The Arrival {Rewrite}

What makes The Arrival special has nothing to do with the story, but everything to do with the way the author used the medium. Rather than focus on a story the author focused on a feeling and by stripping the dialogue and making this a wordless comic which makes that goal much easier. The story of The Arrival is a very basic one and easy to grasp because it has been told so many times, but what is admirable is the feeling and immersion the author was able to create by using certain uncommon comic techniques. To create the feeling of awe and to make the reader really feel like they are in the world the comic is full of huge full page, extremely detailed illustrations of new land. By doing this the author is able to create the feeling of experiencing a brand new place by giving the reader this grand image then letting them explore it and get lost in the details just as the character must feel lost and at the same time full of wonder and awe.

The author also uses many disconnected images that clearly have the goal of creating a feeling through small vignettes than through storytelling. For example, their is a page of small panels of clouds which aren't really telling a story as much as they are giving the reader a floaty ethereal feeling. They are there to immerse the reader into the internal feelings of the character which are kind of changing and lost rather than show what actions are happening to him. In doing this the author is really able to capture to time and memory of that experience rather than just a sequence of events.

Octopus Pie

So when I opened Octopus Pie I thought to myself 'I'll just read for a little bit then do a post', but then it was four in the morning and I had read seven years worth of a web comic. Suffice to say I find Octopus Pie hilarious and crazy relatable. All of the character clearly kind of have their stereotype, (Hanna is a stoner, Eve is mad, etc.), but the author really make the characters so much more than that and uses those stereotypes to a huge advantage. Most of the time people really do fall into those kind of categories, but this comic shows that there really is more to people than just that and not every person who is a {insert label here} is exactly the same, they just have commonalities and that's why they hang out. It also shows that different categories of people can totally get along and be friends, like Hanna and Eve. Even though Eve has a kind of culture shock when she first meets Hanna because she's not the kind of person she normally hangs out with they become super good friends and both kind of accept each other's stereotype culture. The story about the laser tag war between the stoners and the nerds really drove that point home and focused on stereotypes which is so prevalent in the comic.

I think one of the things about Octopus Pie that makes it so successful is that it is so relevant to the kind of media and experiences that the average web comic reader is exposed to. It was really interesting to read all of the comics at once because certain trends ebbed and flowed and that way more apparent when I read it like that. For example in the older stories you don't really see much texting and in the newer ones the author uses texts kind of as dialogue at times. I think that her doing things like that really keeps the comic interesting and relevant because that is how we communicate a lot now. It's not just words, it's a phone buzzing in your pocket or through a text message that you rewrite a million times and then decide to never send. Not only does Octopus Pie keep up with the times it also knows exactly what nostalgia buttons to push. The Supermarket Sweeper story was an awesome nostalgia trip, but what's great about the nostalgia is that it isn't all about that because character development is still really tied into those stories. One of the stories that I think really tied in current times and nostalgia is when Hanna had little vacation. Vacation is not really a thing that happens anymore, especially for our generation, because we are working for ourselves or scraping by and feel anxious when we aren't doing something so the fact that Hanna was trying to go back to work or do anything productive on her vacation really is so relatable. Then to top it off she goes to visit the MET and due to whatever she was on she dove through a painting that made her relive the 90's. What I find really awesome about this page is that it's using techniques that are new innovations in comics, such as moving panels, while it is talking about the past. I think that the way this comic really ties the present and the past together through the medium and story is why it's so addictive and relevant. Can't wait for the next update!

Y: The Last Man

At first I thought it was a bit odd that Y: The Last Man was part of the superhero readings. Yorrick isn't super in anyway except that he is the only human man to survive a mysterious 'plague' that wiped out every animal on earth with a Y chromosome. His only power is being alive. But I realized throughout reading it that just because Yorrick is the title character that doesn't necessarily make him the superhero. I'd say the women who survive and rebuild after half the world's population are the superheroes. 355 is definitely a superhero and protector with Yorrick practically a damsel in distress. The only thing Yorrick technically really does to help in this is be alive, and most of the time that is just because all the women around him are trying so damn hard to keep him that way. This comic even has the 'super villain' character in a non-traditional sense, in fact multiple of them. The Amazons, the Setauket Ring, Alter, and Dr. Mann's father are typical 'super villains' in this story which I think really solidifies it's categorization as a superhero comic.

