Manga (revised)

It was interesting because I started reading Mushishi and then stopped about two pages in and found myself watching the anime a few days later. After enjoying the first three episodes of the anime I went back to read the manga and was overjoyed by how well the anime stuck to the source material of the manga. I ended up reading the first 5 chapters or so of the manga. The art style got a little frustrating at times mainly due to very odd looking feet. The story felt like a really traditional japanese myth sort of thing and that made it sort of serene yet intoxicating. Also the episodic feel of each chapter was really interesting and became more so when events from previous chapters culminated in a later one.

Adolf was something rather different. After reading the synopsis I was very curious to how the story would go about. I only read about a volume and a half I believe and when struck me immediately was that this manga was actually flipped to read left to right for translation which seemed very odd to me. I found Adolf to be very entrancing and quite tense at times. It was a view on the time of the holocaust that isn't often seen which is that of those living in Japan during the earlier days of the War. Tezuka's style was quite apparent and actually made the story more interesting. While some character looked fairly tame there were the few who had the very exaggerated features which lent to their personalities greatly.


I've read a few mangas previous to being in this class. I've read the entirety of Death Note (which has some of my favorite artwork ever in manga. Same artist as Hikaru No Go and Bakuman), Full Metal Alchemist, and Buso Renkin (by the same author of Rurouni Kenshin). I also have kept up with reading Bleach on an almost regular basis even though the story continues to get more ridiculous. I think what draws me into Manga and Anime on an on and off basis is the subjects of the various plots and the character design. It just appeals to me in a strange way that I can't really avoid it. Maybe because I'm not an illustrator nor do I see myself with the potential to ever be one that the super stylized look of a lot of manga appeals to me.

Dr. McNinja, Axe Cop, and so many more

I was really excited for the class about webcomics. Most of my favorites bar in my web browser is webcomics and I wrote a research paper on the realities of making a living through webcomics last year. I picked up webcomics quite a few years ago with some simple easy to follow things such as Cyanide and Happiness and VGCats. I didn't necessarily read them every time they updated and wasn't 100% into them all the time, but it was enjoyable and Cyanide and Happiness especially gave me something to look forward to each day with their daily updates. It wasn't until about 2 years ago or so that I really started branching out. VGCats (of which I don't follow anymore) had their featured comic as MS Paint Adventures and it looked very interesting. It ended up being a long read to catch up, but the current story at the time Problem Sleuth was way worth it. The site ran as a pseudo-game when reader based suggestions for actions led the characters along. When that site launched merchandise it was released on a site called Topatoco, a hub for web comic creators to host the merchandise for their comics. Through that site I found a fun comic entitled Dr. McNinja. I've been following Dr. McNinja ever since I've found it and have read every story up to the present with the exception of the few print-only stories. Dr. McNinja runs in the form of adding a new page to the existing story with each update. When a story is complete it reads like any other comic you would find at a bookstore or comic shop. After a few stories are completed they would be compiled into books. Recently Dr. McNinja has been picked up by Dark Horse and the most recent book was published by them. Dark Horse also picked up another similar comic, Axe Cop. Axe Cop is by far the most ridiculous thing I've read in a while mainly due to how the comic is made. The artist of Axe Cop has his 5 year-old brother write Axe Cop and thus the craziness that only a small child can think of becomes a very well drawn comic that packs many a laugh.

I think I've gone on for a little too long with this, but I absolutely adore webcomics. Others I have read include: Pictures for Sad Children (apparently on a hiatus), Bearmageddon (a comic written and drawn by the artist of Axe Cop), Romantically Apocalyptic (which uses photography and photoshop to create the artwork), Brawl in the Family (a comic based solely on Nintendo characters with Kirby being the primary series used), and Allan Comic (an autobiographical comic which chronicles an important event of the day in the form of a four panel comic). Webcomics allow for so many different subjects and are extremely accessible making them quite a joy and a great source of entertainment in my life.

