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.

Maus

I'm working on this one still. It's been a very hectic week. Will update when done. I know I'm about a full week behind in entries, but I've been trying to find the materials I need left and right. Hopefully I'll have Maus all read up later tonight.

So far I've read well into the first half. It's an engaging story, with the humanity that Spiegelman sought to include in contrast to the inhumanities inflicted later in the book. The drawing style is unique and bold, which is best to capture both the caricature of each sort of character and the drama of any given situation. It was intriguing that the artist depicts different races, nationalities, or religious groups, though so far I've only seen Jewish mice, Nazi cats, and Polish pigs. At first I was confused by the message this must have been sending, because the story itself is about anti-Semitism and I thought that further distinguishing the differences between people by making them several different species of animals might have sent mixed messages. But I did notice that among the animals, they looked alike to those of the same 'species'. The only way I could really tell who was who happened to be by what they were wearing. I guess that might mean that even though we're all different, we're still alike to some extent, but I decided not to get too caught up in that. It wasn't the most important message behind the interview.

It is all done in the form of an interview, or rather several interviews that take place at different times. The book is actually an autobiography composed of the author's interviews with his father, and a story about his father's struggles before and during World War II. The way the story reads constantly reminds you that past events are being re-told through the father, either with comments in the square boxes describing the situation or interruptions during the interview that send the reader back to reality for a moment to deal with the human being that had to go through such traumas. The father, named Vladek, shows off his quirks in these short intermissions, and Art deals with them accordingly. I didn't find these sequences to be insignificant at all, because it serves as a reminder that these are people like us. It makes Vladek's story all the more intense because you can imagine these things happening to a real person and not just a mouse. But having all the characters look like animals instead of people does evoke the question of symbolism, and why the Jews were depicted as mice and the Nazi's as cats. I mean, we can all assume it has to do with how cats and mice don't generally get along in the animal kingdom, but then where do the Poles fit in as pigs? But it's clear that the subject of prejudice isn't exclusive to the Nazis. Even Vladek was a little racist himself.

You can still feel sympathetic however because of how they act, just as we're able to watch movies where toys or robots are the main characters and do the same. As long as we're reminded of their human quality, we can relate to them. Just like McCloud mentioned in his book Understanding Comics, once we put a face to something, we can relate to it no matter how far removed from being human it truly is. And knowing that this is a true story, or rather an interview with a real man re-telling the events of his past, makes the experience even stronger. I'm not saying that stories about something fictional can't be as intense; some of them are just intense enough that people who don't know it's fictional might think it actually happened. Other times, it's intense enough to immerse you into into an obviously fictional world where you are able to suspend your disbelief long enough to be a part of it. But when it comes to an autobiography, there's a very genuine quality to it that fiction lacks. Even so, we need to take into account that this is a story being told about a story, even if the recollection is as real as you or me to Vladek. People tend to remember things a little differently from how they happened. I'm not trying to question the truth of this content. I'm just trying to say that whether it's true to the letter or not doesn't have to dictate how powerful a story is. This story is powerful however. It has just the right amount of every emotion to provide an excellent experience for the reader.