Final

“Are We Women or Are We Objects?”

By: Breezy Weyant

“Sin City: The Big Fat Kill”, the title alone alludes to a story of sin. To define sin for this context: any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.; great fault or offense. This defines how the characters now must act and be depicted. All of Frank Miller’s characters are or have done something reprehensible. The Girls of Old Town, are prostitutes for a living, the cops are corrupt and use their badges to do what they want. Everyone is stuck in a city of crime and devastation.

It seems that after WWII comic books started appearing on newsstands and in the local stores that created the issue with the representation of body. At the turn of the century body image took a turn to the extreme, “although superhero comics are still typically associated with an adolescent audience by the general populace, these texts contain some of the most complex representations of the body to be found anywhere” (Taylor, p. 347). Yes, superheroes need to look tough even supernatural or they would not be superheroes; but is this need being over depicted and creating aliens of their readers? Instead of focusing on the whole of body representation in graphic novels I will focus on female body representation. I will look at how the female is depicted in graphic novels and what effects this may have upon the readers. The readers of “Sin City: The Big Fat Kill” by, Frank Miler get a presentation of a whore versus superwoman gender dichotomy.

In this scene the Girls of Old Town, must be drawn to look like prostitutes but does Frank Miller take it too far?

The Girls of Old Town are prostitutes, but they are in power so do they really need to be slutty also? This is where Miller creates the mixed female representation. On page 72 after the ladies are done killing everyone. Gail finds something in Jackie-boy's pocket and starts swearing. Then is a sequence of paneled faces of everyone else. However, right after these panels (this is the last panel on the page) is a close up on someone's buttocks with Dwight and Gail off to the left and the curly blond off to the right, walking towards them. The buttocks is in the foreground of the panel is just from the waist down. Miller leaves out everything except the belt, with a set of keys. This creates the idea that the ladies are slutty. According to Aaron Taylor author of ““He’s Gotta Be Strong, and He’s Gotta Be Fast, and He’s Gotta Be larger Than Life”” Superhero Body”, it is very rare to have full body shots; these are only to glorify the body. Instead of glorifying Frank Miller is dissecting her anatomy across the pages. Taylor identifies this technique as being used to show a split in identity (Taylor, p. 348). The split identity here is that the girl is a sex object in one identity, but the keys alluded to her strong powerful identity.

The keys represent power because they are from the dead cops pockets (Jackie-boy), whom the girls just massacred. The importance of this panel is to emphasis the gravity of their mistake. The keys represent power, yet it’s not the power they wanted. These keys will be the down fall of these provocative, powerful women. The end because they ended up killing a cop, which means they lose their control over their area, creating a gate way for the pimps and gangs to seize back the control. Miller portrays the women as slutty, but at the same time makes them powerful. This leads me to believe that Miller finds that there is nothing sexier than a woman who knows she looks good, and has power and strength. According to Donna Haraway (Taylor 352):

“there is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not

even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed

in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices”.

This characterization of women leaves the door open for artist to create a portrait or identity of women as they see it. Miller chooses to represent women as provocative, authoritative, intelligent, sex symbols.

To create this symbol he relies on the use of black and white. “In black and white, the ideas behind the art are communicated more directly. Meaning transcends form. Art approaches language” (McCloud 162).

Black and white coupled with Miller’s use of transcending from visual resemblance

(the right side of the triangle) to a more iconic abstraction of body (the left side), presented in this panel from page 72, creates the sexual object perceived. If Miller were to have drawn the buttocks on the bottom panel on page 72 as a visual resemblance, he would have been taking away from the reader. By creating a more iconic abstraction he has allowed the reader to create his or her own sense of female representation.

Therefore, Miller’s art style has put the reader in the driver’s seat to create whatever perception of feminism they find suitable for his story. One reader may find his female representation a bash on women, while other see it as a clear depiction of strength coupled with sexiness to create the perfect woman. This depiction creates a mixed representation of the female gender, but what female is really black and white to begin with.

Final...dunt..dunt DUHHHH!!!!

Using p126 of McCloud as a reference/ guide, define the line style of one of the graphic novels you have read SINCE the midterm. How does the line style impact the storytelling of that specific GN?