Watchmen

When I first read Watchmen I had originally done so to have read it before seeing the movie, which was close to coming out at the time. However I ended up finishing the book and never going to see the movie and didn't see the movie until much later when it had come out on DVD. Going back and re-reading it was just as much of an enjoyable experience as it was the first time around. The thing I really feel sets Watchmen apart from a lot of graphic novels is the inclusion of the more text based reading at the end of each chapter plus the whole comic in a comic thing with the pirate story that reflected on the main story of Watchmen. My favorite part of the entire story is at the end when Ozymandias finishes his monologue about his plan and then reveals that he would not have given the heroes the pleasure of the monologue if there were any chance of them stopping his plans. That moment to me is one of those spine tingling moments that really defines an amazing story. I haven't read many of Alan Moore's other works but I did get a glimpse at what is From Hell. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to get all too far into From Hell and had to put it away prematurely. That moment at the end of Watchmen though is one of my favorite moments in any story from any medium ever.

Asterio's Polyp

This comic really surprised me. The art style was absolutely wonderful. The little nuances with the way every character spoke in a different font and how Asterio would be represented by geometric forms while his wife was represented by sketchy lines were all wonderful. Much like American Born Chinese this story was told in parallel timelines that interwove themselves together by the end of the book. I feel like as a whole I could call this book an artistic graphic novel experience. There were so many different variations on how different parts of the story were told and all of it seemed very ingenius. I feel as though this is the first comic I've read that really takes advantage of the fact that it is a comic and uses it to play around with the way it tells the story. I found this to be an amazingly enjoyable read.

Persepolis

I'll admit right out that I didn't get to read all the way through, but I read a decent amount of the first volume. Originally the art style for this one turned me off of wanting to read it, however I eventually put that aside and I was glad I did. I feel like reading Persepolis was way more educational than anything else I read in this class. I felt enlightened on so many subjects about things that happened outside of this country after reading just the earlier parts of Persepolis. Although there were all these wonderful things in the book I found myself getting kind of bored of it pretty fast. It seemed to repeat over itself a lot and got really boring in spots. So much so that I pretty much just put it down in the middle of reading and never got back to it. It was good to see this kind of graphic novel though because it really showed how much a comic can actually teach us without even using really complicated art.

Manga: Mushishi and Adolf

It was interesting because I started reading Mushishi and then stopped about two pages in and found myself watching the anime a few days later. After enjoying the first three episodes of the anime I went back to read the manga and was overjoyed by how well the anime stuck to the source material of the manga. I ended up reading the first 5 chapters or so of the manga. The art style got a little frustrating at times mainly due to very odd looking feet. The story felt like a really traditional japanese myth sort of thing and that made it sort of serene yet intoxicating. Also the episodic feel of each chapter was really interesting and became more so when events from previous chapters culminated in a later one.

Adolf was something rather different. After reading the synopsis I was very curious to how the story would go about. I only read about a volume and a half I believe and when struck me immediately was that this manga was actually flipped to read left to right for translation which seemed very odd to me. I found Adolf to be very entrancing and quite tense at times. It was a view on the time of the holocaust that isn't often seen which is that of those living in Japan during the earlier days of the War. Tezuka's style was quite apparent and actually made the story more interesting. While some character looked fairly tame there were the few who had the very exaggerated features which lent to their personalities greatly.

American Born Chinese

This comic really surprised me. The art style's simplicity intrigued me from the get go and I was a little confused about what I was reading when I first started. It became apparent that this was one of those "you'll get it at the end" kind of stories about half way through. Overall I enjoyed this story greatly. Learning that all the stories had a connection at the end was really fun and the idea that the main character actually took on the appearance of Danny in his mind was quite surprising. Stories with twists such as that always get me for some reason and this was no exception. I was thoroughly pleased with American Born Chinese. The three parallel stories made the book infinitely more interesting than it would have been if the timeline was linear. The little artistic quirks such as the jolt of confidence represented as the lightning cloud hair was quite humorous and clever. I also enjoyed how simple this read was while at the same time being highly complex and intricate. I can really appreciate stories like that.