Week6 Underground Comics

 For this week, I cannot feel good to analyze the underground comics because I feel scary with them. I would like to analyze why I feel so much scary with it.

 First of all, I do not like the art style. Most of them are not good at drawing and really creepy. It is the same feeling when you saw the picture of a person who has malformation syndrome. I know this is a sort of discriminatory example, but it is natural for a human to feel scary with the humanoid body with off perspective. In many of underground comics, almost all drawings are off perspective and do not have natural movement of the body.

 Additionally, which is more personal opinion, I really do not like the American stylized characters in general. It may because I am Japanese and too familiar with Japanese style. Not only the underground comics but also I usually feel a lot of scary with American cartoons, such as Betty Boop and The Powerpuff Girls. The biggest reason that I do not like them is a body extension. I would like to show the difference of expression by screaming shots from American cartoons and Japanese anime.

from YAWD

from Attack on Titan

 As you see above, American cartoons extend their jaw over their head, their mouse is bigger than their head, and their eye extends to an unnatural size. These features are never happening in nature. Compare to them, Japanese anime is usually based on natural human anatomy.

from One Piece

 Of course, other than this. This is the typical style that I do not like.

  In a personal favorite, I prefer Japanese style and feel scary with the American style. Some of underground comics use these American cartoon style, which enhances me to feel fear as a result.

For these reasons, I would like to name my feeling to the underground comics as “fear”. In every after the class, I always review the resource page again because everything is interesting to me. Sorry, I may not do it for this week.

Week5 Graphic Novels

 I think that graphic novels are similar to a movie. Compare to comics from previous weeks, graphic novels using the cinematic way of expressions. This is interesting to see the technique from different media.

 The biggest difference between comics from previous weeks and visual novels is the expression of sequence. In previous assignment comics, the pictures in each frame are much more like a photograph. Pictures have a connection between each other and had a story flow, but it shows only the shot of key action of each sequence. In this case, the setting of camera angle, background, point of view, the subject was dramatically changed between frame by frame.

 On the other hand, visual novels show not only the key shot of the action but several actions before or after the key action, which could be called a sequence. In this case, the difference between each picture is not obvious. Sometimes the camera is a totally solid angle without any changes between, and the only character has movement.

 This technique creates a sense of time, a specific atmosphere, and an additional range of expression. Comparing these two ways, comic books explain the story briefly by using the least amount of pictures while visual novels use more pictures to explain it, which could be considered as unnecessary. I think this “unnecessary moment” is the key part of visual novels. By having these moments, I can feel the atmosphere of the place and feeling of the character. In this case, I could feel the loneliness atmosphere of the shop and the character’s boring feelings, which I never could feel it with a brief explanation. It also creates another range of expression. In this case, I can get the ironic meaning from the dialog in the final frame, which I could not get with the comic books’ concise expression.

Both expressions work in certain ways. The brief expression makes a higher rhythm of flow and makes readers feel the exhilaration and satisfy. The sequential expression creates an atmosphere and explains the emotion of the character well, which is the same as the novels and cinematic films.

 In the cinema field, this type of sequence is well used in history. For example, we will focus on the emotion of the character when the sequence filmed the character for a long time. Also, this is a typical way that Osamu Tezuka used in his work. And he is influenced by the cinematic films and animations when he had started to draw manga.

Therefore, visual novels are a similar expression of films. I like to see this type of expression within the comics. I had a lot of fun to read them.

Week4 Comic Books

 I had a lot of fun reading these comic books because I could see several different points and improved techniques by comic strips from last week.

 First of all, the printing technique is well developed. My favorite page is from Amethyst Princess of  Gemworld. In this comic book, there are several pages of only line drawing with no black ink but colored ink. This is higher technology than the comic strips. This technological development of printing allows the artist to have a wider range of explanations. To see this experimental work makes me fun.

 Also, I feel that comic books have more freedom format than comic strips. Since comic strips are daily or weekly published in newspapers, most of them are short stories using only one-page. Some of them, especially gag comics, even has the same gutter every time. However, comic books have more freedom layout. This is a page of the same example of the previous paragraph, Amethyst Princess of Gemworld. I can see more freedom in its layout, which is more interesting because I can see more author’s personality.

 Finally, I like the shift in character design. Many comic strips use simplified faces to identify the main character. Compare to it, the comic strips make the protagonist stands out by putting them more characteristics. Simple character design works to get audiences’ empathy, but I prefer to see more uniqueness on the characters because it is more appearing and stay on my memory for a long time. For example, the main character of Little Nemo and Sunday with Walt and Skeezix are similar in their appearance. I may remember their name and story but easy to mix up them together. Unlike these iconic characters on comic strips, comic books’ character has a strong identity, which has a strong impact. I may never forget the character and the story. I appreciate that the comic books make the main character stands out not by simplifies it but more characteristic of itself. 

 Overall, I think comics were well developed from the comic strip. It is fun to see the historical shift within the artworks.

Week3 Comic Strips

 By reading some comic strips, I found that the key point of comic strips is the empathy of readers. I found it by character design and scenario setting.

In several stories, there are simplified face characters even the entire art style is realistic drawing. I think this is the same structure written on Understanding Comics, the previous reading assignment. According to Understanding Comics, people tend to see themselves when the drawn human was iconic than realistic and detailed. The simplified face characters in comic strips were mostly the protagonist of the story or at least the important character who appears many times. I think it is because these characters are designed to get the most of the audiences’ sympathy when they are reading comics. For example, the audience may feel that they are walking within the dreaming world as Nemo does in Little Nemo. 

 It is also fun for me to see how authors reflect their experience in the story. Many comic strips in this era use the real-life topic which may come from the author’s personal experience. For example, Little Nemo, Sunday with Walt and Skeezix, Dondi… All of their main characters’ model is the son of these authors. Sunday with Walt and Skeezix is one of the most interesting of these because of the main character's actual growth within the story. The baby in the first story reaches adolescence at the end of the book. I could feel the reflection of the author’s real life. This way of making a story is not outdated even today. The real-life-related story gets much attention from readers because they feel empathy with the story by finding common points between the story and their life experience.

 By considering these points, I think comic strips are well-considered to get people’s empathy in both character design and story scenario. It may be because most of the comic strips are in the newspaper and may be seen by several people. Getting attention and giving readers a good feeling was important to them to continue publishing.