Superheroes

Batman The Killing Joke

My first reaction to this comic was that it was going to be another comic on Batman that has a lot of action to it, but really all the fighting happened at the end and it was short, this comic was more of a psychological narrative, and I really enjoyed the writing that it gave towards the Joker and his madness. He made logical points throughout his madness and how he came to be, and couldn't understand why he was the mad one when his logical made sense. I liked that we were able to have some insight to who the Joker used to be and how he came to be the villain, there are some more hidden secrets that he has but we finally get to see his background because throughout the movies that we see him in we don't really know anything about him, and within this comic he doesn't know either, maybe his madness made him forget or he is using his madness to forget. This story really brings into account the way humanity can be altered by one occurrence and change someone for the better or worse which is personified by Batman and The Joker. Batman having a traumatic experience of his parents dying in front of him and instead of that destroying his moral compass it strengthens it to protect others and have that injustice not happen to any one else. With the Joker it makes him insane, but he had help with the chemical plant that pushed him over the line.


Joker's backstory seems to ordinary for him but I guess that pushes him to be extraordinary in his mechanics of evil and trickery. This story does make your emotions towards the Joker go up and down, with what he did to Barbra was really evil and sinister, and it was all to get a rise out of the Commissioner, and you realize that this is really cruel for the Joker because what we have seen and read of the Joker he's crazy not cruel to this point so it really makes you hate him and want him to be put away or just for him to die, because I don't want him to be rehabilitated or saved because he is an iconic character and just for him to be saved and for him to change his ways is too boring for him to go through that. His background doesn't necessarily bring sympathy to me but more of understanding of what got him to where he is, we still don't know if he just accepted his new life after the jump in the chemical waste or that he struggled with his new identity but either way his flashbacks made the viewer humanize the Joker, that he had a name before he was the Joker, a family, ordinary problems, and ordinary emotions.


I like the medium that was used in this comic it was very dark and creepy which fit in with the Joker vibe that was happening, if I was to change it to a different medium it would have to be paint, I would keep the dark tones and the lighting that was happening and just use the splotchy messy quality that paint can have on moments such as the Joker, he would always be imperfect in the paint quality, so there will be smudges around him and when it goes to his flashbacks it will have a translucent quality to understand the flashback narrative being that. Batman would always be perfectly structured with the paint, there will be no outlines anywhere, to justify his fortitude.

Contemporary Literature

When getting into groups and choosing a comic to read, the first one I chose was Daytripper which was a great read in that it was different than what I usually read. It's a comic about death and how the main character is an obituary writer who wants to write differently other than death but also is contemplating his own life in that aspect. As well as dealing with father issues the main character has a lot of feelings that aren't being told or spoken about but we can get the feeling of what he thinks about his father throughout conversations he has with his family, and it does get a little confusing whether his dad is alive or not, it seems like he is and is celebrating his birthday but at first I thought he was dead but I'm not too sure which one to believe in. The ending really leaves you in suspense into what really happened, and a little bit of surprise for it to end that way so fast with no resolution other than it coming back to death but it's a good read in that it really makes you think about life and death.
My favorite read was the The Dream Hunters which was beautiful in its illustrations and the comic felt more of a book than a comic but I loved the different quality it had. The illustrations really gave the overall feel or the main action in the page of reading. The story to me felt more of a fable than anything like a moral story of teaching kids of right and wrong but it entertained me and I love the fantastical/supernatural quality of it.
Channel Zero was very dark and grungy and dealt with a positive and negative theme which fits within the story since its about a totalitarian world and that the main character is trying to fight the system and get everyone else to fight with her or to wake up from the society they are in. She's a tough girl who isn't afraid of anything and does what she wants in her art to create chaos and get people to think more.
Asterios Polyp was a great read, it was beautiful in it's graphic components like how each main character had it's own talk bubble and it reflects each character, the guy was blue and geometric and the girl was pink and had more of an organic feel to it, and it continues that way throughout the comic. It had good forms of design throughout, and showing the way you can illustrate feelings in an abstract way. 

Manga

I recently got into manga and I love it. It really opened my eyes to what other countries read and what they were interested in and it really surprised me in the type of genres there are for manga, and the subjects were different from regular comics and books I've read. Shoujo is what I am interested in mostly as well as josei but I've read a little bit of the other genres and they are all great and fascinating in their own way but I guess I'm more of the romance area.
I read Angel's Hill for this week's reading and I really enjoyed it, it was a different style to other artists and manga out there and I like the quality and the juxtaposition of it. It's very organic and loose with it's brushwork but the story has some mature subjects, such as the main character being a slave and being taken to be killed and used are not something you would see in a kid-like drawing style but that's what I like about it. The author is challenging the reader and getting them to see things in a different light and surprising them when they aren't expecting to be.