WEEK 15 assignment : [REVISED] Scott McCloud, Understanding comic.

I stand between the crossing point between different cultural influences. Sometimes it could get extremely puzzling as I’m not sure which culture I’m writing for or representing. Although, that is also an advantage that comes with risk taking. It freed me to learn from any materials without establishing the end result. Scott McCloud books are some of the resources I chose as a study material in order to advance that process of learning. 

It’s difficult to separate my oriental-ness with international-ness so I always have to decide each aspects of my mentality separately and from moment to moment. There are, however, several mindset that is more established than others and an Experience reading Understanding Comic enhance my intuition for the personal approaches. From an experience reading certain eastern philosophies and what McCloud mentioned in the book, it triggered my awareness that the way I view life is very important to how I create art and tell stories. I’m naturally quite journey centric person and always fond of observing little details to details, step to step in life. This aspect influence my storytelling style and my taste strongly and I wish to remain true to it. My challenge would be looking for the way to present it appealingly to worldwide audience.

McCloud also incredibly intuitive about the growing process of artist. I completely agree with him that the maturity of artists and what they create can’t really be separate. McCloud mentioned that after artists learned their crafts they tend to return to the original motif and that simply reflects where I am now. 

WEEK 14 assignment : Nicholas Gurewitch & The Perry Bible Fellowship

Gag comics can be both pretty nasty and wonderful. Gags in Perry Bible Fellowship managed to deliver deep ideas in such intelligent and concise way, which I think is perfect for contemporary audience who have fairly short attention and spend a lot of time on the internet. This time I want to bring up an interesting phenomena from Thai’s web comic culture as there are several aspects that parallel to The Perry Bible Fellowship. 

In the last 10-15 years Thailand has suffered from heavy political turmoils and many kinds of societal problems. After the stage of full awareness of these issues, Thais started to get really tired and bored of them. The rise of social media such as Facebook aspired artists and people who make art to publish satire arts and comics that reflect the current state of the society. This is not only a relief but an expression of intelligence pity toward the darker side of thai society and over dramatized medias. Just like Perry Bible Fellowship, webcomic in this genre reflects the irony of behavior and mind that is common in the present world we live in. 

However, webcomic in Thailand has an interesting characteristic that has been determined by a unique social class structure that make it distinct from American webcomic. Almost all of Thai webcomic are exhibited on there individual Facebook page as if each artist is a the center of their own sub-culture. Most of them were inspired by manga style as well as most Thai young artists. Facebook also helped them connected and inspired each others. Each artists and their works strongly represents their lifestyle, worldview and their places in the social hierarchy. 

These are some EXAMPLES.

These artists

https://www.facebook.com/OmeagaJod?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser

https://www.facebook.com/cartoonratom?fref=ts

for example strongly represents the lower middle class and blue-collar which the standard of living and lifestyle has been affected by all societal and political problem. Their perception of values are highly sensitive to these issues and could get quite hideous at a time and this artist do not hesitate to present that hideousness directly and truthfully. 

These artists

https://www.facebook.com/DadeemodifyComic?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser

https://www.facebook.com/OhMyHuman?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser

are more toward mid-middle class which gravitated less around behavioral issues and more political, economical struggle and clash between old and new traditions. 

Some artists that strongly represents mid-middle class are heavily centered around pop culture and work/romance life.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%B0%E0%B9%84%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%9B%E0%B9%87%E0%B8%99%E0%B9%81%E0%B8%9F%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%AB%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%B5/514030908708895

And then there are artists who represents the ‘new wave’ of our culture which are elaborate and more concern about the new artistic tradition. 

https://www.facebook.com/wisutofficial?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/jungsnrk?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/pages/LLLs-Circle/119627901496594?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser

These webcomic/web-artists culture is a sign of new paradigm of Thai culture where a long deeply divided classes started to dramatically dissolved. The internet became an accepted place for expression of ideas and self in the society where art and ideas beyond elite has been highly suppressed. The drastic change has been triggered and tend to become more powerful as it continues. In the next few years when we get over our current struggle we might be able to see a new image of Thai culture and traditions. 

WEEK 13 assignment : Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples, Saga

I’ve heard of Saga several times but never had a chance to read it. To be honest I’m not that familiar with Modern American Comic, though after I read the first book I wanted to read more. One thing I like about this comic in comparison to other works I’ve read throughout this semester was a minimal amount of texts. This parallel to the art style that is easy to digest. There’s not much unnecessarily details cluttered over drawings. This overall clean approach make the work charming, contemporary and easy to follow. 

