Comic Book and Graphic Narratives Notes

UNDERSTANDING COMICS: THE INVISBILE ART             Understand Comics: The Invisible Art , was an informative and easy to understand explanation about what exactly is a comic and how it appears. Also, I understood a lot better about how icons are used in this medium to refer to something, whether it’s cultural or just something every person is expected to know.             First, in order to understand comics, one must understand that a comic frame is its own vessel. The frame of a comic can show several ideas within one frame. It’s also important as a comic book reader not to mistake the message for what is being shown. Comics are a pretty much a medium that is all show but no tell. They present the readers with images, but the readers need to figure out what those images mean.             Comics use icons to get its meaning across.   An icon is a visual image that represents a person, place, thing or idea.   It is not an actual picture of something real, but a simplified

WORDLESS COMICS THE ARRIVAL             The Arrival is a symbolic representation, of an immigrant’s journey to a new and alien terrain when he leaves his country.   There is a lot of unique imagery in the story.             A frame that resonated with me was the immigrant ship sailing in the water from a distance, with a dark, giant cloud hovering above it.   I think what Shaun Tan is trying to say is that when immigrants come to a new country, there can be a lot of uncertainty and it can be nerve-racking, and even something dangerous could happen. The cloud symbolizes the fear and confusion that immigrants feel when they first step onto new soil.                The second frame sparked my interest showed statues of the two men shaking hands. The immigrants are looking in the direction of statues These statues also have animals on them.   What I believe Shaun Tan is trying to show is how people from different cultures or backgrounds can agree and come together and find

Maus is graphic novel that depicts one of the most horrifying events in human history.     Reading Maus was engaging, sad, and intense. It was a good depiction of what life was like before the Holocaust and about the rise of Nazism in Germany.             What made Maus engaging was the imagery.   Even though the characters are cats and mice, it’s very convincing, in how it depicts Jewish life and culture in Poland during this time. The mice are drawn so well that they seem human. When it shows Vladek as a young man, there is charm to his love life with women he dates, and with Anja, the woman he ends up marrying Anja and Vladek’s relationship was engaging because it depicts two people who really loved each other.   But there are also things about the characters’ personal lives that are sad, such as the time when Anja becomes depressed and hysterical about her life after the death of her child.   As a reader I really grasped her depression. This makes the characters real.   It wou