Hellsing is a horror anime by Kohta Hirano who adopts quite a few different techniques with line style to portray his story. Hirano’s overall style closely resembles friendly lines, where everything is kind of rounded yet dynamic coupled with a signature style. These two styles along with lots of action lines to make doors seem freighting, and add to the suspense, create a very nerve wrecking story. The signature lines can be seen throughout Hellsing, showing a more complex character. Basically these emotion lines let us see inside the characters mind. This can be seen when the “cop girl” is attacked and being, around her are dark lines with breaks of white, which makes the reader feel tense like they are being attacked. Also towards the beginning is a very good example as the vampire who is about to get killed seems nervous. The reader can tell that the vampire is nervous due to the shaking lines that are outlining his body. Line is very important through out this graphic novel due to the fact that on many pages Hirano opts to leave out language all together. This means that Hirano’s language and message must they be portrayed through his art. The emotion of the characters must take shape through lines and style. On pages 138-143 there is only one word “Amen”, the tone is left to be set by the action lines that represent the horrible struggle between Alucard and the priest. These lines are dark and sharp where someone is getting attacked, then thin and light where the gun is being fired. Without emotion lines and action lines it would be quite difficult to tell what any of Hirano’s characters were feeling or doing.

When using a comic book/ GN to record history, which narrative voice serves this format better, first-person or omniscient?

In graphic novels when portraying or recording history, it is best when an author uses omniscient format that first-person. Omniscient makes the reader detach from the writer, instead of in first-person, where the reader questions the narrator. In first-person format, the story is being told by the person who was there. However, this format makes me question how reliable the narrator is; whether or not they were impartial to the story, or was holding on to some biasness. In omniscient format, the writer removes him or herself from the hot seat. They come off to be a more reliable unbiased perspective. This can be seen in the handout comic in class about the journalist who was portraying the events at the boot camp for the Iraqi army. The comic portrayed how the United States Marines felt about training the Iraqi and why the Iraqi was there to be trained. It was difficult to really question the author’s intentions or if he had a hidden agenda, because he was not represented in his comic. The author used an omniscient format, which made it feel as though the characters were speaking for themselves. This eliminated the question of whether or not the author was biased against the Iraqi, or biased against the Marines. The comic just focused on what was being said by both parties. This created a feeling as it did not matter who created the comic, if you were there watching it, you would have seen and heard the same things. If it was to be first person, and the author chooses to put himself in the comic, it would have created questions such as: did he only feel that way about the Iraqi’s because they did (insert incident here). It would have taken away from his credibility by being apart of the story instead an outsiders view. The author in this case almost becomes a video camera, recording the everyday happenings at Iraqi boot camp. And who would question a video recording of an incident?

Examine/ explore the six steps of creation (p170-184) of one of the graphic novels you have read since the midterm.

The six steps of creation according to Scott McCould are: Idea/purpose, form, idiom, structure, craft and surface. I will be breaking these six steps down in the creation of Sin City “The Big Fat Kill” by Frank Millers. The purpose of this graphic novel is to tell a story about a murdered police officer that needs to be covered up to keep from ruining all of the Girl’s of Old Town’s lives. He wants to create a world of sin, using very emotional characters and tones. This can be seen by the day to day lives of the characters. The form Miller chooses to illustrate this story was in the form of a graphic novel, words mixed with pictures. He then turns this graphic novel about a murder into a part of the action/drama genre. This is achieved by the brutality of the events and how in depth Miller goes into each fight, and car chase. The drama part, is the few romances going on, between the murdered cop who abuses his girlfriend, and the love hate relationship between Dwight and Gal. One moment Dwight and Gal are at each other’s throats the next they are fantasizing about one another. Miller’s structure starts as a time line. He begins with how Dwight’s night began, with the fight at the cop’s girlfriend’s house, to the race to Old Town, to the murder and then finally the cover up, and the solution to the problem. His structure is very easy to follow, it does not jump back and fourth through time; it’s just a linear progression. The language takes the form of a first person narrative. This strategy makes it simple to follow the story and the multitude of characters, since they all have their place in time. The next step in Miller’s creation is craft, understanding anatomy, vanishing points and perspective. Miller’s uses all of these attributes to contrive his graphics. None of his frames are less than well refined. They each show a great understanding of what the anatomy of a human is and should look for each pose. They also have the appropriate vanishing points. The perspective changes throughout, from looking upon the characters, to what the characters are looking at. Miller chooses the uses of line and negative verses positive space to add a new look to a familiar genre. This created an entirely different surface look. Though he went through the same process of creation that all writers would, his choices along the way created the graphic novel “Sin City: The Big Fat Kill”.