I think this approach allowed the flow of the story to be more saturated as well as allowing us to observe characters personality from their actions and interactions with others. Moreover, the narrator is a trustworthy voice as she is a child of the two main characters. In fact, the theme of family and family oriented life balanced out the action adventure very well as it gives characters a strong purpose to survive. 

Speaking in term of the story, what I like the most about Saga is the design approach that make each elements purposeful. I don’t feel like there is any wasted character in the story and each of the them serve narrative purpose very well. I found the two main characters Marko and Alana quite charming as they are the representative of themselves not moral nor generic archetypes. Most importantly, the character development convey an anti war message in a tasteful way. The work surely contain it’s own unique vibes. Saga is not a kind of work that I can expect better not because it’s the best work I’ve ever read but it’s strongly stands for itself. There’s not many other works I know of that can be compare to this comic and adding traits from other genre would be unnecessarily.

WEEK 8 assignment : Craig Thompson, Habibi / How should I portray my culture?

My illustration friend let me borrow a graphic novel called Habibi. The craft and drawings are quite interesting and I found the tone of the story quite unique. As I had a little bit of discussion in class about this work, the concern about an issue of orientalism came to my awareness. After a few reflections I realized that many culture in Asia including my own(Thailand) are subjects to western romanticization. Foreign tourists especially outside Asia often have a romantic idea about Thailand that it is either an undeveloped place full of tropical wonder(partly true) or renown for sex tourism(even truer). This doesn’t completely mean good or bad but what does it mean to me as Thai and if I’m to portray my own culture how would I do it? 

Thailand as it is now is not a kind of society I want it to be or a kind of place I want to be, although over years I became quite detached to that expectation and would rather cultivate myself, deep down in my mind I still wish that place a better future. Portraying my own country have always been a tricky task for me as I didn’t have much appreciation for Thai society in it’s current state, also because I’ve been living outside it for a while that the definition of my world became broader than a single nation can define. 

I think it is ok to portray an ideal ahead of reality in order to make it become real, but in order to do so one must understand what the reality is like. I believe that media, narratives and imageries contain power to shape the world. Ultimately romanticization could be a useful tool to create a seed of change if we can find the way to do it correctly. 

WEEK 9 assignment : Khoa Nguyen Vink, The Mad Monk

Coming from South East Asia, I’m very familiar with Chinese media influence and have seen quite a few amazing Period and Kung fu films. I’m assuming from the name that the Author of The Mad Monk is Vietnamese whom the culture was aspired similarly. I have to say that I’m not that impressed with the comic, partly because of the overused theme of revenging murdered parents in Chinese literature and partly because I don’t find the art and narrative style very attractive. This brought back to the topic Scott McCloud discussed. The character designs of Mad Monk seems crudely real that it became hard for my conscious to sympathize with. The realistic and un-romanticized anatomy and faces has made the work more about materials than actions. To be honest I’m not that into gritty drawing styles. Repeatedly uses of medium shot also make the work felt rather monotonous. 

Although, I think there is a very strong potential to enhance this story. I think the theme of diverse ethnicity among mainland China will be quite interesting to foreign audiences. There are a few things I would do if I am to enhance The Mad Monk. First, I’d create a stronger statement in the art and narrative style that the exceptionally vast Chinese landscape play an important role in the development of story and characters. It can enhance a sense of adventure and placement even progression. I’d also reduce numbers of characters appear in the narrative and make each of them more identifiable, iconic and consistent. There are too much to digest in term of visual and information and I think it would be better to leave a lot more space for friendlier read flow. This comic need less frames, less drawings and less words while make each existing elements more meaningful. This way the work can avoid over romanticize or over glorify culture and make it’s essence stand out for itself. 

WEEK 12 assignment : Kozue Amano, Aria

This week I’m extremely eager to write about an extraordinary manga called Aria by a Japanese woman manga artist Kozue Amano. I’m wholeheartedly proud to admit that this manga that appears very shoujo and feminine is one of my all time favorite and very significant to my perspective and way of life. 

Aria is an essentially wabi-sabi slices of life story about an adolescent girl Akari who pursue her dream to become an Undine, a gondola rider tour guide on planet Aqua(future terraformed Mars). The story evolves around Akari and her friends daily life which tends to be filled with presumably female world views. This work of art, however, successfully express the height of beauty of those visions to the point that a male audience like myself could feel completely immersed into. I found an experience perceiving wisdom through female protagonist point of view very different and very effective. Deep down under the surface, the story of Aria is very human and female perspective is one of many routes that can bring us to understand it deeper.

