film with no modern sequels or renditions, we don't know much of her personality. So it's cool seeing a Snow White that isn't pure and innocent, but a curious and powerful character.

Comics by Women

This was a fun week. I read all of This One Summer and enjoyed it a lot. I was expecting something different I suppose, something with a more concrete ending and explanations of everything, but I enjoyed reading it. It reminded me of the summers I used to spend upstate New York in the middle of nowhere with my cousins.

And now for something completely different.

I typically enjoy works by women more than I do works by men. Women genuinely get it when it comes to art or writing. To me, when I hear that a production team is filled with only men (or worse: only white men) I get a little scared. I mean, we've all seen how male comic artists draw women. Awkward, sexualized proportions, revealing outfits that are like that for the male gaze not because girls can wear whatever they choose, poorly designed armor that's more for showing cleavage than it is for protecting cleavage. There are a lot of negative aspects that come along when men who know jack shit about women write or draw women.

As for women, I feel like they're good at both portraying women and men. They're good at writing women because, duh, if you define as a woman then most likely you know a thing or three about women. Women also know how to write men because they don't see men from the narcissistic central viewpoint that men often see themselves from. That viewpoint isn't always so outright, but I feel that it's a way of thinking ingrained into our society: males > females. But women can see men outside that viewpoint and see them for who they really are. Men can show feelings besides Edgy Stoic Protagonist with a Little Bit of Stubble. Men can fail at things and feel bad about it. Men can be losers, men can be self conscious, men can be confident, and men can be nice.

From how I see it, I feel that women know how to write men because men open up to women more than they do to their close male friends. So yeah, women get that men and women are both complex creatures because they see how both are complex, men sometimes don't. And sadly those men usually run entertainment businesses.

What I liked about Diary of a Dominatrix was that even though we know the protagonist is an extremely sexual person, she doesn't come off that way. She comes off as just your average girl trying to make it in the world, and she makes her way by being a dominatrix. Simple as that. There's even a scene where she's lackadaisically spanking a client while thinking about her list of chores to do for the day. We see her clients as the hypersexualized lustful seductors, when often we see women depicted in those roles. If a man wrote Diary of a Dominatrix, it would be a completely different story.

Comics as Contemporary Literature

Asterios Polyp is an interesting take on the graphic novel. It's very serious and reads like adult literature, but there are fanciful aspects to it as well. Such as how the comic is narrated by Asterios' dead twin brother, or the ending where a meteor may or may not hit the earth.

I thought the meteor was interesting symbolism for how things can go wrong so fast, but that a positive change can come from it. Dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor and the after effects of the crash, so obviously the same thing could happen to humans. But I felt that instead of symbolizing destruction, the ending symbolized renewal of life. Asterios realizes his wrongdoings and how he treated his ex-wife, so I saw the ending as a massive change in Asterios' life that he would probably relate to the death of the dinosaurs. Because after the dinosaurs, came humans. And we're pretty cool. We have pizza.

I definitely think graphic novels should be considered a medium of literature. There is so much potential combining art with words, it's a shame that there are people that look down on comics and graphic narratives. I enjoy graphic novels because I feel they have a more cohesive storyline than most comics do (of course comics have changed to be more linear, but I feel graphic novels and comic books have always been structured more closely to prose than plain old comics have been).

In writing, we're taught to show feelings and emotions through words without outright saying what we mean (show don't tell). With graphic novels, comics, and comic books it's so much easier to do that because you have art. You can physically show facial expressions that get a point across, or show the passing of time without mentioning it through dialogue. You can show with an image without having to use words to explain it; the pictures explain themselves.

Manga and Japanese Comics

This week I read some Ranma 1/2 since I remember seeing it on TV when I was a kid aired alongside Inuyasha. I thought the story was really cute! The art was fun and the main plot was silly and interesting enough to keep me reading for a while. What I really liked about it was the main twist, how Ranma switches genders when in cold water. I found it an interesting take on gender roles, and how it questioned just how different men and women really are. As opposed to other manga, where there's usually a "gender flip" filler issue, I felt Rumiko handled the story in a way that wasn't awkward or fetishized.

Something I found interesting was the use of nudity. There's always some weird kind of nudity in manga and anime. Like how when any of the sailor scouts in Sailor Moon transform, there are usually shots or frames of them naked, but instead of looking like human bodies they look more like genital-lacking mannequins. In Ranma 1/2, Rumiko actually drew Ranma's nipples in a scene where Ranma was in their girl form. I wasn't like "OOOO Nipples how naughty!" I was more intrigued on why Rumiko chose to do that. Was it just to draw nipples because why not everyone has them? Because I can accept that, that's cool.

On top of Ranma 1/2, I reread my favorite manga which is Oyasumi Punpun. The closest American work I can relate it to is Blankets by Craig Thompson, but darker. The tale follows Punpun, a young boy living in Japan who has a crush on a girl. The art is a mix of hyper realism and cartoonism which separates the reader enough from the world, yet has a familiar quality to it.