Not surprisingly this comic has extremely well rounded and human female characters. Particularly their reactions to the extinction of the men is very believable. Huge public mournings, super models turned garbage truck drivers, and mechanics who shaved their heads make this so believable. It would be so easy to make every woman drool when they see Yorrick and for every woman to just be in shambles, but they aren't. They are surviving and they are fixing the world. They are being superheroes. Some are driven insane, but that is totally believable too, because we can't all be the hero. It is very admirable that such an unbiased version of this world was written by a man. The one thing that really allowed these characters to shine and truly just been seen as human instead of just their gender is that there are no men. There is no way to make an excuse that a woman wouldn't normally have that job, or she wouldn't act that way or dress that way because it wouldn't be decent and because of that all the characters are allowed to be shown just exactly as they are with no constraints. Seeing women just in the context of being and as humans rather than as counterparts to men is so incredibly rare and this is definitely the purest representation of women I've ever read because of that.

Phoenix: Dawn

Somehow when I was younger I missed the manga boat. Phoenix: Dawn is so different from what I thought manga to be, though it clearly has major differences with western comics. One of the main differences is the lack of fuss about death. In western comics and fiction people hardly ever die and if they do a big fuss is made about it. In this people and children where getting shot dead with arrows, babies were being dropped down volcanoes all with very little fanfare. I noticed this while watching Barefoot Gen as well. Though it seemed particularly appropriate to see so much death in this because so much of the story is about the search for immortality and it solidifies the urgent need for that since it is clearly so easy to die. Though clearly one of the main themes is that death is not so much the problem as is dying unhappy and not taking joy in the life you are given.

Phoenix: Dawn seems to be playing off of old Japanese tales and history, though I do not know enough about it and the history that it says it is referring so it could also be fiction. Either way the sections that refer to these past times make the story seem much more real and as if it is a retelling of an event that happened in the past. It's feels like a very personal retelling of a point in history from a human perspective and instead of being from the perspective of the victors, like history is often told, it is told from the perspective of the victims. I find it interesting that the author makes a point to tell the reader that certain characters were thought to be gods, but were only captains or that certain information was made up, but never says anything about the phoenix being part of myth. It's almost like he is encouraging the reader to believe that it is real by never having a side note about it's origins as a part of the myth. By doing this he is able to have a character that is very influential on the world, characters, and the readers that makes them question and serve as a device to really communicate the authors message.

At points Phoenix: Dawn can seem like a very serious story, and it certainly is, but the author does somethings that are purposefully jarring which are quite experimental and humorous that you don't see often and some you just can't do in other mediums besides. Often he calls attention to the fact that it is a comic, for example one of the characters say something about how skipping so many frames in between might have been pushing it a bit. Another example of the author experimenting is the wolf scene where is draws a few different panels of the wolves coming to attack and they are all in different styles with notes underneath them saying 'disney style', 'movie style', 'grand-prix style', etc. bringing attention to the medium and style. It seems like he was simply experimenting to see what he could do in comics and do them because he could. He used the uniqueness of the medium to create humor and innovate the story and really pushed the way the form was used to communicate his message rather than through a really crazy story. I'd say I'm definitely intrigued by this and glad it's my first manga and will definitely be trying out more.

Diary of a Dominatrix

Diary of a Dominatrix takes a character archetype and actually makes it a person. Dominatrices are people too! In most fiction and even non-fiction dominatrices are only seen really in their sexual antics and during their profession and refuse to acknowledge that they are anything but that. This comic reveal the woman behind the whip. The parts of her being human are hilarious, which might be why they are left out usually because it takes away the sexyness and mystery, but in this case her tripping down the street in a trenchcoat with a latex dress on underneath is welcome. It's those kinds of things that you don't really think about, her putting on her makeup, her clothes, her thoughts about her clients and the trials and tribulations of that which really make you think about her as a person who has a life beyond sex. Especially when she is in a scene with her clients and she is thinking about something totally separate from what she is doing, it reminds me of basically an office worked daydreaming while they are in a meeting. She isn't her profession, it's her job, she doesn't do it for fun, she does it for money just like anyone else.

You would think this would be kind of sexy, given the title, but it is the total opposite. When you are reading about the logistics of what whip to use and how to use household objects as toys to save on spending and innovate it's as sexy as talking about buying office supplies. Zelda talks about her keeping her personal life and these kind of things in the dark from her clients because it would make her less mysterious and more of a person and that would make her different in the eyes of her clients. It's still kind of up in the air whether she really finds this sexy herself or not. She talks about having a slave, but that sounds mostly non-sexual, she just wants someone to clean and weigh on her hand and foot. There is some 'vanilla' sex between her and her boyfriend which ends in kind of hinting to her job coming into the bedroom a bit. However, while she never outright says it, the way she writes about it and shows her internal thoughts it seems like she doesn't really find it sexy, it's just a 9 to 5 for her. All in all a very refreshing read as a woman who has a sexual profession is actually depicted as a 3 dimension human rather than just a body with a whip and a sharp tongue.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

