Among the various forms of comic books, I find Japanese Manga to be some of my absolute favorites for numerous reasons. For example, unlike American comics, there are almost no forms of reboots, there is generally just one main story and one origin story. They are different from American comics like Batman or Superman where we basically have over a hundred retellings of the exact same story. Manga generally don't do any form of reboots, and instead, a story will often get either a direct sequel or a comedic spinoff. This way characters and stories can continue to develop, and the reader can become more interested without causing boredom. Manga are also read from right to left instead of the traditional western left to right. Surprisingly, many non-Japanese readers actually find it easier to read this way.
This week, I read multiple chapters and manga series of various genres. Particularly, I focused on two specific classic works, Ranma ½ by Rumiko Takahashi and Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka.
Rumiko Takahashi is considered to be one of Japan's most affluential manga artists and is the best selling female comic artist in history. She has won numerous awards for her works, such as Urusei Yatsura and Inuyasha and, of course, Ranma ½. Ranma ½ is a martial arts/ romantic comedy that follows the life of the teenage Ranma after his return from training in China with his father and his adjustment to a new school and a new fiancé. However, it turns out that Ranma has been afflicted by an ancient Chinese curse, which causes him to instantly switch genders into a female whenever he is splashed with cold water, with hot water reversing him back. As the series goes on, Ranma encounters others with the same curse as him, who either turn into various different animals or genders depending on that particular individual's variation of the curse, as well as numerous other female suitors.
Phoenix is the life's work of Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of anime and Japan's equivalent to Walt Disney, who was also a major inspiration to the artist. He is known for many series such as Astro Boy, Black Jack, Kimba the White Lion, and many, many more. However, he considered Phoenix to be his magna opus. Sadly, Osamu Tezuak passed away from stomach cancer in 1989, leaving Phoenix unfinished. Phoenix is a beautiful piece, with each volume focusing on a different story in either the distant past or the far future. However, each story is connected by their various themes of life, death, and rebirth, as well as the inclusion of the god-like Phoenix, who appears in every story.
Overall, I personally love manga and how they handle their characters and stories, as well as the vast amount of genres they cover. There is literally a manga for everyone, and I encourage anyone to give it a try and read some such as Ranma ½ and definitely Phoenix. Both are some of the world's best manga, and they both can leave a deep, emotional impact on the reader.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
The Dormant Beast by Enki Bilal
This week when we decided to take a look at various European comics, The Dormant Beast, by Enki Bilal, seemed like a very excellent work, and reviews that I saw seemed favorable, so I was excited to read it. Sadly, I was wrong. The Dormant Beast takes place in the dystopian future of New York in the year 2023, plagued by radical terrorist attacks. The main character is a man named Nike Hatzfield, who has the ability to perfectly recall everything from his past since before the day he was born. Throughout the novel he recalls the events from the first 18 days of his life, with him being orphaned and sharing a crib with the other main characters, a man named Amir and a woman named Leyla. There is also the main antagonist, Dr. Warhole, who leads the radical religious terrorist group, the Eradicators. Their goal seems to be the destruction of anything from thought, culture, science, and memories, and they brainwash and/or kill people with a series of flies. Warhole's master plan is to use Nike as a human bomb to destroy a site known as the Eagle Site. Enki Bilal also uses a very interesting and cool art style using an almost surreal, chalk like art.
While this sounds very interesting, I found the end result to be a confusing mess, which barely kept my interest. I felt that there were so many missed opportunities to make this great.
In the book, Nike recounts events/moments from the first 18 days of his life. However, these are shown as small, simple text boxes scattered at random sections of the story. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if the panels that they were paired with were, at least subjectively, related to the topic being discussed. But, for the most part, they are completely unrelated to each other. This really disappointed me as this could have created and shown the reader some very interesting imagery, especially with the fun and unique art style, but instead the text box and panels clash with each other. This kept confusing me and had me forgetting what was supposed to be going on or any message that was supposed to be conveyed, which I find ironic since this is supposed to be about memories and remembering. I whole heartily believe that when it come to both film and comics, that one needs to "Show, Not Tell", and I think this piece is a prime example of what not to do.
