Review on Death Note

I love reading Manga, and love watching anime.  Before reading Death note, by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. I had watched the anime of death note, and from the very beginning, I was a big fan of death note. After reading the manga, I was surprised how the anime was perfectly intact with the manga.  The style is completely different for the western graphic novels and the manga definitely captivates you in the story and the style of drawing and inking.

Death note is a story about a brilliant boy, named Light Yagumi, His IQ is higher than average person and is quite popular in his school. He is also the son of the chief of police. Being intelligent, he has observed how the world works and how unfair the system is, when it doesn’t punish those who are guilty with the crime. One day he encounters a book called death note. This book is not of human origin but is from the nether realm other wise known as the shinigami. The book states that when a persons name is written, with a face in the eye of the mind, that person dies in 60 second with a heart failure. How ever if the cause of a death is written, the person dies as instructed. The death note originally belongs to Ryuk, a shinagami, who is bore of the nether realm. Death Note is quite popular in otaku culture and many anime/ manga fans cosplay as light or ryuk and others from this manga and anime.  One of the other books/ anime I would recommend reading is Berserk. It’s a similar story style, based in medieval  Europe in the times of kings and queens.

Review on Persepolis

Persepolis, is a very interesting graphic novel, which is illustrated in a very unique manner compared to all the other graphic novels. Based on a true story, and illustrated in a child friendly manner, with simple shapes and just plain white and black background, it has a sense of innocence to it, which works well with the story as well as the context.  The story is about the authors life as a child and the historical events that took place around her and her experiences with these events. She covered a lot of topics on wearing the hijab, which is considered a sensitive topic in the Islamic world with such an ease and fluency that it is interesting to understand the thought behind it.  In a way, the graphic novel reminds me about a Bollywood movie that was recently created, based on true events of invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and how the Indian citizens had to escape Iraqi Army before they slaughtered them. The theme in both of these are common, It’s a struggle to survive when there is a new government, who wants to change things according to how they like to view the general public.  In Persepolis, in the very beginning, you can see that the authors homeland, is very independent of its culture, they are not bound by any religious acts of how to dress and boys and girls are sitting the same class rooms, however, once the new government takes overs, thing change drastically. The author and her female friends are told to dress a certain way and boys and girls have separate classrooms. I guess what I am trying to get here is is that such changes and exposer to such tactics at such a young age can cause a child to go through mental trauma . In a way I personally feel, that psychologically, when she started talking to “ god” it was her way of struggling and surviving the changes that took place to protect her sanity.

Review on The March by John Lewis, Andrew Aiden and Nate Powell

This was my first time reading March by John Lewis, Andrew Aiden and Nate Powell. As I read the comic,, I was amazed by the level of information and personal experiences that were  provided in this comic book. March is so well illustrated and the story being the John Lewis’s experience in his fight for civil right movement, it only adds to the experience of reading the comic. As I read further into the comic, I felt that he had out lined his experiences very well based on the true events. His experience as he was growing up, he made me, as a reader feel more involved  in the matter.  Reading this comic gave me a better understanding and a new perspective on civil right movement. I think one of my favorite parts of his comic was  the reward he gets after he worked so hard, for getting into a college,  and working part time to pay off his tuitions and  going through life, after which he gets a letter from Dr. Martin Luther king  to meet him. I feel that panel made a huge impact to  me , mainly because it reminds me of what my father always tells me, when I feel like giving up. He always says, hard work always pays off and there are no short cuts to success. Reading this  comic has truly reminded me of and reconnected me with my fathers lessons to me. March is truly, a unique  comic, which connects with people.

Thoughts on MAUS by Spigelman

I had read MAUS by Spigelman few years ago, as a part of my English class, while I was studying back in Canada. The first time I read Maus, I felt lots of heavy emotions.  I guess the reason I felt them was because it reminded me of the struggles that my grandpa and grandma, faced during the differentiation of India and Pakistan. My grand parents lived in Pakistan, before the division of the two countries. They lived peaceful lives until, the time that India and Pakistan had started to drift apart as countries, during this turmoil time, the Pakistan and Indian army had started to resort to the similar routine as Hitler resorted to during the holocaust. Although comparing the two incidents is not justifiable, because The Jews  in Germany before the world war II  were treated unfairly.  But without further indulging into my own family past, lets continue our review on Maus.  Re reading mouse, I can relate to the author better, because in a way his father reminds me a bit of my own ,  who would complain about chores that need to be done around the house but would not like to spend extra money, and would take risks with his health.

MAUS is well written and well illustrated.  Creating the characters as animals and their struggle is a goof way of making the comic more friendly for young adults , while teaching them the truth and experiences  regarding world war II. I find it impressive as a story and as  a graphic novel. One of my favorite parts of Maus was when the main character disguised himself as a pig, to get back to his wife and kids. In a way he was trying to portray that as long as the polish train guard didn’t know that he’s a Jew, he would be helped. This approach is quite remarkable really, because with this approach he gives an example that if your skin color is the same, and as long others don’t know your religion,  people cant  and wont draw any conclusions regarding the matter. He uses several techniques in a way to show that even religious extremism has loops holes that can be exploited, in situations of life and death.