For having such a simplistic style, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth may be the most complex graphic narrative I've ever read. I've actually owned the graphic novel for quite a while and just hadn't gotten around to reading it. I actually have been using it as my mouse pad as the cover makes quite an attractive pad and it the perfect size. After finally starting to read it I'm quite ashamed that I've let such a masterpiece literally sit under my hand for so long without reading it. Looking at the thickness of it initially I thought I definitely would be able to knock out the whole book in one sitting. I'm still not done reading it. The drawing style of Chris Ware is deceivingly simplistic, but Jimmy Corrigan is so chockful of complex content it creates a maze-like experience. Ware even has the reader turning the actual book as they read and reading pages of lilliputian writing that actually matters to the character development. Featuring multiple story lines spanning generations, dream sequences, internal daydreams, phone calls, and even instruction booklets it is extremely easy to get lost in this narrative if you do not read it very slowly and closely. Even then I still got lost, but thankfully this was anticipated by Ware and he gave a lovely little intermission synopsis to clear up all the things that had been happening. While I'm glad for that little clearing up part, I'm not upset about the getting lost part. In fact it's pretty clearly intentional, especially since he put in a part later to help the reader make sense of it. The way Ware writes and how all of these separate elements kind of flow together is very existentialist in a way. He's really pointing out that all of these things all of these stories are the same story and it's all part of the same thing. Jimmy's grandfather's experiences could have very well been his own experiences and Jimmy's father is currently experience a similar re connection with his father. Everything is so connected to a point that they are really all the same. They aren't really different story lines and time doesn't matter, they are all part of one thing.

Out of all the tragic happenings in this the superman suicide was the most intriguing to me. Not only is Jimmy having to deal with his mother and his father just now reaching out to him, he also has the burden of a suicide being partially blamed on him. It's very odd the way the almost treasures it, like he had some kind of influence on something and it's proof that he matters. Also it cements the way that everyone just kind of want him to bend to what they want and what they want him to be concerned about, even strangers. Jimmy never really does anything because he wants to do it. He is even forced to feel like he is to blame for a suicide because he didn't pay attention to someone else's needs enough. Though he is clearly very distraught by this, and when his father washes his pants without asking that has note in it and it's all torn up it shows even further that the people around him are not really concerned about what he wants. I have yet to finish the book yet, so I don't know how the superman thing resolves, but just wanting to find out about that and how it affects Jimmy makes me want to keep reading.

The Nikopol Trilogy

The Nikopol Trilogy is tragic and hilarious simultaneously. It's also so chock full of tons of ideas and symbolism it's bursting at the seams. Though what struck me the most was this odd contrast between the hilarity of the chaos and oddities and the tragedy of them coexisting so closely. This comic makes fun of the horrible circumstances while it is still highlighting that they are really terrible. Such as the possession of Nikopol by the Egyptian God Horus who is using him to further his plot of taking over France, but at the same time Nikopol humorously jokes about how Horus is "all-powerful" yet can't even help with his headaches. This contrast between tragedy and humor happens a lot in comics that are pretty heavy to relive a bit of the tension the comic is creating so it continues to be readable and reading it doesn't feel like jumping into a black abyss of depression.

Unlike other comics however, it does not keep the comic relief past the first act. In fact the overall arch of the Nikopol Trilogy is so different than most other plots in comics, and really all fantasy and science fiction, that I've encountered. Rather than starting from humble beginnings and starting the story off with more personal stories than ramping up to the big events The Nikopol Trilogy starts off with a bang and then slowly begins focusing on smaller stories that would not make a huge worldly impact. This kind of deconstruction of the traditional plot arch make the reader pay much more attention to these human stories rather than huge war over power and control. The author is clearly trying to bring attention to the fact that these stories are more interesting. He even uses a plot device in the comic where a filmmaker is making a movie about the love story between Nikopol and Jill, rather than the events preceding that which are of a much bigger scale and one would think a filmmaker would be making the film about, pointing to the fact that even artists in this world find the human story more interesting. I personally gravitate towards stories that focus more on smaller interpersonal relationships so I found this really refreshing to see the author really make a point to focus on this and try to show how interesting those kind of stories can be, especially when they consequences of a bigger more global event. Those consequences and what happens after the 'big battle' or what have you hardly are touched on and seeing what happens to characters after they win or lose is just as exciting and interesting, if not more so.