The way the story of Aria progress is very gentle and very intuitive. Every obstacles throughout the story has been overcome very gently and carefully with an eye for self-balancing and maturity. Instead of a generic male-hero journey style battle that tend to be fierce against the world, characters in Aria are very acceptance and try to look for the best way to work with the flow. This manga proves that literature based on pursuing dream and fulfilling life can function without neither violent or sex or romance centric protagonist(although these elements are inevitable to life). 

I still couldn’t find the answer whether I would do well writing stories through female point of view but at this point I know that whichever route I take to tell story, I want them to ultimately lead to wisdom that is universal to all genders. From reading stories through female perspectives I’ve learned something uniquely to all as an individual and has successfully adapted to the personal way of life. Now I think it is entirely possible to create an efficient male hero who can carry the story to the final destination without clashing fiercely with things and with absolute gentleness. 

WEEK 11 assignment : David Mazzucchelli, Asterios

The first thing that impacted me as I read Asterios was the intelligent uses of graphic as a tool of expression and it’s beautiful clean compositions. I could see that character designs were referenced from representative icons of various art traditions. The presentation was done quite well and friendly for readers to read and the character development was good, especially the main character that didn’t seem very likable to me at first become quite charming later on. The work is well done overall except the ending that felt quite empty to me. 

I think this work is an example of art that was well developed in the framework of it’s medium. I doubt that any other mediums can express the potential of the story at the same level as it can in graphic novel. It shows that still images evoke an expression from icon in a way moving pictures can’t. That is a heartwarming fact for a person who have an appreciation in static medium like me. Graphic novel will probably never really fade away but adapt itself into various forms. Although, it must prove it’s true quality by staying true to it’s value that is irreplaceable by any other mediums. 

Now that we see the contemporary form of graphic novel/comic, what is the future? One thing that I’m expecting from the future comic medium is an extremely dynamic cross-over of styles. Although beyond that, ironically as a motion designer who study art in motion, I believe that there is a unique value and even motion in inanimate mediums. The motion, tempo and rhythm human can perceive from series of images composed altogether is unique. Now that we have an ability to compose images out of frame it will probably let us see the comic that break the flat space of print medium very soon. 

WEEK 10 assignment : Tezuka Osamu, Buddha

A year ago I tried to read Tezuka Osamu’s Buddha to fulfill my semi manga-scholar path but I didn’t have enough time to finish it so I took this chance to complete the series. After I read it I realized that the strongest aspect I could perceive from his work is the passion. Passion in this definition refers to the general passionate tone of the work that filled with triumph and sorrow. It can be clearly seen from his dramatic narrative and exceptionally strong cinematography. The use of shadows and overall flow of the compositions are stunning and very energetic. Under his lovable drawings, sense of empty space and amazing line works there are many layers of darker and deeper theme waiting to be explored. His work is not a work created to resonate with innocence, yet it communicate deeply intellectual contents intuitively to all ages of audiences. 

The fact that I know the original story of Buddha made me realize that Tezuka’s version is filled with interpretations and has been done very intelligently. Coming from conservative Thai culture where Buddhism has been made sacred, I admire Tezuka’s vision to create work of art that stands for itself and functioned at best of it’s aesthetic. I’m aware that religion is a sensitive theme but I think the way people learn about self is unique to individual and Buddha manga doesn’t serve as a documentary but a story to learn from and I believe the author knows that his intended audiences could understand. 

To me the greatness of Tezuka's works isn’t just a creation of style but sample of possibilities that comic can be more that it appears to be and can become more than it has ever been. His works according to his ideal has always been an attempt to convince people to care for the world and life itself and I believe that such abstract yet significant concept is the strongest root to inspire future traditions like it has been for manga. 

PREACHER Class 13

1.) Prominent symbol in the reading, how were they used?

Several icons I found significant to the reading were, priest rope, angel wings, demon, guns, cowboy hats, cigarette, sheriff and outlaw characters. All of these elements make this comic appears quite gritty an suggests the theme of conflict between moral ideal that cram into a big pool of grey. Religion that were usually portrayed as being pure has been portrayed quite tainted or dark in this comic. 

2.) Is there an aspect of the story that I can make personal connection? What’s the connection?

It’s actually quite difficult for me to resonate with the story as I’m not too familiar with a characteristic of film noir western and christian point of view. A kind of relationship I have for this work is more of an audience who watch foreign film. Although, one thing I might be able to understand is an attempt to portray characters with no definitive moral side. I think that grey area is also a strong characteristic of western film genre hero (like cowboy etc). 

3.) If I am to adapt this story to another medium, what change would I make?

No matter what medium Preacher has a potential to be adapted into, I personally would establish more refined motif to the plot. Some example would be a stronger sense of suspense which gives audience a stronger motivation to read. The story doesn’t necessarily need more action but I think it need less talking as the visual narrative should stand for itself.