Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Homestuck

I won't talk much about JTHM because I've read it before and I haven't had a chance to read it again this semester {I have the book at home and trust me, I've read it so many times I can recite some of the lines}. Written by the same guy who made the old Nickelodeon television series 'Invader Zim', this comic is far darker than this rather dark children's show and the very thought of trying to translate this comic to animation is quite silly. To anyone. This just does too well as a comic that it couldn't be done any other way. It's about Johnny who--as the title suggests--is both homicidal and somewhat of a maniac. He delights in melodramatic monologues, has nothing but contempt and critique for the grotesque world around him, and he has a bit of a sense of humor. It's dark, but it's quite funny, really. I had the Director's Cut version, but I managed to collect three of the individual comics. They're way better in terms of additional content, but the Director's Cut has some old drawings and concepts on the back as well as character pages and an imaginary interview that will still make you laugh no matter how brutal it gets. Anyways, Johnny's madness seems to be just that for the first four comics. He believes he needs to drain blood from his victims quite often in order to keep a certain wall wet. The house he lives in, though it appears no larger than a trailer on the surface, has many rooms underground where he keeps many victims and tortures them. One of the running gags throughout these comics is the fact that he can no only get away with this, but he can get away with murdering people in public. In broad daylight, even. And you stop questioning it after a while because you think that's just the way the world works in this comic. Well, it turns out the wall really did have something to hide, and when Johnny finally kills himself all hell breaks loose {srsly} and the world is eaten away. He goes to heaven and hell, finds out he's a 'flusher'--he keeps the filth of humanity from overflowing as long as he's alive--and he's sent back to Earth where he wonders what to do with his life.

And I said I wasn't going to talk too much about it. I'll sum up the rest quickly. Clearly, this is a fun comic to read, especially if you're a high school kid and you've been exposed to so much Shojo that romance starts to work on your gag reflex. I loved the art style enough that I often tried to emulate it and I had no qualms about it whatsoever. I don't think I ever could now because of the nostalgic quality.

As for Homestuck--no, it wasn't on the list. But you did suggest for us to find webcomics of a worthy nature. Homestuck...I'm pretty sure it's a comic. It sort of reads and...'plays' a bit like a game, but the truth of the matter is you can't control what happens next. You just have the illusion that you can. It's all done on MS Paint, with a style that is both simply and complicated. Sometimes things look copy-pasted, other times they look articulately detailed by the stroke of the artist's tabby pen {I assume that's what the artist uses}. Some of it is even in flash, and once in a while, animated. It's a very strange, wonderful little hybrid and it has a language/dialogue to it that you will definitely spend a while just trying to get used to.

So far...

I'll start by saying NO, I haven't finished it. I couldn't possibly finish it. I'm re-reading it and it literally will take you an entire two days, and ever hour in them, to read every page from day one. This comic has been out for a few years and it does update on time.

The comic/adventure begins with a character named John, a seemly young man with a variety of INTERESTS. He ends up acquiring a game called Sburb, which ends up bringing about the destruction of the neighborhood and threatens to destroy the world itself. We meet from here several other wholesome characters, including a girl named Rose {who is the 'client player' to John's 'server player'} and a boy named Dave. I read up to the introduction of Jade, who is another one of John's friend and perhaps the fourth and last. From there...it's very hard to describe what happens. A lot of it involves understanding the mechanics of their 'game'.

I ended up being drawn to this comic by a few of my online friends who were rather obsessed with it. I saw why pretty quickly. It may take some double-taking to understand, because as I've said before, the language is very unique.

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

A friend of mine had a copy of it, and to be honest, it's something I always wanted to read since I heard about what the video game was based off of. I actually never played the game, but I liked the style of it from what I saw in the commercials.

Anyhow, it's about the asylum itself, if you can imagine, and its origins. Batman is summoned there by the commissioner when the inmates have gone out of control and have taken the personnel as hostages. The Joker has a little talk with him--with some mad, intelligent dialogue. Two-Face has been upgraded from his coin to dice and tarot cards, but they're just as problematic. The other inmates, old foes of Batman, are waiting in the Asylum. Joker demands that Batman ought to escape before he sends them after him, but he ends up sending them earlier then he said he would. From then forth, he has some battles with them, picking them all off one by one. Meanwhile, entwined with the story, is the history of the asylum's founder  Amadeus Arkham. His mother was a patient there, when it was once a hospital. She was mentally ill, going deeper and deeper into madness. Amadeus begins to remember the circumstances of her passing. He killed her while they both cowered from hallucinations of bats. He went insane, or rather started to from the moment he had to try and treat Mad Dog, and he ends up dying as he tries to scratch incantations on the floor to keep the bat away. Dr. Charles Cavendish, supposedly a hostage before, believed that he had to continue the pursuit of Amadeus's work in trapping the bat, rather...Batman. So after Batman kicks many asses, he's there and he's ranting and raving all about it. Then he gets served by Dr. Ruth Adams, who was one of the hostages, by having his throat slashed. Batman then proceeds to hack at the asylum doors with an axe, then telling all the inmates that they could go free. The Joker thinks it might be better if Batman just died, so Batman gives Two-Face his coin back so fate can decide that for him. After he flips the coin, Two-Face declares that Batman is free to go. We find out soon after that it actually landed with the scratched side up, suggesting that Two-Face made that decision himself. He then pretty much tells the tarot cards off with a single line ending the book with style.

