Watchmen

I started reading Watchmen late August perhaps, up to this point I have not finished it. I know that there is an alien in the end, that was so conveniently ruined for me already, and I'm hoping that this knowledge doesn't ruin reading it for me.

Watchmen is very long. There is so much to take in on every page. There is a lot of text compared to many other graphic novels, which is why it is taking me so long.

To take sides, I like the ending of the movie better. A giant alien doesn't make any sense to me, where as blaming Dr. Manhattan seems more logical. Also I would say that for what I have read the movie follows the novel quite well. The novel has more information to offer, but the movie is a good movie. My options may be because I saw the movie first.

Dr. Who

I read all three of the Dr. Who comics available on the resource site. For three reasons: they were PDF, I needed to read something for the week, and I assumed they had to do with the TV show. I would not be able to tell if there was any relation to the show, or at least not what I've seen, and I really don't know if it's related to the books (there are books right? I think I saw them in Guinness world records for something back in 2001 I think). I'm sure there are fans out there who want to smack me around for my ignorance.

I'd say the three told an interesting story, I think I only kept reading after the first one because they were so short. Visually it neither stood out or was repulsive to me.

Battle Angle Alita "Last Order" vol. 1

Last manga entry. Very different from Tazuka or Takahashi, pretty sure this classifies as mecha but I'm not sure on all the categories and such of manga. I really enjoyed reading this, I really enjoyed the visual look and feel of it. I really enjoyed the fighting, the movement shown in each frame, you could tell that there was a lot of fast action. Of course I have to mention the brains, guts, blood, gore and the like. Visually it was very appealing, black and whites serves it well, and the attention giving to detail I would say is superb.

I think I'm going to have to read more of these.

Takahashi

Of Takahashi's work, I read the first five volumes of Ranma and volume one of Maison Ikkoku. Both I enjoyed. I'm at a loss as to what more to say. So I'll leave it at this, just as a note of what I've read.

Buddha vol.1 - Tezuka

Manga, in contrast to the American super hero style (does it have a short name that it goes by? I wouldn't know.), is simple, or at least that's what I would call it, and very iconic. With Tezuka's work in particular, but my main other comparison would be anime which is in color and is animated so I'm not sure I should make the comparison.

Where I said in my previous post that black and white would make things too complex, the simplicity in Tezuka's characters allows for black and white to be used.

One of the things I like the most about this manga, as well as a few anime shows I've seen, is the exaggeration of expressing. Where you can easily see the emotion from body language even if the motion is impossible in reality.

The second thing I like is where the characters in the story know they are in a story and you see something that is out of place or such. For example, when Chapra is wounded by an arrow and one of the doctors is a modern dressed doctor and another time when Tezuka enters the manga as a doctor (dressed as a modern doctor). There is another time where a character (probably soldier A) mentions the black and white printing was due to a budget cut. To add further example I will take another source, Furi Kuri, where for a clip a few of the characters are in a trailer talking about the previous scene.

Back to Buddha, I like it, if I was bored and the library had the next volume I'd read it. I also was surprised how quickly you can read through it, very little text compared to something like Watchmen (which I can never see to finish reading).

Crisis On Infinite Earths

This was a very long read for me, I only broke halfway for diner, but I saw it through. It was a very interesting story. The idea of a multiverse does allow all these different super heros that normally don't interact to interact. I'm not a super hero buff, so I wasn't aware of all these groups of super heros were running around in different universes, and not just one. Most of my super hero learning has television where you may see some interaction with other DC characters from their specific universe.

So I guess to say, it was interesting to see all these different heros coming together and to see all these different universes they come from and the glorious chaos that occurs when a supreme being tries to destroy everything.

As far as art goes, the comic book style with the outlines and the use of only three colors was irritating in some spots where it seemed like a mess, but for mass consumption you can only go to one other option and that is black and white, which I don't think would work any better and it would make it more difficult to tell things apart.

