Taylor's Blog

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? It was much darker and more serious than I anticipated, but after having just watched and learned about Alan Moore, I can see a lot of his influence in the comic's style and thematic elements. Overall I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, probably because it was more sinister and interesting than I would expect. After reading this, my interest has been piqued and makes me want to look more into this style of superhero comic. 2. What connections did you make with the story you just read? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.  Ideas of revenge are prevalent in this story, another theme that Alan Moore discussed. There is revenge from the villain's perspective, as well as revenge from the hero's perspective -- each is motivated by something different, but it connects the two despite their differences of "good" and "evil." They also both face tragedies that moti

Out of the available resources, Black Panther piqued my interest the most due its huge, almost overnight, prominence in youth culture today -- I've never read the comic and wanted to see where it all originated. To my surprise, from outside research I learned that the Black Panther first appeared in a 1966 issue of The Fantastic Four , and was the first black superhero to appear in any mainstream American comic. I had no idea that the character's history went so far back. I assumed because of the franchise's sudden and recent popularity, it must have been a relatively new character, story, and comic. The volume I read seems to be a great example of the resurgence and rethinking of superheroes in modern culture. It focuses on traditional superhero values like justice and strength, but also highlights black power, female power, and love rising above hate. I can definitely see why the series has risen to popularity so quickly -- Black Panther's values echo that of toda

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is an autobiographical contemporary graphic novel focusing on themes of sexuality, gender, abuse, and familial roles. Bechdel has become a major figure in the world of literature as a whole -- specifically in comics, women's representation, and queer representation. Fun Home has garnered critical success and has since even been turned into an award-winning musical. Fun Home tackles a variety of difficult subjects as aforementioned, but manages to do so in a way that balances not taking itself too seriously while also speaking very earnestly. Overall, Alison's representation of her story feels very real. Her relationship to her father is the most prominent focus of the work, and, needless to say, it's a highly complicated relationship. In many ways, they share a lot of similarities -- but Alison struggles between empathy and resentment for him for nearly her whole life, and is practically relieved when she learns of his death. Balance in general

The Tale of One Bad Rat is a four volume series by Bryan Talbot centering on a young woman and her history as a victim of child abuse. From the class resources, I was only able to access Volumes 1 and 4 of this series, but between these two as well as outside research on Volumes 2 and 3, I have been able to fill in the blanks of the middle of the series. This is an excellent example of a comic serving as contemporary literature. The comic focuses on a variety of heavy topics, and does so in a tasteful and poignant way, and is often emotionally hitting. It tells a story of a young woman growing and finding herself despite a life of hardship, mental problems, suicidal thoughts, and the world seeming to be against her. The comic doesn't shy away from gritty topics and problems, and instead shows things as they are in the protagonist's reality. Ultimately she is able to "forgive" herself for her history of abuse, realizing that she was never at fault in the first place,

Buddha by Osamu Tezuka is a manga series and an interpretation of the life of Buddha himself, and how Buddhism came to be. Visually speaking, immediately noticeable in the first volume is the detail in the line work of the comic's illustrations. Especially in the beginning, there are intricate illustrations that take up entire spreads rather than panels. This, along with the language used in the narration (though are are moments of long passages with no narration at all, allowing the illustrations to speak for themselves) make the intro especially impactful, and allow the reader to feel themselves stepping into an epic tale. Despite this sense of grandeur, Buddha  doesn't take itself too seriously and maintains a sense of humor throughout. There's an interesting mix of more vulgar humor, nudity, swearing, etc., as well as more "slapstick" comic techniques like sound effects or motion lines. This humor is apparent even in more serious or threatening moments of

Daytripper is a fictional series by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon, published in 2010, focusing on the life of Brazilian obituary writer Bras de Oliva Domigos. Daytripper is a limited series -- for this response I was able to access the first issue in the series. I absolutely loved this comic; in fact, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how much I wanted to read more after the first issue. On a surface level, the style of the illustrations are extremely aesthetically pleasing -- the selective use of color and line help solidify the mood of this piece, and add intensity to the drama when need be. In terms of story, there is a perfect amount of backstory and character development that make us care of Bras and what happens to him. Though we may not know the full extent of his life or his relationship with his girlfriend or his father, the small details we are given make his untimely death all the more hitting. Cinematic works of fiction are generally most appealing to me, so the