First and foremost I must admit, the art style is AMAZING. Any one of these panels can be a full, canvas-to-the-wall painting. Even the text was chosen with great care and consideration. Hell, after the main story, they have a few pages with JUST the text on them, and you can tell who's talking without having to see who it is or read what they're saying. This was a beautiful book. I'd have to admit, the plot was just a little convoluted. I still don't understand why Charles decided to pursue Amadeus's special brand of madness, but I'm sure it's supposed to be a nod to how diseased and cursed this asylum is made out to be. This place is like a haunted house. It's like Amnityville Horror. The structure itself is lined with madness, even though according to how it's been treated over the years in the comics, it's been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times. But still, it would have been nice if the whole 'cursed walls' thing was exploited just a little more. Other than that, this story is incredible. The way it's arranged is incredible--intertwining the past and the present like movies attempt to do with music. The part where Batman was fighting the Killer Croc was a stellar example of such. The art, as I've said before, is beautiful. The characters are pretty damn good too. That pedophile Mad Hatter dude actually gave me chills, and that's just from me reading some well rendered text from a very vivid and wonderfully painted page. The Joker made a smirk a few times, though I found his way of speaking to Batman most amusing at all. It's almost as if he's got a little man crush on him.

But Two-Face really took it this time, and that's saying something. I didn't used to care much for Two-Face as a character--he always seemed to be so very black and white which I suppose is the point. But here he has depth. From the very beginning where he can't even take a dump without consulting the cards as part of his treatment to the very end when he chooses to let Batman go and blows the tarot cards off completely.

It was a great story, and it didn't disappoint me in the slightest. I'm even glad that Batman wasn't the biggest part of it. It wasn't really about his past, which seems like the theme behind every comic or movie they make of him. It's more about his condition, versus the condition of the men he has put away. He's every bit as crazy as the inmates, according to the Joker, but unlike them he has dedicated his madness to saving the innocent rather than harming them. But it's as if the artist/writer already knows we know this. It's pretty damn awesome. I'm buying this book as soon as I can scrounge up the cash.

Jillian and Mariko Tamaki's 'Skim'

I read Skim this week, since it was at the top of the list and I actually managed to find it. It's a story that follows the main character's diary, who's name is actually Kimberly but she goes by her nickname 'Skim' throughout the book. She's thinks of herself as a freak, and she's into Wicca, tarot cards, and astrology. She tries to live and understand the lifestyle throughout the story even though her friend Lisa seems to be losing interest. At her school, there are of course the typical cliches and such. Katie, one of the popular girls at the start of the story who ended up getting dumped by her boyfriend and taking it pretty hard. Well, her boyfriend ends up committing suicide and this starts making the school's environment change. Skim starts developing a crush on Ms. Archer, her drama teacher, and they kiss at one point. From then on Skim kind of just ends up stalking her as she's troubled by a slew of things.

I thought the story was alright. It read pretty fast and I never got left in confusion or anything. The characters were not the most likable though. Or at least, they weren't very memorable. I wasn't sure what it was that I should have been laughing at verses what would have been inappropriate to laugh at. Luckily, it's a book I'm reading on my own and not a movie in a theater, so I don't really feel ashamed by that. Anyways, in terms of plot, it was okay. It's another one of those stories that plot-wise felt it was lacking. It read a lot to me like an autobiography, and I've never really been fond of those unless the lives of the authors'/artists' were extremely interesting. It just wasn't my kind of book, but it wasn't a bad one. That much I could tell. It was well written and the art is pretty fantastic. It almost looks like old Japanese painting in its style, but with a modern/realism twist to it. But the brushstrokes are pleasant and I could only wish that there had been some color to it. It looked like the the inking that's done right before the color is added.

Still, it wasn't killed by that. I liked the art style as it was even if I felt it was missing something. The transitions were good and the dialogue wasn't choppy or anything. Like I said before, it was a quick and comprehensible read with a lot of that atmosphere you also see more of in Japanese culture. They even have panels that breathe in this story, which is one of my favorite aspects of Japanese comics and manga, that only picture maybe a tree with leaves blowing or the moon against the sky right before or after something intense.