While I said that a work should "Show, Not Tell", surprisingly, the opposite also applies to it as well. This piece has a lot of dialogue, but most of the time I found that there were numerous inconsistencies or parts and goals that are never explained at all. For instance, it is safe to say that the main antagonist's main goal in this book is to find and destroy a site known as the Eagle Site. It's never really mentioned as to why he wants to destroy it. The book implies that the site is related to extraterrestrial life and the possibility of disproving the existence of a single deity. Now, this wouldn't be so bad, however, all of these facts on the Eagle Site are a part of a small single panel of a computer file. Basically everything other than the two parts I mentioned are locked, classified, and never explained further than that, and we never come back to it. Even Dr. Warhole, who leads the Religious Eradicators, surprisingly isn't portrayed being shown with any religious factors or ideologies. It is more like that he is just using the Eradicators for his own goals. In fact, he never really goes into any depth on why he wants to destroy the Eagle Site. He just suddenly announces in one panel that he will find it and destroy it, with no real context given or thoroughly explained.
I could go on forever detailing all of the issues that I found, such as the fact that all of the characters were boring and, for the most part, emotionless, and that two of the three main characters are barely in this comic. The three never interact with each other except for a quick meeting with two of them in the very last panel. Now I understand that this is only the first part of a trilogy of books in this story, and I am sure that things are explained and revealed further, as well as improved development with it's characters as the story goes on. But, I found this piece to be such a failure, it leaves me to wonder if anyone would want to continue the series.
In television and books, both regular and comics, the beginning is one of the most important parts as it is supposed to create interest of the world and its characters with viewers in its own way. I found that The Dormant Beast to not have any of its establishing aspects, or at least they were not done well. Enki Bilal is known to be a very great and successful artist and author, and I look forward to reading some of his better work such as The Nikopol Trilogy and The Hunting Party. There is no doubt in my mind that The Dormant Beast is perhaps his weakest work and, unlike the others, I have absolutely no desire to continue the stories from The Beast Trilogy.
While this sounds very interesting, I found the end result to be a confusing mess, which barely kept my interest. I felt that there were so many missed opportunities to make this great.
In the book, Nike recounts events/moments from the first 18 days of his life. However, these are shown as small, simple text boxes scattered at random sections of the story. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if the panels that they were paired with were, at least subjectively, related to the topic being discussed. But, for the most part, they are completely unrelated to each other. This really disappointed me as this could have created and shown the reader some very interesting imagery, especially with the fun and unique art style, but instead the text box and panels clash with each other. This kept confusing me and had me forgetting what was supposed to be going on or any message that was supposed to be conveyed, which I find ironic since this is supposed to be about memories and remembering. I whole heartily believe that when it come to both film and comics, that one needs to "Show, Not Tell", and I think this piece is a prime example of what not to do.
While I said that a work should "Show, Not Tell", surprisingly, the opposite also applies to it as well. This piece has a lot of dialogue, but most of the time I found that there were numerous inconsistencies or parts and goals that are never explained at all. For instance, it is safe to say that the main antagonist's main goal in this book is to find and destroy a site known as the Eagle Site. It's never really mentioned as to why he wants to destroy it. The book implies that the site is related to extraterrestrial life and the possibility of disproving the existence of a single deity. Now, this wouldn't be so bad, however, all of these facts on the Eagle Site are a part of a small single panel of a computer file. Basically everything other than the two parts I mentioned are locked, classified, and never explained further than that, and we never come back to it. Even Dr. Warhole, who leads the Religious Eradicators, surprisingly isn't portrayed being shown with any religious factors or ideologies. It is more like that he is just using the Eradicators for his own goals. In fact, he never really goes into any depth on why he wants to destroy the Eagle Site. He just suddenly announces in one panel that he will find it and destroy it, with no real context given or thoroughly explained.
I could go on forever detailing all of the issues that I found, such as the fact that all of the characters were boring and, for the most part, emotionless, and that two of the three main characters are barely in this comic. The three never interact with each other except for a quick meeting with two of them in the very last panel. Now I understand that this is only the first part of a trilogy of books in this story, and I am sure that things are explained and revealed further, as well as improved development with it's characters as the story goes on. But, I found this piece to be such a failure, it leaves me to wonder if anyone would want to continue the series.
In television and books, both regular and comics, the beginning is one of the most important parts as it is supposed to create interest of the world and its characters with viewers in its own way. I found that The Dormant Beast to not have any of its establishing aspects, or at least they were not done well. Enki Bilal is known to be a very great and successful artist and author, and I look forward to reading some of his better work such as The Nikopol Trilogy and The Hunting Party. There is no doubt in my mind that The Dormant Beast is perhaps his weakest work and, unlike the others, I have absolutely no desire to continue the stories from The Beast Trilogy.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Racial Stereotypes and "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi
Racial stereotypes have been found in media for a long time, ever since the beginning stages of popular media such as film, comics, and art. However, for the most part, the characters depicted were given designs and characteristics that were never truly their own, but where more than likely just a quick and cheap way to show an audience that they weren't white and enforce any misconceptions on that particular people. It is a literal example of quantity over quality. For instance, in many works from artists of the 1900s such as Winsor McCay, people of African descent were depicted as extremely black skinned, with large lips, and often depicted as native savages or cannibals, stupid, or the civil war "mammie" archetype, just to name a few. They were also generally shown to speak with a broken English dialect, often in a form of what a white man thought someone from a ghetto talked like instead of how an African American person from that area actually spoke.
