Hellboy and Reinventing the Superhero

Being a huge fan of the Hellboy movies, I decided to read some of the original comics. I never quite thought about the Hellboy character as a true superhero or at least I didn't put him in the same world as Superman. After reading a little bit of it, I found it was very interesting how much more I could connect to the son of the devil than any other superhero I had read of before. I think something that has made comics like Hellboy and Watchmen so popular is that the characters feel a lot rounder and they actually have flaws. It's very exciting to read about really epic and different characters that are also very relatable.

Also, the style of Hellboy has been very influential to me for a while now. Even though this is my first time reading a full issue of it, I'd usually look at Mike Mignola's art for reference and inspiration when designing characters. He has a very appealing sense of shape and composition in his work and even though I was really engrossed in the story I was reading, sometimes I would take a little longer to read the pages just to admire the art and how/why he did certain things.

Preacher Questions

1. Were there any prominent symbols in Preacher? And how were they used?

I noticed there were a couple of symbols in Preacher. For the most part they seemed sort of subtle and the artist/writer didn't call too much attention to them.  The first symbol I noticed was the mushroom cloud. Both when the church explodes and the cops are killed, there's a very clear mushroom cloud that forms over the scene. It seems like the saint of killers was provoked both of those things. Another symbol I noticed was the skulls and how they are present in the tomb and in the explosion that hits the priest.

2. Is there an aspect of the story in which you were able to make a personal connection with and what was the nature of this connection?

I think the characters and they way the panels were constructed were very 80's and I could almost imagine epic synth music and heavy metal solos playing at some parts. That's definitely something that kept me engaged. I made the heaviest connection with the killer character because he's like a badass zombie Clint Eastwood and being a lover of spaghetti westerns and the archetypes of it, I could really appreciate his nature. Overall, my connection to these aspects were very superficial and mostly based on aesthetics.

3. If you were to adapt this story to another medium, what changes would you make? and why?

Regardless of Moore's wishes, I can actually picture this comic being an awesome movie filled with very interesting and stylized special effects that merge it with its comic counterpart. I don't think I would change a lot about the story but definitely the way it's shot. I could also see it as a really cool cinematic videogame that's very story based and that occasionally you have to stop the story to fight some cops.

Asterios Polyp

This week I read some Asterios Polyp and I absolutely loved it. It has a very interesting and engaging style. As cooky as this sounds, I really feel like the style reflects Asterios tone and voice. From the first panels I could already tell that architecture was going to be somewhat involved in the story. Something about the quality of the lines really reflect that. It's also so interesting how it can jump to different style in the same page! It's jarring, but at the same time makes a lot of sense in context of the story.

In general the story is very interesting. The changes in timeline make it very compelling to hear about the rise and fall of Asterios's career and life. Also, the fact that the objects he picked up during the fire in the beginning kept coming back in the story really kept me engaged and wanting to know more about them.

Overall, Asterios was a very interesting comic and I know I'll definitely look back at it for color palette and style inspiration for future projects.

Battle Angel Alita

This week I read some Battle Angel Alita and I was instantly hooked. There's just something about cyborgs fighting and strange cloud cities that really appeals to me.  I'll be honest, I've always preferred manga to western comics, so this week's reading was a lot more interesting to me. I always appreciate how much detail goes into the work and how the stories feel deeper and more complex.

In Alita, I really appreciated the themes of purpose and "humanness". The characters are constantly questioning what makes someone "human" and for the majority of Volume 1, it seemed like those who qualified to most were the least human. Like Gally implied, even those with brains and hearts can be monsters. This element in particular made the story even more interesting to me and not just random cyborgs fighting each other.

I still have a lot of story questions about this manga and I'm interested to read more of Alita. I just want to find out what Dr. Nova's intentions are and what's waiting for Gally in Mars!

Underground Comix

Underground comix were very influenced by sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. From a distance, it's pretty obvious these guys were doing lots of dope and LSD; a lot of the work from this period was very psychedelic and trippy and usually didn't have a very interesting story or relatable characters.

I read a bit of Tits and Clits before class and got to see some Zap and Dopin' Dan in class. Tits and Clits was definitely an introduction to this genre; nothing is censored and all the stories are very sexualized (obviously). I was not a huge fan of most of this work, just because I couldn't get myself interested in the stories. But there was one story that really caught my attention and that was I Was a Sex Junkie!". This series deals with a woman who's addicted to sex and turns to drugs to get the money she needs to pay male prostitutes. Even though the story was a bit strange and not really my style, I enjoyed getting some perspective from female characters. This character treated rape and drugs like it was nothing and it certainly gave me an idea of the type of people who would go nuts for these underground comics at the time.

I thought these works, while not taken very seriously and usually considered crude, are super important to understanding the people of the era and the work that followed it. Everything came back to the Vietnam conflict and the pop culture of the time.

Will Eisner's A Contract with God

I appreciated a lot of things from Will Eisner's work, especially his draftsmanship and compositions. In A Contract with God, I enjoyed the topics and themes since they were very real and rough, in a way. My favorite story was the first one, since I felt more for the characters and was a lot more invested in his story. I also thought it had an interesting take on one's relationship with religion.

I really wanted to know how the main character's life turns out after he becomes selfish and "evil". It was interesting finding out his original motive was his daughter, though, by the time I got to that point of the story I couldn't relate much to his character. I enjoyed going through it, mostly because I appreciated his style, but often I was brought out of the story because I could very easily tell when dialogue was written to teach a lesson. These lessons were usually very on the nose and obvious, which made me disconnect with the work.

Overall I enjoyed Will Eisner's work and I'm excited to check out more of it!

Classic Comics

This week I got to read some Krazy Kat, Popeye, Popeye, and Calvin and Hobbes, amongst others that we looked over in class. I've had a connection with these comics for a long time, since they were a big part of my childhood and it was very interesting to analyze them in a different context. 

I've always thought these comics, specially Calvin and Hobbes, were always very simple but had a very complex humor and wit to them. They always have this deeper context, that at first glance just seems like just a funny gag, but in reality it really exposes even more about the time and context it was written/illustrated in. 

A lot of the comics we looked at in class were fun and interesting, and others didn't hold up as well and ended up being very dated or boring. In a lot of them the characters felt really flat and one dimensional and the stories or gags never really hit for me, even in franchises I really love like Popeye. You can always tell the time period the comics were done in because of the types of issues the characters had or how far the racism and sexism went. I did notice something very interesting when i was looking through a lot of the comics. I noticed that none of the female characters were very strong or had any purpose to the story. Most of these girls, like Polly and her pals, weren't very engaging to read about. The only woman I was entertained by was Olive; which I found really surprising. I guess it's mostly because she's a working class woman, and no rules apply there! I'm glad this made it character trait made it all the way to the animated series! I think it's the main reason she still survives as a very successful character.