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

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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.....
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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.