When I was growing up, I have, and still do, always seen all people as equal human beings, no one being superior to the other. Concerning media, particularly in comics and movies, there have been many depictions of people, especially of African American people in older media, that I find completely unnecessary, so I enjoy when works such as the comic strip Beetle Bailey by Mort Walker have depicted different races in their own style so that they fit into their world as equals. However, I will say that I am personally against all the radical accusations some people make concerning the appearance on a certain character, sometimes demanding a change in design or a complete removal, especially when said characters were clearly never meant to represent said race to began with or an older icon that represents that dark point in history. Recently in my home town in Texas, there have been many trying to have a statue of a Confederate soldier removed, because some consider it racist. I disagree completely with that action. While I admit it was a horrible time in American History, statues such as these now serve as a reminder to Americans of the terrible things that we once did so that we will never forget them, and so that we can insure that we as a people never revert back to what we once were.
Due to this, I found the comic Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi to be very enjoyable and insightful. This comic depicts the real life events that Marjane experienced growing up in Iran during the Iraq and Iran War, having to adjust to the new radical thought of the regime and religion, her life in high school after leaving for Vienne until her return to her home town, until finally leaving and living in France. What I find most fascinating was that basically the people of Iran acted exactly like many other people, especially American ones. They enjoyed smoking, drinking, dancing and partying, listening to music, free speech for not just men, but women as well and so much more. But now, because of the change of power, they have lost all of their original rights and even had friends and family murdered by the government. As such, many , including Marjane, have grown to despise the current state caused by the Islamic Revolution.
With all of the past and recent events such as 9/11 or the Paris Bombing, people have grown to despise all of those from the Middle East or of at least of Middle Eastern descent. But as a work like Persepolis shows, not all Middle Eastern people are violent or agree with the actions and ideas of others. It reminds us that the true danger is not the people, but it is Radicalism and those who believe and practice it. Because of this I think more people should read Persepolis, mainly in part because to show not only are we much closer to the Iranian people than we thought, but it shows where the real root of our current problems lie.
When I was growing up, I have, and still do, always seen all people as equal human beings, no one being superior to the other. Concerning media, particularly in comics and movies, there have been many depictions of people, especially of African American people in older media, that I find completely unnecessary, so I enjoy when works such as the comic strip Beetle Bailey by Mort Walker have depicted different races in their own style so that they fit into their world as equals. However, I will say that I am personally against all the radical accusations some people make concerning the appearance on a certain character, sometimes demanding a change in design or a complete removal, especially when said characters were clearly never meant to represent said race to began with or an older icon that represents that dark point in history. Recently in my home town in Texas, there have been many trying to have a statue of a Confederate soldier removed, because some consider it racist. I disagree completely with that action. While I admit it was a horrible time in American History, statues such as these now serve as a reminder to Americans of the terrible things that we once did so that we will never forget them, and so that we can insure that we as a people never revert back to what we once were.
Due to this, I found the comic Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi to be very enjoyable and insightful. This comic depicts the real life events that Marjane experienced growing up in Iran during the Iraq and Iran War, having to adjust to the new radical thought of the regime and religion, her life in high school after leaving for Vienne until her return to her home town, until finally leaving and living in France. What I find most fascinating was that basically the people of Iran acted exactly like many other people, especially American ones. They enjoyed smoking, drinking, dancing and partying, listening to music, free speech for not just men, but women as well and so much more. But now, because of the change of power, they have lost all of their original rights and even had friends and family murdered by the government. As such, many , including Marjane, have grown to despise the current state caused by the Islamic Revolution.
With all of the past and recent events such as 9/11 or the Paris Bombing, people have grown to despise all of those from the Middle East or of at least of Middle Eastern descent. But as a work like Persepolis shows, not all Middle Eastern people are violent or agree with the actions and ideas of others. It reminds us that the true danger is not the people, but it is Radicalism and those who believe and practice it. Because of this I think more people should read Persepolis, mainly in part because to show not only are we much closer to the Iranian people than we thought, but it shows where the real root of our current problems lie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)