Using p105-106 of McCloud, address how the format of webcomics influences or frustrates closure, as well as the unique narrative opportunities that the open, free flow of the digital format affords. How do webcomics sit as a unique opportunity for reader involvement? Also address how this is similar to the structure of the class, specifically with regard to picking your own path to the end.

Webcomics make it harder for the use of gutters, and different ways to start the comic. In printed comics, there are several panels scene at once, and depending on what ketches the eye is where the reader starts. Webcomics frustrate this developmental reading, because the reader must scroll down to see more than one or two panels at a time. Also the format of webcomics is quite different, the gutters are not standard. They usually consist of panels on a background, this make closure a little different, because it’s hard to tell quite how long to pause, because the reader must scroll during the pause. However, webcomics create a new kind of reader involvement. Depending on what can be view on each screen the scrolling can add suspense to a comic. Also if the panels are one at a time in a liner progression downward, it can create the affect of taking a trip in the webcomic.

One webcomic in particular “My Obsession with Chess” by Scott McCould is structured like that of this literature class. It gives you a choice of ways to move throughout the story, depending on where you start creates the story you get. With the structure of the class, depending on what graphic novels the students chose and what they chose to look at created their experience. Even if two students read the same graphic novel, their blog may not be anywhere near the same experience. This is the same for this comment. I could read this comic and start reading left to right, however another reader may start right then drop down or over, such as chess. During the class, we could start where we wanted with either a required text, or a choice text. From this text, we were free to tell whatever analysis suited us. Each student has left this literature with a different understanding and experienced based upon what they wanted out of it. As with the webcomic “My Obsession with Chess” which allows the reader to bounce around freely and still understands the experience.
Link to webcomic http://scottmccloud.com/comics/chess/chess.html

Big Paper

I don't know how to post pictures, and without pictures, my paper wouldn't make much sense. So it is posted on the discussion board Blog Links page on blackboard. Please look it over if you have a chance. Thanks you guys!

Wa-wa-wa- WALRUS

For the webcomic of the week I choose "But Nobody Notices the Walrus" by Sylvan Migdal. Through out the office everyone is worrying about themselves and their lives, and hardly really notice anyone else. Its like everyone is to wrapped up in caring about themselves to take notice of someone outside of their frame of reference. Or in this case, outside of their self absorbed world. At one point Stuart is talking to his co-worker Susan, asking her if she wants fish for lunch. Stuart is so wrapped up in his world of eating fish for lunch, he does not ketch that Susan is asking him out to dinner. Also during the whole day, everyone is caring on with their own world and does not notice the poor Walrus who has been waiting for his meeting all day. This just shows, how self-absorbed people, are that they did not even care to ask the Walrus if he'd been helped, since they were to busy doing nothing but things concerning themselves.

Hellsing

This GN is based about the character Alcuard who himself is a vampire, but still a vampire hunter. He is the guardian of the family Hellsing, and his mission is to kill vampire's who have no purpose.Basically vampires who are running around slaughtering people, to become the strongest vampire. Alcuard was preserved in the basement of the Hellsing mansion. He came back to consiousness to protect Integra from her uncle who wanted to killer so he could take power of the family. Alcuard is quoted saying "his blood smells bad". This is to mean that he was evil. I believe Alcuard is the balance of power, he is the ying and yang. He seems to have a sense of good and bad to help him with his efforts to preserve life as much as possible. Being naturally evil, since he must drink blood to survive (yet he is only shown for the most part drinking blood from bags you get at the hospital) yet, at the same time being the savior of humankind (at least from vampires). For the most part Alcuard is impossible to kill which represents the power of the ying-yang. There must be a balance of power or all hope and life is lost. If Alcuard were to be killed, the crazy vampires would kill off the humans, and they would go extinct; therefore, bringing the spiraling end to all.

