Post 8 (Week8)

-
For this week, I delved into the graphic novel My Friend Dahmer. I had previously heard of this work from a Crime documentary id watched a few years back. Im familiar with the crime as well, and with the disturbed Nature of Dahmer, I wasn't sure what to expect once I began reading this graphic novel. The novel works to show the distrubed teenage years of the notorious serial killer, Jeffery Dahmer, but does so with a sense of empathy for who he was before the crimes. He was a broken man, day drinking at school trying to forget everything going on around him while trying to escape his inner demons as well. The art style has this wonk to it, like a distortion of the world. I feel this was done intentionally, to distort the world as much as dahmer was distorted. One can feel pity for the demoralizing upbringing, but one also has to agree with the artists' personal feelings on everything that happens after high school. Looking back on my own experience in high school, i think we all have a kid that had fallen within this odd archetype.

It was, deeply disturbing, and somewhat tragic. The style of the comic worked well for the time period it was portraying, it felt loose and free with the penwork, but held pretty close within its borders. It rememded me of another real-life based graphic novel, New Orleans: After the Deluge in its recapture of stories and unique art style.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 14 Final Post: Final Week

-
Image
For this week, I sat down with the web comic Shen Comix on webtoons. I've seen the work on instagram before and it always makes me laugh when it pops up on my feed. It is episodic, but the story is non-linear for the most part does not have continuity each week. The lighthearted tone and style mixed with the heavy emotional tone from time to time creates a duplicitous tone at times, creating a contrast that is incredibly enthralling. If I'm on the go or in the mood to binge a stream of comics, I can sit down and do both. Some of the earlier series included a constant battle between Shen himself and life, creating a multi-part series that took up a large portion of the production for awhile. The simpler, less complex comic has a fun story that leaves you excited for the next one. Following the current movement of comics, it experiences a lot of pop culture and from to time current fads, including the uneasy eyes meme that found its way across the artistic circles in April of thi
Read more

Post 2 (week 2)

-
I found Scott McCloud's Understanding comics to be quite incitement and took extra time this week to reread it a couple of times. While I have been reading graphic novels and comics for quite some time and this further clarified some of the patters i had begun to notice in reading through comic series. One thing that i had wondered for quite some time was why on most comics, a semi-realistic/ shaded style was used instead of the full realistic style, and now, it makes full sense. Ive generated storyboards and beat sheets but hadn't tried to push the series of panels much past this step, realized pretty quick after playing with the idea after reading this and seeing just how much it takes to render a character scene to scene and it was surprisingly laborious. Similarly to the Traditional Animation Courses here at Ringling, simpler is safer when trying to re-draw a character from panel to panel, on top of the less rendered character appealing to a broader audience. I hadn't c
Read more

Post 7 (Week 7)

-
Maus was one of the most memorable graphic novels I've read so far in this class, and the heaviness of the subject matter is off put slightly by the use of animals. I had heard previously of Maus, but hadn't picked up on the series until now. The Personification of people as animals was one of the most interesting aspects, and it created a sense of cat and mouse for the main protagonist of the story and the other jewish folk trying to escape the clutches of the germans. I found the motif to be a bit insensitive overall, but the use of "masks" to disguise themselves in the crowds had an added weight of symbolism for me. While the masks were not actually there in the true portrayal of events, the duplicitous nature of them typically would be used to hide the actions of an antagonist, but serve to ensure the safety of the protagonist in this increasingly antagonist world. On an interesting note, looking at the main Protagonist himself, he is not squeaky clean. He himse
Read more