Al's webcomics recommendation

Cucumber Quest:
Simply put, Cucumber Quest is a rpg style adventure about young bunny Cucumber who is forcibly pushed into being a hero when ancient evil returns to their land.  Cucumber, along side his sister and a group of friends begin to cross their land in order to defeat the evil Nightmare Knight.  But there maybe be more to this centuries old on conflict.

This comic is a beautiful fun silly mess of a comic.



It comes from soft, to loud to scary. The use of color is one of biggest pulls for me personally. It's just some fun work.
It's about to come off spring break so nows a prefect time to check it out. http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/


the Glass Scientists is basically a twist on the story of Jekyll and Hyde.  One of my favorite storyboard artist are behind this and it has so amazing art and some fun characters.


It just started it's third chapter so check it out!
http://www.theglassscientists.com/?comic=chapter-i

Authority

There are a lot of different prominent symbols in Authority which end up giving it this large scale quality.  There are a lot of specific places and counties mention, the comic starts out with Moscow, introduces character in New york and ends in London.  There seems to a worldly nature to  the story. But the ship that the hero use as a sort of base called the Carrier seems to a kind of futurist beak.
There is defiantly a strong connection to a sense of team, as the hero characters are introduced that seems to connection to them to the conflict as it affect the whole earth.  I feel like adapting this story in to a longer form T.V show would be the best idea.  A longer ford adaption would allow it time to spend which each character and the large conflict.  I may spend more time with the set of hero character to really introduced them or keep them very underfinded till the big fight scene they all have to together near the end of the first issue to use that as a good way of showing off their character. Either that or pick a character that is more of the main lead which in this case I would put as Jenny Sparks since I read her as having the most ideal as a main character or leader.


Honestly I don't think our current era of Superhero fandom would exist with out this era. These comic bought superheros into the space they needed to be in order to be taken seriously as a medium.

That being said I personally thinks this is the down fall as well.  These comic tones are  still affecting comics today; dark, serious and gritty. Which has turned out to be just a limiting as the camper stuff.  But I feel  Superhero comics are finding their medium between deep and fun.  Stuff like Ms Marvel and The unbeatable Squirrel Girl can balance the idea of story and fun.  I think the popular of characters like Deadpool proves that people like supers who have fun as well.

Lady Comics

If I'm honest for a minute, I had read a lot of these comic before and love them.   I'll fully admit I have a bias,  I spend a lot of time reading female centered stuff, it's usually just more my style and natural.

The One summer captures that bittersweet nosticlgic feelings. It's art style and storytelling has a ghostly feeling, sometimes dream like. But the plot and characters are all fully real, reminding me a lot of both people I knew or even myself at that age.

I love Fun Home. It's a well crafted story and even though the story can be strange to some, I think what it's saying is very relatable for our age group.


Lumberjanes is honestly one of my favorite comic.  I love the characters, the story and the art. It hits all the right notes.
   

Contemporary Literature as comic

I found this concept a little hard to understand when I first read it. Honestly that may because I never thought of comics were not literature.  But these is a sophistication to these stories that I understand is a little easier for people to call "literature". Asterios Polyp is an interesting take on the idea. I didn't like I'd like Asterios for the first few pages.  I tend to have a hard time reading sophisticated or wordly writing but I liked how figurative the drawing were.  As I read, I actually had a hard time stopping once I got started.  The combination of the interesting story and amazingly design art from the character design to the panel design. It's wonderful made book, a pleasure to read and look at.  The character despite being unliked to follow, you do want to figure what happens to him.  And I almost missed the great end because I thought it was an end page.

Manga's influence on me personally aka Mostly me talking about Magical Girls honestly

So much like a lot of people my age,  manga was my door to comic and comic making.  When I was some where between 10 and 11 I started reading them.  I was nuts over them. I often got one or two every few weeks, re-read the ones I had 10 or 15 times. In middle school there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't have at least one in my bookbag.

I was drawn to mostly shojo especially magical girls. One of the first manga I've ever read is still one of my favorite and biggest influence.




Most of the volumes I own of Clamps Cardcaptor Sakura are worn from a decade of loving reading.
In my opinion, Sakura stands as the "prefect and purest" idea of what it takes to make a good magical girl story.  A well written concept with set boundaries that leave lots of room from creative.  There isn't a villain or monster of the week to beat. The Cards Sakura must collect cause various issues that need different strategies to seal. This means the conflict turn more into a riddle of sorts.  How can Sakura fix this issues. There isn't one spell or weapon that defends every monster (I love Sailor Moon but these is a reason why I think Cardcaptor is superior.))  You have to think and understand. and sometimes just guess and hope for the best.

Sakura's character is a big pull for me. She's young even for manga, She's not even in middle school when the story starts. She's kind, helpful and caring.  I've actually grown to love her a lot more as I got older. She's a soft light of positive energy and even when things are against her you rarely seen her get down.  The special motto she's got is I'm sure I'll alright.

Positivity rains over all of the story and it's god damn nice to feel and read.  Clamp beyond beautiful illustrations are also amazing to look at and their costume design not only influenced my art but also my own sense of fashion.

Seriously, what's better then being a magical girl with a ton of different outfit of different styles for different occasions? You won't catch me fighting evil in the same outfit every episode          

European comics

I think one of the most telling things about comics is that fact they never really went though a "just for kids" phase in it's history. Even the comic that were "For Kids" seemed to a connection to more adult readers. It's hard to say if this is connected more to just simply the different cultures from the US vs most of Europe or if it has something to with just how they view the media.

Comics are almost treated just as a normal book there, sold in the same places as novels or non-fiction which is kind crazy to think about when you think about how most book store simply have a rack or two labeled comics or graphic novels.    Most of the material we read was taken very seriously which maybe my biggest takeaway.   It's easy to see comics just being taken more seriously, or at least treated like a normal thing.

The fully loaded R-word

Oh boy, one of the big loaded topic of comics pretty much all media really representation.

It's hard for me personally to believe that stereotypes are "necessary" in media, comics other wise. It's always to me seems to be an easy and quick out into creating and writing a character.  Why spent countless hours trying to create a character when you can fill in a few mental blanks?  Need to have give your hero a best friend while also adding some minorities to your comic so you don't get called out for having no speaking characters of color, Add in "Cool but not cooler then the hero, Black best friend." Give him and few one lines and boom! Done.    Need a villain that isn't american or rich? Add vague Muslim terrorist,   Want to add a "Strong female lead" to your story, well just make her wore tight pants, carry a weapon,  and every once in while have her make some comment about she isn't like other woman, give her a tragic backstory about either losing her father, or if you want to go for the "mature edgy" look, give her a rape or abuse themed backstory

Easy, right?  Everyone has done it so it can't fail, right?

Okay, I mau have gone over board but I think one of the best things say in this week's class is that most stereotypes don't tell us anything about the person being stereotyped. It tells about how the person doing the stereotyping.  While becoming the biggest point.

If stereotype isn't telling us anything then why use it at all??

When people ask for  representation in media they aren't looking for you to mark off a checklist of minorities and special groups.  They asking for a well made characters who are refections of what our lives are.

It doesn't matter if you have female characters in your story, if you don't do anything with them but write them into romance drama. It doesn't matter if you have a black character in the story if they just there to fill a spot or give the "Urban point of view" and that's it.  It doesn't matter if you have a fat character, if all you do is use them as a joke.  It doesn't matter if you have a gay character, if you kill them off before you get to your first final.

Write character as people, not as puppets.