Down the Rabbit hole...

Or rather an in dept look by Kenneth Kid into Alice and Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz. I wasn't sure what to make of this, at first it seemed Kid was saying the writer of Alice and Wonderland, was a pedophile, that used Alice as his muse. Then the article changed into a summary of a GN "The Lost Girls". I have read Alice and Wonder and Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz, and I do not get the undertones that the author is a pedophile. I feel that if anyone's morals should be brought into question it should be the author of "The Lost Girls", a GN about the main characters of the previously stated works, brought together in a story of sex and no boundaries and horrid happenings. Who thinks about these things, its nasty. Why would you draw conclusions from a story of a little girls dream into some deep dark look into rape and molestation. I think that parts of Wonderland seem a bit out of a little girls dream, like a look into the evils of dreaming. But I think its more a warning that you can't just dream your life away, such as Alice's sister tellers her at the begin. It wears thin on my paycients with these revolutionists writers, keep trying to draw dark sinister meanings out of classic children stories. Just because some children have been raped or molested I highly doubt someone would want to write a children's book about it. Nor do children really understand all that has happened to them or is happening to them tell put in context, usually when they are older. The idea that someone would write such a novel as "The Lost Girls" makes me wonder where our morals in this world have gone. Possibly...down the rabbit hole.

Sin City..

In Frank Miller's "Sin City: The Big Fat Kill"; Miller gives a mixed representation of the female gender. This can be seen on page 72 after the ladies are done killing everyone. Gail finds something in Jack-boy's pocket and starts swearing. Then it shows the faces in each panel of everyone else. However, right after that panel is a close up on someone's butt with Dwight and Gail off to the left and the curly blond off to the right, walking towards them. The butt is in the foreground of the panel and is just from the waist down. Miller leaves out everything except the belt, with a set of keys. This creates the idea that the ladies are slutty. However, the keys represent power. The keys are power, because they are from the dead cops pockets, whom the girls just massacred. The importance of this panel, is to emphasis the gravity of their mistake. The keys represent power, yet its not the power they wanted. These keys will be the down fall of these provocative powerful women. Since they ended up killing a cop, which means they lose their control over their area, which gives the power back to the pimps and gangs instead of the prostitutes (the girls). Miller portrays the women and slutty but at the same time makes them powerful. This leads me to believe that Miller finds that there is nothing sexier than a woman who knows she looks good, and has power and strength. Though, this could be seen as a bash on women, I find it more empowering. Women should not be looked down on for wanting to flaunt their curves. And I feel that Miller depicts this quite well.

The 9/11 Report

Wow what a read, The 9/11 Report a graphic adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, is inspiring. The life like images of this graphic really drew me into the sarrow and horrors surrunding the events of 9/11. This GN was probably the best at representing history in a ahh inspiring way. Jacobson and Colon take us on an intenese journey through the legislation and politics surround the war in Iraq and the one in Afganistan. Though these were only stops on the ride to the big picture, and the final question, how do we prevent 9/11 from happening. According to the research for the 9/11 Report, America was just unprepared technological, physical and mentally. The use of dialog brings us into the clear cut facts and helps the pictures come to life as if we were watchin the events of the past on our TV. The detail makes us draw more feelings from the facts and charaters. I think this GN should be used in Political Science, due to its genre of intellicual facts, mingled with true feeling; because, despite what people think you have to have a strong compassion and attachment to the facts to be a good politician. This GN brought the facts from black and white to a rainbow of feelings. GREAT GN!!

Confussing Mid-Term

!!!WARNING!!!WARNING!!!WARNING!!!
So, this here is my disclaimer. I wasn't exactly sure what was acceptable. However I did this assignment to the best of my ability. A lot of these questions did not pertain to the three GNs I have reviewed already on this blog. I looked up a lot of the GN's we went over in class to write this. So here we go.....
!!!WARNING!!!WARNING!!!WARNING!!!

