Akira Review

Akira is the story of two friends, Kaneda and Tetsuo. It takes place in Neo-Tokyo in the year 2019 after World War III when there was apparently a huge bomb that devastated Japan. Tetsuo and Kaneda are in a bike gang that runs into a young boy. Tetsuo, unable to stop in time, gets into a wreck on his motorcycle and is hurt. Before Kaneda is able to find the little boy, he disappears. Then the military come to the scene of the explosion and ask a lot of questions. Tetsuo is taken to a government research lab where they experiment on him and his underlying physic abilities begin to awaken. He is more powerful than any they have seen before and more dangerous because he does not know how to control it. The friendship between the two teenage boys is put under a lot of strain as Tetsuo learns more about his powers. Kaneda, meanwhile, is having a relationship with an anti-government woman named Kei. Tetsuo is confused by his new abilities and starts to learn that the force behind it all is the mysterious Akira.

Akira was an amazing read. The art work was incredibly detailed and emotional for a graphic novel. There was a lot of action in the book and while sometimes that can be hard to follow, it was very clear in Akira. You could see exactly what was happening as well as feeling it. I think that is an incredibly admirable skill to have. The author Otomo Katsuhiro is also a very good story teller. He did a great job at developing his characters and their motives. You understood all of the characters at a very personal level, which made it possible to understand their actions and see where they were coming from. Although a pretty long novel, it read quickly and felt almost like watching a movie. The depiction of Neo-Tokyo may have been my favorite part. Katsuhiro really made the future city come alive and it sort of reminded me of A Clockwork Orange. I think because it had to do with teenagers doing bad things, but there was something very similar about the two.

I really enjoyed reading this book and am definitely going to continue with the series. I don't understand how anyone could stop after just reading the first one! I need to know what happens and what this elusive Akira is!

WE3 Review

WE3 is the story of 3 animals, a dog, a cat, and a bunny, that have been turned into the ultimate weapons. The story begins with the decision to terminate the We3 as the company decides to expand, whoever their trainer is against killing them and facilitates their escape. The animals are essentially half robot and have the ability to speak in fragments. They are incredibly deadly. They escape, but are pursued by helicopters and soldiers intent on their destruction. Then the animals come upon a father and son hunting in the woods. The father shoots the rabbit and the dog and cat react by killing the father and his pet dog. Eventually, after much more destruction, the dog and cat shed their armor realizing it is not actually a part of them. Then the homeless man who fed them earlier becomes their owner.
Quitely's use of the page is very interesting for a comic book. He has a way of using extreme close ups to give you a better sense of the scene you are reading. He also uses a lot of splash pages that are incredibly beautiful. I liked that there was not a lot of dialogue and most of the story was told through the pictures. I think the characters were also very interesting. Their limited ability to talk gave them personality, but also insight to the limitations of having animals as weapons. The art in the book was just amazing, even though at times it was quite violent. I especially like when Quitely layered the panels, using several smaller panels of close ups to give the feel of the larger scene going on in the background. Overall it was very interesting reading.

Watchmen

I read Watchmen for the first time this fall. I had been hearing about it for so long that I decided it was really time that I read it. I was amazed how sophisticated it was. I had read a couple of comic books before and Persepolis had been the only other graphic novel, but Watchmen was so different. Watchmen is set in a similar universe during the 1980's. The main difference with the Watchmen universe is that there are super heroes. While these vigilantes were popular for a while, they had fallen out of favor and there was a law passed in 1977 that forbid them from practicing vigilante justice. None of them have any "super" powers, besides Doctor Manhattan, who is used as a weapon and an advantage against the Soviet Union. The story begins with the murder of one of the original Watchmen Edward Blake, the Comedian. The first panel is a close up of his smiley face button with a drip of blood on it sitting in the sewer on the street. The scene zooms out until we see that he was thrown out of his window from a high rise apartment building. The police inspectors have no idea what happened. Rorschach, a super hero who refused to "retire", finds out that Blake was the Comedian and believes that there is a plot to kill off all the costumed adventurers. He tries to convince his old friends of the plot, but has some trouble doing so. Doctor Manhattan banishes himself to Mars when he is accused of causing cancer, which throws the country into political unrest because he was a huge weapon. His wife Laurie Juspeczyk, who is the second Silk Spectre, goes and stays with her old friend Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite Owl. They form a romance and break Rorschach out of prison to help him stop the plot against the costumed adventurers. They discover that it was Adrian Veidt who killed the Comedian and he plans on a larger scale attack on the city. He destroys much of the city, giving humanity a chance to start over. Rorschach does not believe this is right and Doctor Manhattan kills him before leaving for another galaxy.
The story is an amazing testament to what graphic novels are capable of. The art and writing in Watchmen is incredible. I have never felt so moved by characters or art while reading. I think that Rorschach's mask of ever changing ink blots is an awesome idea. It is so completely different from any other super hero costume I have ever seen or read about. I enjoy the dark undertones of the entire story and how even though the Watchmen do good, they are somewhat hated. Their involvement in justice is morally ambiguous. The colors used in the book are also very vibrant and emotional. The contrast of the red blood on the yellow happy face button is intense. Rorschach's journal entries may be my favorite part of the novel. I enjoyed reading it again and cannot wait to see the movie.