Ghost World

This week I read Daniel Clowes's Ghost World. The book follows Enid and Rebecca, a couple of cynical teens who deal with their town, its culture, and its people from one day to the next, leading to whether or not Enid leaves for college. They are intelligent, though Enid does a majority of the talking, and it is Enid who appears to be the main character in the story while Rebecca remains a strict secondary. Enid does stick out more--she dresses very differently each day, she is far more critical, and she's far more fearlessly involved in whatever it is that piques her interest. She seems to enjoy being cruel and insensitive on a whim, but with Josh it turned out to be more of a call for attention. Enid seems to loathe just about everything and everyone, though once in a while she reveals herself to be attached to things she hated seconds ago.

I didn't like this comic, though what little we saw in class of the movie was far more interesting and fun to follow. It reads fast-paced, but the topic of conversation changes constantly from one panel to the next and it feels like you might have skipped a piece of information by accident. I did like the humor, and the dialogue was pretty amusing, but as I said before it's just way too dysfunctional in its order. The story also loses my interest due to its lack of a strong plot. I know the comic is weighing the possibility of Enid leaving for college and the love triangle amidst Enid, Rebecca, and Josh, but the story read so quickly that these details were pretty forgettable.

The art was decent though. Everyone looked like an individual and I was surprised that I never had trouble recognizing Enid even if she changed her style every two or three pages. That does not get to happen often enough--usually, you can change the hairstyle of a character and that character will get lost to the reader until someone calls him or her by name. The change of scene, which sometimes happens from one panel to the next on the same row, did trouble me at first, but I got used to it since it fit with the dialogue (which did the very same thing).

I want to watch the movie, because they did add a few scenes in the first twenty minutes of it  that weren't in the comic and still felt like they were pretty canon. It also seemed to have more of a plot/story since the stand-up date they organized in the comic was actually followed in the movie and included as part of the cast.

Persepolis

It turns out that my roommate actually had a copy of Marjane Satrapi's complete Persepolis. So I was able to actually read it as a hardcopy, which was nice.

This story is autobiographical, told from the perspective of the artist and author herself. It begins in her childhood, in Iran, during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane was lively and stubborn, growing up at a time when her world was changing drastically in a matter of a few years. At first, the veil is introduced, and those who wear it tended to be safe from attacks by the fundamentalists. At this time however, revolution against the imperial government waged during the first few chapters until the government is subdued and another civil war is beginning to break down between the fundamentalists and the modernists. The world around Marjane is slowly being taken over by the Islamic religion, but she grows more rebellious with age. She looked up to her uncle as a hero for having endured through prison, but after his death she becomes far more aware of Iran's political situation. It helps that her parents were also part of the revolution, which always piqued her interests. Throughout her life she has been through sirens, screams, and death among her friends and family. She either forgot or gave up being a prophet when she grew older, and she still had her fascination with western culture. She got kicked out of many schools for her outbursts against the religious methods and teachings, since they always had a problem with who she was and what she believed in.

Eventually her parents found her a school in Austria, where she was to be sent alone.

I only read the first half so far, but since I have it around, I can actually keep reading it when I have the time. It's an interesting story, even if sometimes I feel there's a little too much exposition. The art style is very interesting. Instead of going for half-tone shading, or using any midtones for that matter, it is all in flat black and white. Still, it is easy to see the figures among the simple shapes, and even in veils it isn't too hard to tell who is who. The style is unique, but then again I must have said that for the last several comics and graphic novels I have read. I do mean it, however. It has me reconsidering just how uniform comics truly are. It makes sense when I know that up to now, I never really read any comics outside of generic superhero American comics and Manga. I did read JTHM (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac), but I didn't think styles of many different kinds ever made it to publication. Goes to show how much I knew.

Anyways, the story so far is pretty interesting. Marjane is a very engaging character to read, and the situation she grew up in is nothing like what I've ever endured, so it was humbling to experience it through her eyes. I did respect the fact that even though it was a very bloody time, there was no gore throughout any of the first book where the war was taking the most place. There was a lot of implied death, and even some violence, but either it was the style or the way it was never drawn on to the page that I don't even feel like I saw it. I appreciated that. Not only did it make the read a little more tasteful and less of a gore-fest, but it is actually stronger to imply death than to show it. The way Marjane writes is easy and fun to read--she'll tell you in the square box above if what somebody said was true, or if those were their exact words, and doing so really pulls her narrative voice along. It was also very interesting to read about a different place and a different culture, especially when people like Fidel Castro are being looked to as idols in Iran at the time. If I brought this book back home with me to Miami, I know about half my family won't understand why anyone would do that. They probably wouldn't understand Marjane's situation, or the fact that on the other side of the world, the information doesn't quite get there the same, or that what might seem to be great for some is a sin to others. But that's why I find it important to read about people from cultures you've heard little about. It's beneficial to understand why people see things the way they do, and to understand that perspective even if you don't agree with it.

