"Killing Joke" Assessment

     My reaction to The Killing Joke is just plain out wow! I felt so bad for the Joker. I felt bad how he was just a simple man struggling to provide for his family and then all of a sudden his whole world came crashing down when his wife suddenly perished. Not to mention he was in too deep with some illegal business that he couldn't depart of. Life seemed to always be cruel and unjust to The Joker. He left his good-paying job as a lab assistant to pursue his life long goal of being a comedian. It is because of this that he had been struggling to find work. It is because of this that he got involved with crime to make money for his family. It is because of this that he loses his family. It is because of this that he ended up falling into a tub of chemicals that bleached his skin white, turned his hair green and made him looney. It is because of this, because of this one bad day that turned this simple man mad.

     The Killing Joke goes back and forth between flashbacks of the Joker before he went mad. The underlying theme of the graphic novel (at least what I got out of it) was that life is cruel and there is no such thing as a happy ending. How everything can be taken away from you in an instant and you end up losing your sanity. Prior to The Killing Joke we never looked at the Joker as a normal person with emotions and feelings of empathy. We see him killing people off for fun because he is just a crazy lunatic but underneath all that he is just like you and me. He had his hopes and dreams, a family, he had his life together. That is until one day where everything changed. Everything he loved in the world was taken from him and in an instant this simple man turned looney. Just like in the real world you could go out one night having a good time drinking with friends. Then the next thing you know you wake up in a hospital somewhere and the doctors tell you that you got into a serious accident. All your friends died in the crash except for you. To make it worse, you were the driver. Now you have to live with that guilt for the rest of your life. You just lost everything that night. This story of The Killing Joke though fictional is something that could easily reflect onto real life.

     It is hard to bring The Killing Joke into another form of media as there is already an animated film adaptation of this work. However I think that if it were to be brought into another form of media it could possibly be brought to virtual reality. With virtual reality things are much more immersive for the viewer that simply cannot be achieved through reading text off of a page. With virtual reality you can literally put yourself in a character's shoes and experience their life and world around them. If I were to bring this story to vr (virtual reality) I would change it so that the perspective is more so on the side of the Joker. Batman himself would just be a secondary character that you interact with in the vr experience. The user would put on the vr headset and actually become the Joker. You would start off in the past, living the normal life of the Joker as you slowly drift towards insanity. Everything the Joker does, when he hears about his wife's death, to falling into a tub of chemicals, to shooting Barbara Gordon. What was he feeling internally? Through vr I feel that we could dive deeper into the phycological aspect of the Joker.

Week 13: "The Killing Joke"

For this week’s reading I read Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. This graphic novel tells one of the darkest (if not the darkest) Batman stories of all time. It is one of my favorite graphic novels that I tend to keep reading over and over again. I tend not to read something more than once unless. That however, isn’t the case with “The Killing Joke”.

This story focuses on Batman and Joker and how one of them is going to have to kill the other in the end, hence the name The Killing Joke. At the same time, The Killing Joke gives us a glimpse into the past through flashbacks of the Joker before he went all crazy. It’s nice to see an origin story for this infamous comic book villain as his origins, prior to this was shrouded in mystery.

The illustrations in The Killing Joke have a lot of interesting line work and coloring to them. It is very dark-lit and dramatic for such a story as this. The camera angles of each panel worked very well in the telling of the story. That combined with the beautiful illustrations made it very interesting to read. That is one of the main reasons, aside from the story of why I find The Killing Joke so enjoyable to consume. The drawings are quite detailed and have a sort of ominous feel to them which helps set the tone for the story.

If you haven’t read The Killing Joke I highly recommend that you should. It is one of the best Batman stories that I have ever read. The story sets itself up in a dramatic deathly tone. Aside from the story itself, the dramatic and detailed illustrations are very interesting to look at and are quite the page turner. We also learn about the Joker’s origins for the first time and how one bad day drove a simple man mad.

Week 10: Astro Boy

Astro Boy

      Astro Boy was one of the most popular anime’s when it first aired in 1963. The anime was adapted from a manga, based on the same name about 10 years earlier (Known as the “God of Manga”). Astro Boy was also the first anime to be broadcasted overseas and became a smashing success! In Japans alone it was watched by more than 40% of the population of people with TV’s.

      In the first episode of Astro Boy, a scientist loses his son in a car crash. He is devastated by this and as a result decides to make a robot in his son’s likeness. Realizing that he could never get his son back, and that this thing he created is not his son, it is a robot that could never age. The scientist, filled with anger sells the robot to the circus. The robot (Astro Boy) has to fight other robots in this circus.

      “Astro Boy” had a very clean-cut animation style to it. The show seemed to be heavily inspired by other, American animations at the time. This show would eventually set the standards for Japanese anime for years to come. This style of animation (anime) was used to caricature the American people. Anime heavily exaggerated the big, round eyes of Americans. At the same time the anime style is much more adult-oriented and realistically detailed than American animation.