The manga chronicles Punpun's unfortunate life from childhood, to puberty, to his early twenties. The story is lighthearted and nostalgic at times, but seriously depressing at others. Punpun is drawn as a tiny bird as a child who then becomes a half-monster half-human being when he grows older. However, all the other characters see Punpun as a regular human boy. Author and illustrator Inio Asano says this is to help the readers see themselves in Punpun, and sympathize with him. It reminded me a lot of the American comic technique that Scott McCloud talked about, where the usage of icons helps readers familiarize themselves with the characters.

Oyasumi Punpun was recently officially translated into English and can be found at Barnes & Noble or you can be sneaky and read it online for free here: http://mangapark.me/manga/oyasumi-punpun/s1/v1/c1/1

Wide World of Comics

This week was a lot of rough reading for me. I skipped around different titles and couldn't find anything for a while that interested me or didn't disgust me. But then I realized: that's the point.

My first reading attempt was Incal by Moebius and Jodorowsky. I think what put me off the most about the work was the art style. The people were too grotesque looking (though the slug man was cool) and read more like an internet porn webcomic to me. I had seen artwork from the story before and liked it, and I love Moebius' work so I'm sure if I read further into the story I'd grow accustomed to the style. But I did enjoy the themes of classism, and how it's represented by a giant space tower city thing, with the rich affluent people living higher up (being adorned with halos) and the lower class living at the bottom. In that way, it reminded me a lot of Le Transperceneige/Snowpiercer which was released around the same time.

I then bounced over to Nikopol and enjoyed the art style, but couldn't grasp onto the story for some reason. But then I read Moebius' "Heavy Metal" collection and fell in love. I adore the art style and how the grand landscapes and color palette felt like I was looking at a dream. The piece that stood out to me the most was "Ballade", which follows a boy who travels away from his mountain clan to see the beauty of nature all over the world. He meets a forest woman who accompanies him on his journey, but their adventure is soon cut short when a group of military soldiers mows them down for seemingly no reason. The story felt very real, even though the characters and environment came across fantasy-like. The brutal reality of war, and the mistreatment of innocent people by soldiers, is something too common in our society.

I can definitely see why Moebius and Miyazaki were friends and fans of each other. Their work is so similar when it comes to themes, and much of Miyazaki's early films reflects the genre and feeling of Moebius' fantasy/sci-fi pieces. There are so many similarities to Moebius' Arzack and Miyazaki's Nausicaä that you can tell the two were truly inspired by each other's work.

Stereotypes: Why does everything have to be gay?

Growing up in the wonderful, complex world of the internet, I was exposed to queer comics and entertainment at a young age. But not necessarily in the most positive light. There was always a slew of comments on youtube videos or online comic forums that complained about the "political correctness bullshit" that was being "pushed." My favorite of those complaints was "Why does everything have to be so gay?" 

Because it effected me. A lot. I didn't understand my sexuality growing up, so once I saw the negative criticism and jokes that gay people were faced with online, I began to form a lot of internal homophobia. I would laugh at people who were striving for sexual and gender equality because everyone else was laughing at it.

But it wasn't just internet trolls that fed this bad behavior. Movies, TV shows, video games, and even comic books would have overly flamboyant male characters, or hyper-butch female characters, as a joke. As I grew older and came out, I realized how many negative stereotypes are out there.

I started seeing less and less of myself in my favorite childhood characters and superheroes, and I rarely had anything to relate to until I found webcomics and modern comics that do have LGBT+ heroes (like Iceman in X-Men or America Chavez). 

To answer the question: no, stereotypes are not necessary. The only time I believe stereotypes are okay are when the marginalized groups are making fun of the quirks they see in themselves and their own communities. And even that I wouldn't call stereotyping, more of a critique or satire on one's own experiences within their specified groups. As a gay guy, I'm always joking about how gay I am, and I love participating in queer media that's made by queer people. From a writing POV, when queer entertainment is written by a straight person, even if they have the best intentions for representation, something will always seem fetishized, accidentally stereotypical, or offensive. 

I've kind of made it my own personal vendetta to make sure that everything I write is about queer people, has queer people, or relates to queer media in some way. There's the whole conversation of whether diversity is killing the comics industry or saving it, and I think it's what's keeping comics from dwindling out. I love seeing myself in queer-coded characters like America Chavez, Iceman, and Snotgirl. People have flocked to comics as a way to escape from themselves, yet see a part of themselves reflected in what they're reading. I believe moving away from stereotypes and heading towards diverse representation is the way to get more people interested in comics.

So I think that comics like March, that show the historical aspect of racism and stereotyping, are important. But also comics that show change and break down stereotypes through fiction are equally as important.