I plan to read the second half as soon as I can. I want to try and catch up to the class this week.

Osamu Tezuka's Ranma 1/2

I decided to read Ranma 1/2 because for one, I was acquainted with the plot but I never had a chance to read it before and I was in the mood for something funny.

In the first volume, we are introduced to Ranma and Genma. Ranma has been arranged to marry Akane in order for the Tendo family's legacy to be secured. Genma, who is Ranma's teacher and father, turns into a panda when doused with cold water whereas Ranma will turn into a girl. Hot water will return them to their original forms. With all this set up for our amusement, the rest of the story seems to follow how it is that Ranma deals with his fiance whilst having the such a curse upon him. It seems to have a plot, which revolves around Ranma's and Genma's relationship, but the manga is pure entertainment. It's like reading candy. It's probably not all too good to take in abundance, but it's tempting to read. I've only read the one volume so far, but I intend to read whatever else is on the course resources page under the same title. It's pretty funny.

What I've noticed about Tezuka's art is that his style does not look like the generic style used in a lot of today's anime. It was more of a cartoonist quality; something they have adapted in the depiction of 'chibified' characters. But it allows for very memorable expressions on a constant basis. I love how Japanese manga artists depict certain reactions. They all seem tailored to specific events too, rather than using the same surprise face over and over for example. There's a real wide range of them.

And like a lot of the manga I've read before, humor is a big part of it. I can't quite define Japanese humor, but it's not hard to get. Even from a culture on the opposite side of the planet, I can laugh at their jokes. Some people can't even laugh at British jokes. It's not quite the Looney Tunes slapstick humor, but I guess if I had to sum it up...it's very situational. It often involves awkward situations and over-the-top reactions. You can bet that at least once, even in the most serious manga {aside from Berserk; it's just too intense}, that the main character will have a hilarious and embarrassing episode or challenge to deal with.

Manga is something I've been reading since high school. I'm not into it anymore, since I mostly read whatever my friends brought because I couldn't afford buying any, but I did like some of the ones I read before. I'm sure my list would be greater if I didn't read too much Shojo, because that was all my friends brought with them and I wasn't fond of romance stories. Boys over Flowers was alright, and there was one about a girl that had to disguise herself as a boy in order to attend a very prestigious school that only boys could be accepted into. I think it was Hana Oridango? I'm probably butchering the spelling...it /sounds/ like the title. The Naruto series was okay for a while, but I got bored of waiting for updates to a manga I never thought would end. I've read a lot of Yaoi, and it was funny to see that pretty much every one of them had ghost penises. If you've read some, you'll know what I'm talking about. It should be there, but it isn't. It's like when you're first given a nude male to draw and you're trying hard not to look at his crotch so you never get around to drawing his johnson. Anyways, yeah, and it wasn't on my own accord either. I can honestly say I read it out of boredom, because the person who introduced me to yaoi was a huge fan of it and half the manga she brought for us to read happened to be of that genre.

I tried to read some FMA, but I couldn't tell what was supposed to be the main story and what was supposed to be the spin-off or fan story. I settled for the anime and got the whole thing down in a nutshell. I've seen a ton of anime, the most recent being Code Geass, which was decent despite all the holes in the story {not the plot, or it'd be unbearable, but there are a few things they never bother explaining}.

I'll probably read more Ranma 1/2 tonight since I found it to be quite entertaining.

The Jew of New York

This was a very strange novel, which didn't focus on any one character too long as if it had an attention deficit disorder and yet all the while these characters either pass one another or briefly interact at the very least. It reminds me of pulp fiction, though I'm sure there are a lot of historical elements in the story that took place in the early/mid 1800s. It was hard for me to remember individuals, though it helped that some didn't change or that the first few pages of the book had them pictured and named for you to refer back to them with some degree of familiarity. But even if a character isn't listed there, there are some in the story that still stick in mind, like Mayor Noah or Miss Patella. But you don't really meet these folks. Their mere existences lend some sort of important plot devices to the narrative.

And I'm not sure whether it's really linear or not. There's a lot going on at once, a lot of humorous undertones that I know are /supposed/ to be funny but never make me outwardly smirk, and there are a lot of characters that take the spotlight from one another to a point where you know the narrative doesn't follow one man, but many. It's a collective experience, as I'd like to call it. And some of the stories they have to tell are quite bazar. The art style is certainly something new to me. It's gritty, gestural, and very sketchy. It almost looks more like these are preliminary layouts made just before the real illustrations are done. Even though I was a little disappointed in this, always appreciating polished artwork over something less perfect, I feel like the style really fits the novel. This isn't a pretty and polished story. This is a series of strange or fantastical events, still within the scope of what can or might happen rather than being of pure fantasy. These hazy illustrations are befitting of the nostalgic quality of this story of several stories.