      I was very pleased with Astro Boy. It was way ahead of it’s time, no wonder why it was such a smash hit when it first aired back in 1963. I was actually first exposed to “Astro Boy” when the 3D animated movie from 2009 was released. The movie itself seemed to be heavily based on the first episode of the original “Astro Boy” tv series. Of course in the movie, the robot runs away and the scientist spends the whole movie worrying about the robot instead of casting it away to the circus. It was interesting to see how true to the show the film was and how the differences to the characters from the show to the movie really change the feeling of the franchise.

Week 9: A Wide World of Comics Response

An Analysis of Persepolis   

      What happened in Persepolis? This week I took a look at one of the alternative readings, Persepolis. This, I would say is a coming of age story. We are introduced to this young girl named Marji. She has to deal with the changes of growing up while at the same time has to live through a violence-infested world, pretending things are all normal. Marji lives in a major turning point in history for Iran. The country was in constant ruins and violence was everywhere. It became so bad that Marji had to leave to go live and grow-up somewhere else.

      A year after the Iranian Revolution, Marji attends an all girls school. The thing is, this school is no ordinary school. It is a private religious institution. Marji and her family never really practiced religion but Marji had no choice but to attend. You can imagine how hard it must have been for her to get used to that type of environment.

     There is constant violence in the streets. It became so bad to the point where Iraq started to bomb Tehran. Marji and her family had to take cover in a bomb shelter. A neighboring Jewish family was even blown up during the process. The thing is, growing up in your teens you are already dealing with a lot of emotional and physical stress. On top of trying to live like a normal girl Marji also had the issue of dealing with the violence that surrounded her everyday.

     Marji became rebellious and started listening to punk music and wearing American clothes. She did this as an out of her everyday life, a break from reality for just a little bit. Upset with her behavior, Marji’s parents sent her off to Austria to attend a new school all by herself. While she was there Marji begins to experiment with sex and starts to sell drugs. Her then boyfriend Markus cheats on her. As a result Marji goes to live on the streets. Only two months in, Marji winds up in the hospital, sick with bronchitis. After her parents find out about this they have Marji come back home to them.

     Having to re-adjust to a new life once more, it took a heavy emotional and psychological toll on Marji. She couldn’t handle what was happening to her and tried to commit suicide. Her attempt at suicide ended up in failure. Instead, Marji decided to re-invent herself. She got a new hair style, clothes, along with a new attitude. She got a job as an aerobics instructor and enrolled into art school. Marji realizes that this life of heres isn’t really meant for her. She makes the decision to leave once more and start fresh somewhere else. She says goodbye to her parents at the airport and leaves. This is just like how she left for Austria when she was a young girl, but now she has grown up. She is now a strong, independent woman.

     I thought Persepolis was a very interesting and unique take on a coming of age story. Growing up, I couldn’t imagine going through what Marji went through. Living every day not knowing if you were going to get blown up or not must have been a lot to deal with. Especially when you are a young girl already stressed with the reality of developing into a young woman. Having to move from one place to another must have been a lot for Marji as well. Trying to find that place where she could call home, to have a normal life for once must have been a very scary part in her life. If I were in her shoes I wouldn’t know what to do. I would just walk around aimlessly, all alone and constantly be scared of this new, foreign place that I’m living. I feel that being in Marji’s situation, as a young kid especially, you become very lost in the world. I’m sure that is what Marji was going through internally. Eventually she goes back home and finds out that life there isn’t meant for her, and so she leaves once more. It was a giant roller coaster to get to where Marji is at the end of the story. Everything she had to go through, she finally found out who she wants to be and where she belongs.

Understanding Comics Response

Understanding Comics Response

McCloud discusses how people should take comics more seriously and acceptable by adults. If
the art style was more sophisticated in comic books then people would appreciate them more. Years after McCloud's Understanding Comics, we now have more sophisticated artwork from comic artists working for DC and Marvel. Scott McCampbell, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, are just a few of the sophisticated comic artists in modern-day comics. These illustrators' works are appreciated by millions and have even been turned into blockbuster movie hits, video games, toys, underwear, you name it! I believe that McCloud's idea for a better future for comic books has been recognized.