Underground Comics - The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

The freak brothers is funny. There is a lot of humor in the hippie lifestyle, not quite in how it has effected society but in the forms of mass media. Of course it still has qualities other than drug use that confine it in the underground, but compared to other underground works (namely air pirates, that's the only other work I've read) it is a bit more in the norm.

It is very cartoony, not to the point of talking animals running around, but in a non realistic portrayal of life. The freak brothers get into situations, run-ins with the police, and get out of them by some random coincidence of fate. I'm not saying that it should be more realistic in any sense, it is very enjoyable as is.

Underground Comics - Air Pirates Funnies

So, Air Pirates Funnies sounds innocent enough; it wasn't. It was weird, it was strange, mostly for the fact that this was like disney porn so to speak. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but I did find humor in it simply because it was disney and other cartoon characters. More or less it was smut and I can understand why it had to be underground.

Contract With God

Contract With God is a graphic novel written by Will Eisner. I enjoyed reading it, and since I waited to write this I read it a second time and still enjoyed it.

It is made of up of four stories, the third one I get a laugh at when I think about it. More or less the super of the tenement is hated by the tenets, but they are afraid of him. The one who ends up solving the super problem in a conniving little 10 year old niece of one of the tenants. Using her unprincipled tactics the super commits suicide and she ends up with all his money while still looking innocent in the end. Why do I get a laugh? Just because.

Besides expressing my abilities to be vague and not explain my humor, I'd like to talk about the look of the novel. It was in black and white, I don't think color would have changed much of the feel. The novel starts with having one or two pictures or frames per panel (I'm not sure of the proper terms) but ends with having three or four. This is more noticed in that the first story, Contract with God, for which the novel is named that Eisner uses more narration to tell the story than character conversation.

One last thing to say, Contract with God varies from most other graphic novels in that it isn't much of a long read, the stories are short. Some might prefer longer works, as I mentioned in a previous blog, I don't.

Overall, Contract with God was a good read.

Calvin and Hobbes Something Under the Bed 1986-87

I think I owned this one, or at least I've read them before. Lots of laughing, Calvin and Hobbes is a fun comic.

I'm a fan of the Spaceman Spiff ones, I particularly like how it goes between his imagination and the real life.

2001 A Space Oddessy

In the year 2002 or 2003 I had read the book and seen the movie. They weren't quality enough for me to want to read or view them again, but my familiarity to the story drove me to read the comic.

What I did like about the comic was that I could resolve the story in a short time; in contrast, the book took forever to read and the movie was not very entertaining.

As for the story, I have never been satisfied with the strange ending but I do like the technology available to man in the year 2001. I thought it was interesting to see where we thought we would be just a year before I had read the book.

Flash Gordon Dailies "Lost Legion" 1959

I read a Flash Gordon comic. I had never been aquatinted with Flash before so I was new to everything the story had to offer.

Within the first few strips of the comic you come to understand that the story takes place sometime in earths future, you also quickly find out that earth is at war with a far more advanced enemy called the Skorpi. Working on a sabotaged space station, Flash confronts and captures the Skorpi spy's space ship. With this ship Flash goes out into distance space to find allies to help in earths cause. He flies into a conflict between Skorpi and Dhreen inevitably meeting up with a key figure Ellta. Back on earth, with Ellta's help a Skorpi plan of invasion of earth is found out and an allience between earth and the Dhreen. To set up for the following comic in the story, the Dhreen agree to send reinforcements to earth to fight the Skorpi threat.

Behind this story of a galactic war there is another story. This one involves Flash's personal love life. Upon his return to the earth Flash had planned to get married. Ellta would not allow this as she was in love with Flash. Ellta blackmailed Flash, threatening not to have the Dhreen assist earth if he didn't see things her way.

In "Lost Legion", I did not find out if Earth will be saved or if Flash does get married to his love, Dale. But I did enjoy reading Flash Gordon.