Review on Under ground comics - Air Pirate funnies

When I first heard about underground comics, I was unclear as to what I was going to expect. I suspected that these comics, may have crude humor, and may involve some political humor that may have been not allowed in the mainstream comics. After reading Air Pirate funnies scripts, my initial reaction was that I was in a complete disarray, because I had never realized that comics could have such crude humor and nudity that would involve sex.  However, once I got over the initial stage, I realized that  it was a parody on Disney. Which actually made sense, however, I had never realized that I would be seeing Mickey mouse and Minnie mouse having sex.  It makes sense to me as  to why these  comics were considered underground comics. The main reason being that they were inappropriate for young boys and girls to read, and other being that since they were using lots of Disney characters, the authors and the illustrators would get in trouble for the copy right infringement. Having said that, reading the Air Pirate funnies, I would say the format of the comic reminds me of how we have the format of cartoons on Tv.  For example, when we watch cartoons on tv, we see different or same shows on repeat, until the new episode comes out and the filler shows of the main program is clustered with other random shoes before the main show can continue, in a similar manner, the way, the comic was arranged was, few strips of Dirty Duck, then in the middle the main attraction and  then again couple of strips of dirty duck ( like an interval), and then the continuation of the main story strip.  I think the most people would be offended by this comics, because of its crude humor and parody of everyone’s childhood icons, however, once we move on and get into a script, and story, I feel that this was a well done story arc. It is, humorous to read such parodies where the illustrators and writers take stance on perverts of guys who are horny, example where the bugs the bug had to lick 50 clits( which in my opinion, I kind of felt sorry for the poor guy) , after he left the girl he liked cause she was going out with a man she just met, and well this comic in general, I think pick on the issue of either guys being insecure, or cheating girlfriends. It definitely plays on the belief how young adults have these days, that once you loose your virginity, your life will change attitude.  And of course its made pretty obvious by the end of the book, that this is created intentionally, to troll teachers and people who feel uncomfortable talking about sex. Because towards the end, its had a poster of Donald duck and his 3 nephews where one of the nephew is giving Donald the comic ( I think it was confiscated and Donald’s reactions being caught off guard, its states in this page ” You can be sure its disapproved! Teachers hate it! Kids love it!. So basically its made for teens/young adults who are curious about sex.

review on Elsiner's comic - Contract with god

When you first read the comic Contract with god by Will Eisner, there’s quite a noticeable difference between his work in compared to what we have seen so far in my Literature in Comic class. At a first glance one can actually see the quality of the drawings made in this comic “ Contract with god” are very well thought out and the way each and every page of a the comic is presented feels more like a posters for a movie or a show. The hand written title and  the placement of the text  and drawings on a page of his comic was beautifully placed.

After reading the comic, I was very touched with the plot of “ Contract with god”. As it talks about a man who lived in bronx and how his life events changed after loosing his daughter, whom he loved very much. T he way the line weight is created in the entire comic is quite impressive, because to me as an artist, I can relate to the importance of the line weight and how its portrayed. As I observe the technicality of the line weights, I sense that I can visualize him calculating which side of his drawing needs to have heavy lines and which needs to have thin, light lines. Moving forward, the I felt the plot wasn’t really as captivating to me personally, but I can relate to the character MR Harshe, where he always thought that he had  a contract with god, which I personally used t believe as well as I was growing up. I guess the reason I can relate is because in my case of childhood adolescence I was more scared and needed an idea to be a support of my shortcomings, where are Mr harse, here is doing the same. He is using a contract with god as a way of coping mechanism to keep him self afloat and being stable rather than accepting the negative outcome

Review on Nemo Classic Book

When I was a kid, the only reason I ever touched the newspaper was to read the comic section towards the end of the paper. As a child growing up I used to enjoy how small these comics strips were and the quantity of several different comic strips. I guess what attracted me to these strips were probably the formatting of the news paper ( which went something like Local news, world news, business news, gossip columns, technologies and finally a page of funnies and comics). After reading Little Nemo in slumber land, I realized that all those comic strips were addressing some serious goals in our society but with a twist of humor. I had honestly never read Little Nemo before this reading assignment, however, as I read this comic strip, I could not help but get more engrossed in it. Little Nemo in the slumber land address a lot of of the socio economics issues  that were faced by the society as well as  how parents brought up their kids. For example when little Nemo woke up from one of his dreams  with a scare, his father walked in an scolded him to go to sleep. Sure at first its first and I did snicker thinking this little kid.  But the important issue it addresses is that kids are affected by their surroundings, and little Nemo had a scary dream probably because of what he had heard that day. In the words of Sigmund Freud,  he suggested that our dreams are mearly a way of our brain to handle stress and manifest  into good or bad based on  our experiences and understanding. Thus using Mr. Freuds deduction we can assume that the artist was trying to  bring forth some important issues without being too direct.