Thursday, December 7, 2017

Week 12: Review for Pretty Deadly Comics

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

I am not a big fan of this story. The art is very good so I was attracted to read it, but the story was complicated of texts that confuse me.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

I could not make any specific connections with characters because I could not get clear information enough in the beginning.

3. What change would you make to adapt the story into another medium? What medium would you use? What change would you make?

I would use less text and flow the story with the visuals. I am not a reading person but rather I would like to watch images. Simplicity would be the best medium.

Week 13: The Future of Comics/ WebComics

Today comics are developed in digital way, named webcomics. The main feature of webcomics is easy access through webpage or blogs. Also, anyone can draw comics even though they are unprofessional. Unlike professional comic books and graphic novels from publishers, the techniques more free-styled that is not restricted by format. Styles range from stickmen to realistic figures, as well as genres are various. Mostly, however, the genre of webcomics are composed of omniverse or casual life story.

Since I am mainly familiar with South Korean culture, I can exemplify at first with Korean webcomics, or “Webtoon”. The representative works are “Tower of God”, “Noblesse”, or “The God of High School”. The Korean comic book industries are very poor because the audience is not welcome to purchase comic books, and comics are considered to spoil their children. For these reasons, even the Korean comic magazines mainly import Japanese comics. During the 90s these phenomena cycled and the artists could not make much incomes. As the 21st century has begun, the webtoon systems started to show up via the internet websites. The initial goal of making webtoon was to advertise their websites to the network users so that they could be entertained by the webtoon. It is free to read, easy to access, and the stories are simple and short that everyone could enjoy quickly while on recess, or on the way in transportations. Instead of paying money, webtoon artists compete with each other with a number of views. Depending on the popularity, the comics are recreated multiple sources such as movies, animations, dramas, and games. Therefore, the webtoon now is considered as a solid form of entertainment.

On the other hand, Japanese webcomic systems are not as strong as Korea or the US ones. It is mainly because the traditional Manga systems are too strong that the audience has no reason to go find the weaker qualities of them. The webcomics have the original styles of compositions and techniques comparing to traditional comic books. The audience read the webcomic by scrolling from top to bottom, so the compositions are more vertical. Also the scrolling read can convey a continuous effect so sequential techniques can be utilized like animations and movies do. However, the Japanese webcomics follow with the traditional compositions so literally upload their digital artworks to the website and read horizon like regular comic books.

In the states, most comics were always with a topic of superheroes. Today, however, the American comics are mainly influenced by Japanese Manga and Korean Webtoon styles and follow their techniques. American webcomics also range with a variety of genres, and I notice they usually feature with omniverse styles of satires and black comedies. The typical example is “Cyanide & Happiness”. With a simple stick figure characters, they play with a lot of sexual, violent, and offensive jokes. The art is very simple that anyone can easily access to read and enjoy the story regardless of the violence. This webcomic can be found anywhere via facebook, twitter, youtube, and google. Such easy accessibility attracts more audiences and makes the art friendlier to them.

The world has been changed from traditional ways to high-technologies. There is no exception, including comics. Since the internet is commonly used, the artists started utilizing that fact and developing as webcomics. Unlike traditional comic books, webcomics follow with today’s trends and combine with art and technology. It is only the beginning of webcomics now, but in the close future, I believe that webcomics will be developed much more that we cannot even imagine right now, and they will combine with various high-technologies and apply them to their arts.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Week 12: This One Summer/ Comics by Women

As comics are regarded as a literature, many female artists also have shown up to demonstrate their arts to the world as comics. Marie Duval, she was the first female comic artists around the mid 1900s. Isabelle Emile de Tessler designed a character Ally Sloper. In addition to them, there are many female artists such as Fanny Cory, Mary Williams, or Rose O’Neli. Among those great artists, I am going to mainly talk about Mariko Tamaki, an author of “This One Summer”. She is my favorite female artists because her story is focused on a generic girl with puberty in a casual life, which can happen in our everyday life.

Vacation is defined as leaving the daily life and enjoying the freedom, and it makes summer break sounds more fresh. Especially, teenaged girls would dream to leave the boring life from their parents in secret, as if Peter Pan and Wendy travel to Neverland while their parents are asleep. Back to everyday life with their own secret memory, it sounds like the best vacation they will have.

Rose, a teenaged girl with puberty, would go to trip to a cottage in Awago every summer and meets up her friend Windy. Their main interests are sex, big breasts, or R-rated movies. To adults, they are merely naïve children. The girls want to get attention from the adults so they go to stores to get restricted films as if to rebel against their parents. In the store, Rose falls in love with a worker Dunk. She is not familiar with what she is feeling and hopes to no one finds out. Getting worse, Dunk’s girlfriend shows up and it makes Rose struggle with her emotions that she cannot control by herself.

In other side, the story of Rose’s parents, Evan and Alice, also takes place while they are on vacation. Since Alice loses her baby during pregnancy, the conflict of Evan and Alice is getting worse. Rose feels resentment toward her parents because the baby defines her as a threat that the baby can take away the parents’ love and attention from Rose. This causes her to detest her crush, but it ironically targets Dunk’s girlfriend who is frustrated by her pregnancy by him.


The author describes the delicate and complicated minds of teenaged girls only with an everyday life trouble that can easily happen in our life. The conflicts Rose faces are as dark and deep as oceans in Awago. Through these experiences, her minds will still be confused and her memories will not leave for a while, which will make her grow up mentally.