In this short I will be examining the diverse techniques of symbolic representation, colors, and the different uses of the “gutter” employed by Art Spegialman in his graphic novels “Maus I”, “Maus II” a memoir about mainly his father, and “In the Shadow of No Towers” a mix of first person narrative/memoir and obeisant narration. In “Maus I” and “Maus II” the tone was depressing, so the enlisting of black and white helped to focus the mood. The color scheme created and atmosphere in the graphic novel which drew you in to the dyer quest to survive during the holocaust. Spegialman chose a different approach in the graphic novel “In the Shadow of No Towers”; his use of bright collaborative colors created the mood and set the tone for a very hectic experience. As the towers are falling the pages are bright and busy, making your mind feel anxious, as to draw you into the feelings of the panels. In Maus I and Maus II very symbolic characters were used, they were actually mice. While as “In the Shadow of No Towers” Spegialman used symbolic representation for the characters who were childish and frighten. “Maus” used the symbolism to draw people in, while “In the Shadow of No Towers” use of symbolism was to relay a very child like character. The “gutter” was also used quite differently in the separate graphic novels. An example is that throughout “Maus I” and “Maus II” the gutters were drawn the same just panel by panel. While “In the Shadow of No Towers” there was pages without gutters some with obscure random gutters and some with vary large gutters. The use of a variety of gutters added to the tone of the graphic novel, creating an extremely anxious atmosphere. Both GN seemed to uses the same sort of texts, a little bit of narrative mixed with thought bubbles and dialog.

In the graphic novel “Tintin in the Congo”, written in June 1930 an explore travels to the Congo with his dog and goes through some mishaps of having his car stolen, and several attempts on his life by the village “medicine man”. Lately, there has been controversy that the monkey like representation of the natives and poor broken English creates a racist portrait. There are instances where Tintin is speaking perfect English to the villagers and they are speaking like cavemen. The Commission for Racial Equality complained stating that the book was highly racist and offensive and needed to be pulled from shelves. I disagree with the Commission, and agree at least partially with the author. Herge’ claims that the book was just portraying the naive thinking of the times. I agree with this, back in the 1930’s racism was highly acceptable not only the United States but countries such as South Africa who were under the control of apartheid. Just as at the Native Americans were considered savages and the Africans Americans were considered inferior to “white” Americans, so were views of the villagers in Congo. Though, I do not agree with racism; I do agree with the author’s portrayal of the time. If the natives were to speak perfect English just as Tintin I do not think the comic WOULD have been as popular or been how people saw the villagers. Just because times have changed and the common view is no longer the same as the 1930’s it does not mean we should pull and old classic from the shelves. Just as “Huck Fin” clearly depicted bigots in the South during that time, so does Tintin portray the attitude of the 1930’s.
With this example, lets take a look at in the "Shadow of No Towers", by Art Spegialmen. As of right now in time, there is hardly a controversy about feeling the government has placed more emphasis on flipping 9/11 into a revenge war on Iraq, then coming together in peace. So I ask, if the terrorist do win, and our government is toppled and we become suppressed by the Taliban like in Iraq, is this book (let say we can still have an objective opinion of literature) going to be considered supporting the infidels? Will it become unacceptable to read this book, just because times have changed? I think when we start placing a bigger emphasis on "control" and less on creativity and literary value, we lose ourselves. We create a public that goes by the norms instead of stepping up and daring to be great. If we get rid of things we disagree with, we are telling people to stop being themselves, and stop thinking on their own. Is this really what we want for our society? A nation ran by a group who decides what is controversial and what is mainstream?