Covers

Perhaps most impressive to me about Will Eisner's The Spirit covers is the use of space. In the first cover that we looked at from No. 26, there is a spider web that covers both the title and Eisner's name. You can see Spirit tangled in the web trying to free himself while a villain in the background approaches and a woman seductively looks on. There is a certain amount of haste and desperation in Spirits expression and body language that is hard to get from cartoons. I also liked the second cover in our packet from No. 28. It sort of reminds me of Indiana Jones because of the Spirit's costume. All of the little gnome-like creatures attacking him are both funny and scary looking at the same time. They seem to be delaying Spirit as he tries to travel underground. You can even see how unbalanced he is on the logs floating in the water. The main thing that I like about Eisner's covers is that you get a sense of what is going to happen in the story before even reading it.

Vocab Words

Comics-"juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer." (p. 9)

Icon-"any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea." (p.27)

Gutter-the space between the panels of the comic where "human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea." (p. 66)

Bleeds-"when a panel runs off the edge of the page." (p. 103)

Motion Lines-"lines that represent motion and speed." (p. 110)

Closure: "the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole." (p. 63)

Splash: a full page drawing, most of the time it has the title and credits and is the first page of a comic.

Panel: the box or space where the pictures and words are in comics.

The path of the medium that is comics:
1.Idea/purpose- the content of the work and the philosophy behind it.
2.Form- the medium
3.Idiom- the style that the work is done in
4.Structure- how the piece is composed
5.Craft- The actual making of the work.
6.Surface- The part that you see, the visual aspect.
(p. 170)

Transitions-
1.Moment-to-moment- when nothing happens in between the panels.
2. Action-to-action- a sort of before and after shot of an action
3. Subject-to-subject- "the movement between two different subjects while staying within a scene or idea."
4. Scene-to-scene- Requires deductive reasoning from the reader because it "transports us across significant distances of time and space."
5. Aspect-to-aspect- "bypasses time for the most part and sets a wandering eye on different aspects of a place, idea or mood."
6. Non-sequitur- "no logical relationship between two panels whatsoever."
(p. 71-72)

Eisner

After reading Understanding Comics I was excited to read something by Will Eisner because he seemed to be the exception to every rule that McCloud put forth. He has a distinct and influential style. His drawings are both detailed and emotional, as well as full of action. I was continually impressed with how well he could portray emotions on faces since that is what I have so much trouble with myself. I think I am going to read Fagan the Jew, a graphic novel he wrote about Oliver Twist from the perspective of Fagan. Oliver Twist is one of my favorite stories and I would be really excited to see his visual portrayal of it.

The Spirit

Will Eisner's The Spirit was a very influential comic book that first appeared in the early 1940's. The story follows Denny Colt who changed into the Spirit, a vigilante crime fighter. Eisner's style is unmistakable. His use of the panel makes the characters come to life with emotion. I was most impressed with how Eisner can show movement in single panels. The lettering of the comic was also very distinct. In the first issue it was very straight and long; it reminded me of the New Yorker magazine's type face. However, in the Lorelei Rox, the lettering changed to a more conventional comic book type. I like how the first letter of the speech bubbles are block letters like the title on the title page. I also really like the cover art that Eisner did. He made very use of space and the title lettering always fit really well with the story.
I think that Eisner does a nice job of mixing camera angles to keep the comic's appearance interesting and engaging. He uses the environment to his advantage not leaving it blank but giving subtle details that you might not notice at first, but set a mood for the scene. For instance, when Spirit goes to see Dolan at the police station in Lorelei Rox, the dark theme is maintained throughout. He uses the storm outside to echo not only Spirit's menacing darkness, but also Dolan's shock and surprise at seeing him. The crash of the thunder highlights Dolan's realization that Spirit has walked into his office after a presuably long absense.
I also enjoyed how he does not only employ rectangular panels. He uses all different kinds of shapes to emphasize the actions that are going on. It also keeps the comic more interesting because you never really know what to expect next. Perhaps my favorite example of this was in the first Spirit comic when Dr. Cobra is introduced on page 22 as just a floating head inbetween two panels. Not only do you get a close up of his face to see his anger, but it also is a nice break from the panels.