I love the way McCloud illustrates his tellings of industry secrets, his opinion of the comic book industry and so forth. It's unlike other, more traditional "How to" or "Comic book this..." kinds of books. McCloud uses comics to talk about comics! How clever is that? Honestly it was one of the most interesting and fun ways to learn about an industry such as the comic book world. McCloud also talked about the cartoon vacuum and how we become part of that world when we are exposed to such media. For example, he drew himself as a simple cartoon but then in the next panel made himself into a more realistic style and said "Would you have listened to me if I looked like this?". This was a very clever way to have the reader react and understand McCloud's knowledge and insight into the creation of comic books that many people don't think of or simply overlook.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Understanding Comics. It was a fun and engaging way to go about the creation of comic books as well as Scott McCloud's own opinions and ideas of the medium. I agree tremendously with McCloud's idea of sophisticated artwork in comic books. I believe that people will appreciate comics more and have done so already. Given the fact of how huge pop culture is in our society today is a great indicator of that. The majority of pop culture is centered around cartoons and comic books. So much so that all of them have been adapted into other forms of media such and movies and video games.

Maus Reading Response

Maus Reading Response

            Maus is one of those stories that just tugs at your heart strings. I can’t imagine being this character, Vladek and have so many horrible things happen to you. Even though I did not go through the troubles and hardships like Vladek did I still felt a lot of empathy towards him and the other people in this story. If you aren’t familiar with Maus, it was the first graphic novel to really get the graphic novel genre popular. It is so sophisticated in it’s writing that it feels like you are reading a serious novel but it’s merely a comic book. When people think comic book they think of silly looking characters and a bunch of gags or people with superpowers in tights. Maus is unlike any of these stories as it is a story based in reality.

            What I like visually about this story is that the illustrator plays with the idea of cat and mice. They turn the innocent people into mice and have them running away and hiding from the evil Nazi cats. What I like about that decision was that this is exactly how cats and mice interact in real life as well as other works of media. It is staying true to the whole feel of being based in reality which is what this story is so much about.

            Maus was extremely difficult to read. Reminded that these events, of WWII actually happened. It made the story that much more of a depressing narrative to consume. The entire time I was reading I just sat there and thought to myself; "wow, I couldn’t imagine being in Vladek’s shoes." With all the destruction in the world, having your business destroyed, being thrown in concentration camps, separated from your family and losing all of your loved ones. We sometimes forget that stuff like this has happened, because we didn't live through it. This story really hits you in the head, reminding us about the harsh and cruel reality of humanity.

            I had a family member who grew up in Poland during World War 2. Joe was his name. He was about 5 years old when the Nazis took him and his family to concentration camps. The worst part of it all though was that the Nazis separated him from the rest of his family. Joe was all alone, 5 years old at this camp. He was forced to work on an assembly line, making wallets for the Nazi soldiers. Joe lived a full life until he recently passed away, last year at the age of 89. In all that time of his life, Joe never found out what happened to his family nor ever reunited with them. Maus is a story that makes you stop and think that something as far fetched as a story like this has to be fake, it has to be made up. It can’t be real, but it is. This story stands as a reminder of humanities horrific past during World War 2 and of how many families were destroyed during this time in our history.

Fat Freddy's Cat Reading Response

Fat Freddy's Cat Reading Response

Fat Freddy’s Cat was definitely something I wasn’t expecting to enjoy. Knowing that the material I would be reading had nudity, violence, and drugs; didn’t really make me that excited. In the first few panels of the story we are introduced to this cat; Fat Freddy’s Cat. This cat destroys everything in his path, picks fights with random cats and ruins people’s days. Immediately I thought, ok this is going to be a crude parody version of Garfield. Also why is he named Fat Freddy’s Cat? Who is Fat Freddy? Nobody knows. The entire story focuses on this one character; Fat Freddy’s Cat who remains himself a mystery.

All of a sudden the story goes from normal cat shenanigans to a completely different direction. The cat tells us that he wasn’t always Fat Freddy’s Cat. He told this story through a flashback of how he was a spy for the White House. During his mission, the cat had to go stop a group of invaders from polluting the United State’s water supply with Hee Hee Hee juice. It was a drug which made whoever drank it turn queer. Talk about coming out of left field! The story just keeps on going. The cat finds a colony of nudists who he thinks are actually the invaders but in disguise. He then proceeds to kill all of them, then finds out that he killed the wrong people. He then goes off to another location where he finds a man who is holding a big barrel. Thinking the contents of the barrel was the Hee Hee Hee juice; the cat shot and killed the man. However it turns out that the man was innocent and was just taking out the trash.

Fat Freddy’s Cat fails his mission after finding out the invaders had already poisoned the nation’s coffee supply. He goes back to the White House and sees the President drinking out of a cup of coffee. Thinking that the coffee had already been filled with the Hee Hee Hee juice the cat shoots the President in the back of the head, the end. What a crazy humorous comic! After reading the story I could not believe how stupid this cat was and his personality kind of reminded me of Marvel Comics’ Deadpool. We started off with a cliche cat, Garfield-esk story and end up reading something completely unexpected. Ultimately I really enjoyed reading Fat Freddy’s Cat and I encourage everyone to read it if they haven’t done so already.