Art Spegialman’s Maus I and Maus II represented the historical holocaust in a very different way. While other artists were focusing on the horrors of the holocaust through close representation or focused on a totally different genre altogether, Spegialman opted for a way to draw a larger audience in while still staying as close as possible to the history. Though the Jews were mice and the Nazi were cats, Maus portrayed history just as well if not better than other holocaust books of the time. The mice represented the fear the Jewish people had of the Nazis. What is more terrifying to a mouse than a cat? The animals break the fear down for the reader, and makes it more palatable. The story still tells of the trials and heart break a typical Jewish family would have faced during the time. The symbolic animals makes it easier for the reader to face the horrors of the holocaust; while still feeling and even sometimes hurting for the poor family. I feel that without the mice and cats this graphic novel would have been sickening and uncomfortable to read. One example that would have been unbearable if it wasn’t animals is a panel where it shows one of the Nazis grabbing children (mice in this graphic novel) by their feet and slamming their heads in against the wall. If this had been actual life like human characters I probably would have been sick, or stopped reading the novel. The horrors were still portrayed but were almost censored due to the omission of human characters. GN's add a different feeling to an old mood. As someone great once said "a picture is with a 1000 words", so while some feel GN's are for children and do not represent literature, all I can say is count the pictures. Because these pictures and chapters onto the original book. Graphic novles have no boundaries to show true feelings while, novels are left with....only words.

In the Shadow of No Towers

I just completed In the Shadow of No Towers, by Art Spegialmen. Unlike his GN, Maus I and Maus II, this was a new kind of format, and piece of work. In the Shadow of No Towers was bright and busy. In some panels the words were over the art work, instead of the normal boxes. He jumped around from using very symbolic cartooning to more detailed, depending on what he was trying to convey. The frighten people were draw as symbolic children.

The story itself was of Art Spegialmen's first hand account of the trauma he endured at ground zero, of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Through out the GN, Spegialmen kept showing the "glowing bones of the towers" before they fell. This I found a bit repetitive, however, it was used to show, that he couldn't get this image out of his mind. His story was of him and his wife, trying to locate their daughter at school the day of the attacks. He tells of how traumatized he was, and how it took the attacks of 9/11 for him to realize he was a "grounded cosmopolitan", which he'd never seen before.

Unlike the previous two GN I have read from Spegialmen, it didn't feel like there was a new spin to an old story. I do realize that this book were published in a different country before being released in the USA, but it still does not give much new insight in to the horrors of 9/11. This sort of family affair/ horrors endured, plagued the media. And myself who hasn't really heard many stories of the feelings of the New Yorkers on 9/11, has heard this one many of times.

I was however drawn into his ramblings of how trivial the safety procedures were we adopted after the attack. I probably would have found this GN more interesting if he focused more on his feelings about the politics and his conspiracys, rather than the drawn out family horror as I mentioned previously.

Maus I and Maus II

I choose to read both GN, Maus I and Maus II. The author's incorporation of history into a graphic novel was enthralling. His depictions are based off of his father's stories of his experiences in Poland during WWII. Throughout both GN, Spiegelman jumps from his fathers stories of the Holocaust to what his father is gowing through and how the internment camps have effected him. How his father collects garbage off the street because it could come to use. His mother ended up killing herself before he started his GN, so her stories were not incorperated.

Spiegelman used mice to represent the Jews during the Holocaust. The cats are the Nazis and the dogs are the Americans. I think the mice make you feel more sympathetic, and draws you in. He depicts everyday life during the war. Though, everyday life is a lot harder than now. He had to save his rations of food to get clothes or anything else he needed. He also had to know how to do everything, otherwise he'd go to the gast chambers. These GN were moving. Spiegelmen went between the his father's stories of WWII and his last days with his father (present time) in the last Maus. He also told of his hardships in writing the GN, and how it was a struggle to represent the struggles of the Holocaust in a new, yet still moving way.

I felt that though these GN were of a extremely paved road experience, that Spiegelmen, brought a new and interesting light to the holocaust. With his artwork, whiched used cute animals to depict an horrible experience combined with a first person narrative, he brought you to places you could only imagine in a novel. I'd recommend this for anyone interested in history.

Insight to McCloud

In McClouds Understanding Comics he goes ito the difference beteween Easter (primarly Jpan) and Western comics. He bases the difference on the story telling techique but does not give much insight on how this split derived He bases it on cultural differences; but since there is such a drastic difference, what cutural attributes played a role in the developement of storytelling. Also, why were these values of cultural atributes brought into the "new" comic ook creation. Or am I just confussing the development of comics. On a new tangent, McCloud gave a lot of insight into the ivisible hand of the comic worl.d There were a lot things such as lines, space and motion I did not htink about when readig comics Some of the elements I could have arrived at on my own analasys; but, others were an eye opener suchs as action lines.