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Week 1- Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus

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  While reading Frankenstein, I couldn’t help but see it as a LGBTQ+ narrative. The book opens with Captain Robert Walton and his crew rescuing Victor Frankenstein from the cold. The way Walton describes Victor with such loving detail comes off as romantic. It’s hard to read it as anything but Walton falling in love with Victor. This observation switched on the “okay so this book is gay” switch in my head and colored the rest of my reading.             The Creature himself suffers a narrative that most LGBTQ+ people are familiar with, whether it be through living it or from fear of living it. When his father/creator realizes that his son didn’t turn out the way he envisioned, he is instantly rejected. Victor does not see the beautiful man he wanted to create and treats his abnormal appearance as hideous. Throughout the book, he believes his creation to be pure evil. However, the Creature is not evil at all; he is simply different and wants to find happiness. He is
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Week 15- The Comic Book (Revisited)

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I would consider this less of an improvement on my previous version and more of an expansion, as I have more to say on the topic. The more I've read older comics (and comics styled after them, such as Tom Scioli's Fantastic Four: Grand Design ), the more I've come to appreciate them. There's an air of creativity and vision in them that's somewhat lost on modern mainstream comics. You read an issue of Amazing Spider-Man from the 1960s and you get a complete story with a wild new idea, whereas when you read an issue from 2019, you get a small piece of a story that may or may not be riffing on an old idea. That's not to say it isn't well crafted (frankly, this current run is much better than the past decade or so of Spidey books, but that's a whole other discussion), it just feels less satisfying to me. I mentioned in my previous version that creators seem to be encouraged to write for collections, and I believe that is because publishers like Mar
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Week 14- Cartoonist's Track: Webcomics

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Ghosts is a webcomic that follows two recently dead spirits on their way to The Light. The spirits, nicknamed Square and Round-Eye, only have sporadic memories of their lives. Each page gives us an insight into each character and who they were in life, even if they don't entirely know who that was themselves. Meanwhile, they encounter strange events that hint at a greater mystery going on in the background. Tonally, Ghosts is conversational and introspective. The mystery is not the focus and only exists to 1. make the comic a bit more engaging and 2. give us insights into Square and Round-Eye.
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Assessment

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1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? This was my second time reading The Killing Joke (my first time being when I was between 14-16) and I definitely got more out of it this time. I found it to be a much more compelling work, catching onto the ideas Moore and Bolland present more than I did 5 or so years ago. It's an interesting take on Batman and Joker's dynamic. I appreciate that Batman goes to talk to Joker in the beginning. It shows that this version of Batman is overall more thoughtful than some of the more brutish takes we've seen, and it provides an insight into how he sees his relationship with the Joker. With all those nice things being said, I do wish Moore didn't do all this at the expense of Barbara Gordon. Of course, after this, we still got great stories with her as Oracle, but this was obviously not something Moore was thinking about. Barbara is a rich character and she absolutely deserved a better fate than getting shot in the stomach a
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Week 13- Cartoonist's Track: Reconsidering the Superhero

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For Muttman I wanted to combine some of the realism and comedy of series like Kick-Ass without its cynicism and juvenile humor. Cynical deconstructions of superheroes are somewhat overdone, especially considering how many of them are just surface-level attempts at being edgy for the sake of being edgy *cough*Mark Millar*cough*. I wanted to do a more positive yet nuanced portrayal of someone in the "real world" being influenced by superhero media and taking action. Even though I want this to be more optimistic, I do still want to explore some of the negatives of being a real-life superhero. I also want to embrace some of the inherent soap opera-ness of Silver Age Marvel while updating it for the modern-day. A central part of this would be relationships between characters, as I think that's the real crowned jewel of ongoing superhero media. A smaller but still crucial Muttman is the visual gag of a guy in a dog mascot costume fighting bad guys. aspect of
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Week 12- Women in Comics

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This week, I read Pink by Kyoko Okazaki, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi, and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris. So many comics are either made by or focus on men, so it's refreshing to read more works by women. These three works, in particular, have an honesty that feels somewhat lacking in comics made by men (of course this isn't universal). These comics, especially Lesbian , are very emotionally open and personal, in a way that even a masterpiece like Asterios Polyp isn't exactly. They feel like cartoonists pouring their hearts out to the reader with all their blemishes. Even though Pink and Monsters aren't strictly autobiographical, it still feels like they are rooted in Okazaki and Ferris's feelings and/or experiences. Of course, Lesbian is an extremely honest and egoless look into Nagata Kabi's life and psychology. It almost feels like a comic diary in that its art mainly acts as a supplemen
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Week 11- Cartoonist's Track: Literary Graphic Novels

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  Being a Godzilla fan, I always found it interesting how in the Showa-Era films(1954-1975) Godzilla has a slightly unintentional character arc. He goes from an uncaring beast (and metaphor for the atomic bomb) to a selfless superhero. In this graphic novel idea, I wanted to parallel a similar arc with the story of a man struggling with his own sexuality, masculinity, and gender identity. Important moments in his quest for understanding himself would be intercut with shots of the kaiju (on the right in this page) doing battle with another kaiju that would be symbolic of his struggles and/or epiphanies. While extremely to watch them fight, I believe kaiju have endless creative possibilities.
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