Batman

The comic is relatable but there is an unsettling, and gross amount of using sole female characters as a device to motivate the main, male characters into action. Though this comic is known to be one of the best Batman comics, it says a lot of how the women are perceived. They are rape victims and serve no other use but to further motivation of a character or characters. In this Batman comic, they're not fighting per-say in terms of an overblown fantasy where superhero comics seem to strike for- but it's more real and relatable to us as mundane humans.

The defining characters of "Alice in Sunderland" is that it is ambigious esotaric.

"Eightball" is exploring sexuality and questions fetishes and the ideas/qualities behind that. The main character is searching for something more, and questions the "Sense" of anything mundane around him, such as two men sitting in the theatre or the line to a restroom. Even as he is watching the films, he critiques the purpose as it doesn't show actual sex.

"Boneville" is situation around a group of there characters who were run out of town after a bad buisness dealing. All three have their own baggage and regrets. The rich one says "how could they do this to me, you can't do anything to a rich person that they don't want!" and the other two characters seem unaffected by his situation as it doesn't apply to them. The characters appear to be very cartoony with realistic backgrounds with other worldy things such as a human and a dragon.

"Every Girl is the End of the World for Me" is situated around a man who first introduces us to women in his life. We only get his POV and about a short sentence about them at most, so we have to make an assumption of his perspective and if he is genuine to think these things.

Assumptions that I am bringing to the work of "Fables" that effecting change the work is that I played the game "The Wolf Among Us" which is based off of this comic. I already assumed it would be in the same setting, which is the fictional world within our world, and how they've intergratedd secretly into New York/our society. You also make assumptions off of every existing character nearly, as they are also based off their respective fairy tale. Like, Biby Wolf is the big bad wolf from "The Three Little Pigs".

The only thing I could connect all of these things too were asumptions and relativity. Alice and Fables refrense something we are familiar with. Bones I'm genuinely not sure. "Every Girl..." and "Eightball" are compaprable because they have to do with relationships andd romance/sexuality.

The Comic Book Response

The Comic Strip Response

Little Nemo served to be a fantastical delight to read and observe. The use of colors and patterns, the unusual characters and the posturing of them was very interesting. Reading it made me feel a bit younger automatically, which I think it sort of crazy of a thing to happen, as I watch cartoons all the time and don't get that exact relation. The style is very consistant and you know what to expect- except you don't.  It's so whimsicle that you don't even know what to sense exactly, and that's okay. You let the comic take you for a drive and it's all about the experience it creates for you. 

As for the other comics, it was really disheartening to find a lot of offensive blackface, yellowface, and redface. I found myself floating around books uncomfortably and unable to enjoy the content as much as other students. And then whenever I would found something I could appreciate and enjoy? Bam. Here's another terrible character. It hurts because it's true, I was never the intended demographic/audience in mind when these artists made their comics. I'm thankful to be living in a more accepting and inclusive time, though we still have a long way to go, we have made impressive strides since then. I was thankful to see Krazy Kat though, as it gave familiarity. It wasn't perfect itself, but it was neat to see a brother out here and giving people to look up to.

Underground Comix Response

After hearing a fair warning of the Underground Comix' content about it's obscenity- I figured it would be something along the lines of Family Guy and cartoons of that nature. What I found instead reminded me immensely instead of "incels" on the internet and other unusual subgroups of the dark internet. I guess I could see why people read them. It was more so for whatever was happening versus something visually appealing- or you could say that was a style in of itself. I could talk all day about how it made sense, but in my utterly honest oppinion- I can't support that in any way. No matter what time period you are in, nothing will stop something from being problematic, despite it being "culturally acceptable" or not- and we know it wasn't. The reason being because you would never find this in a semi-professional enviroment, it's clearly taboo. Topics like these help make people rationalize and relate to obscene characters who aren't meant to be idolized- but when being read by a younger OR an older audience, people are going to fantisize either way. Which is beyond disturbing to me. The comic I read was on drugs, and though I didn't know it was from the perspective of real heroin addicts, to me it still came across as stigmitizing versus being less aggressive with it's tellings and warnings of the drug and it's addicts. I feel like it could be a self fufilling prophecy if you are already heading down that road self destructively, what is to stop you from just accepting this as a truth? My perspective is different, but it's from someone who has a friend who has recently developed a heroin addiction and dependency. She has the mindset of "my body is ruined, I'm going to die young anyways", so she's more concerned with being a dirty kid and glorifying homelessness in the punk scene that she knew she would eventually come to this point and accepted it. That's why I personally can't agree or rationalize the decision making of these comic writers and publishers.

The Birdmen

1. Coming from the market, a women is attacked by a bird.

2. At the mortition, the raven finds itself looming over a women's body.

3. More of the birds continue to appear, another women storming in to keep them away from the body. Fearful, but dedicated to keeping the women perserved and unscathed in her tomb.

4. Backlash insues from the birdmen, as the fearless women who came to protect the other now lays on the floor- wounded and tied to a board. The birds huddle in discussion of what's to come.

5. The birdmen search the holy home further, bursting through the upstairs bedroom door only to find another one of the women already dead on the ground beside her. The chickens already had gotten to her. Heathens-- bested again, they caw'd.

6. Moving on, the birdmen peer into another room to what seems to have a women staring longingly at a man whose body is propped up and pinned to a board as if he were a scare crow like them.

7. Meanwhile, two women from a place farther away weep in mourning of the news. Two more women dead to the birdmen. Scoundrels. Absolutely. The cab driver, who happened to be a beefy rooster- rolls his eyes at the comotion.

8. Later that night, the two women after reaching their home discover in the late of night that they are not alone. Dropping her lantern, the women gasp then press their backs against the wall as they wait for their home's invader to pass. The bird sounded heavy and his talons tapped the wooden boards.

Week 1: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The Arrival by Shaun Tan showcases a deep story without the use of any dialogue. The wordless comic provided me with both entertainment and imagined speeches. I believe this was done by using clear body language and other forms of non-verbal communication to express a point to the reader. This may be a demand, like pinching your fingers together in asking for money- or showing the reader a sequence of images that flow and are easily readable to the eye. The main character also displays different reactions to things in a very physical fashion that combine both facial expressions and hands.

Tan also utilizes transitions to tell the story. For example, the beginning of the book shows our protagonist sitting aboard a ship as he is leaving his family. This is suggested by him sitting alone in a room in front of a portrait of his family before he turns to look out the window, where it's shown he is traveling on an enormous boat. We then see the other passengers on the ship, those on top crowded and wrapped in blankets, huddling beside their luggage. This tells the reader that our protagonist is possibly migrating to someplace far and foreign.  

Another way the story is told/progresses is by utilizing flashbacks of minor characters while also seeing their different interactions with the protagonist and each other, as well as their different responsibilities. They serve as a compare and contrast- to what I believe the story to be about immigration and the (possibly idealized) concept of leaving behind your homeland to reach something safer and better for yourself and your family. We can infer that the family's move may have been incited by this eerie, pointed tail stretched all about their city. You as the reader can tell that this is meant to be something feared by the way other characters interact with its image- such as the protagonist panicking at the sight of the little boy's animal whose tail resembled the one from his homeland. All these are what help to make The Arrival a dynamic but wordless story.