Comments for Guttersniper

Comment on persepolis and humor by Kate H

Kate H — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:50:01 +0000

I agree with both of you, there may have been funny pictures in the text and how the illustrator depicts the text however the text and the pictures both work together to make an interesting combination of humor.

Comment on Graphic Novel Recommendations by meatwhichdreams

meatwhichdreams — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:36:03 +0000

You’re right about the recommendations – I’m exited about seeing what ever else people were enjoying. “Scott Pilgrim” is a totally righteous comic and an excellent recommendation! The series has such an amazingly sincere sense of joy and passion and it’s just so damn fun to read. AND O’Malley put up huge free chunks of the stuff on his website, last time I checked, which is oh so generous.

For print comics, I’d definitely recommend pretty much any Tintin for a similar sense of joy and adventure and humor, and for the brilliant artwork (despite the issues of racist stereotyping…which Herge did address and try to improve on).

I’d also very much recommend the recent, unfinished series “Ex Machina” by Brian K. Vaughn, which follows the career of Mitchell Hundred, world’s first superhero who was given the ability to talk to machines from a mysterious accident. After a stint in superheroing filled with frustration and failure, Hundred decided to fix the system from within and ran for Mayor of New York City, and won in a landslide after his efforts on 9/11 saved on of the Twin Towers. It’s a provokingly written and beautifully illustrated series that has plenty for both superhero and indie fans.

I’m gonna have to recommend some webcomics too – there’s just so much great stuff online right now, and a lot of series that have been around for long enough to really grow and become strong. Maybe that should get it’s own thread.

Anybody have any more recommendations?

Comment on The Replacement? by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:45:33 +0000

There is a way, imagistically, that she appears to transform into a ‘woman’, as it were, i.e., understood to conform to the biological characteristics of a woman. And that reading of him as being displaced by her in his father’s affections—and her appearing to be a taller, military version of him–is uncanny. And interesting. Well done.

Comment on Stereotyping Goes Both Ways by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:42:02 +0000

I think mistaking a character’s sterotypes, or an author’s use of those stereotypes in order to tell a story, is the first error here, and I do think you’re wrong to accuse her of perpetrating a stereotype about knitting through Koby’s remarks. Your take-down of the moment they meet, as she’s being berated for not resembling the clownish mother or sister is likewise unfair–of course it could have been a different scene, but the moment is critical of the mother and not Numi. It’s very clear.

What’s more, the ending is open-ended. We don’t know what’s going to happen as he falls. She could just be joking with him, as it doesn’t seem like she’s rushing to catch him. We don’t know what happens when he lands. And for you to take your interpretation is unfair, as it presupposes what happens when he lands.

In a very general way, it is never the artist’s job to promote positive images as well as negative ones—it is the artist’s job to make art, to tell a story, to report on people as they are and not as we might wish them to be. Rather than condemn Modan for what she’s done, I urge you to put forward your own stories.

Comment on Ghost World: It was really sad by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:55:44 +0000

You understood the exact opposite of the email. The last thing I want these to be is like Amazon reviews. The very last.

Comment on Realistic yet Refresing by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:52:20 +0000

I think you succinctly get to the power of the story’s narrative–he is reborn at the end. I find your focus on positive vs. negative interesting–though I think she just wanted to tell a compelling love story of a very original kind. I wondered about whether it’s possible to say Numi is likewise reborn to herself–but am not sure we know enough to say that.

Comment on What was she thinking? by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:36:49 +0000

Well, it’s hard to tell what it’s like to live inside that climate, and certainly, I think she’s referring to the way the conflict is, for all present, something inherited. And so many younger people are alienated by its concerns, or feel trapped by something they did not choose to begin.

Though, it’s interesting, as the artist, the things you can say in an interview to try to justify your work. I don’t think she set out in this to try to write something substantive about the conflict, per se. She saw herself as writing a love story that could only take place in Tel Aviv.

Comment on A twisted love triangle by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:32:21 +0000

Yvette, this is a fairly good summary of the story but it falls wide of the mark of a post on the comic in which you discuss your ideas about the story. You’re supposed to be beginning the interpretation of the story, not the summary of it.

Comment on Iconic versus Realistic Art in “Exit Wounds” by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:29:27 +0000

I would even call it a juxtaposition of the cartoonish line and the realist plane, and the result is further highlighted, as discussed in class, by the clever use of color. The result is an economy of story-telling, and inevitability of form.

Another great post, Laurel. Great job with bringing in the essential elements of Tintin to make Modan’s art and storytelling more knowable.

Comment on Exit Wounds by koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:48:36 +0000

Angela, great post. We never got around to discussing the title’s possible meaning, or the situation of death in the book, and this is an insightful reading. Yes, death has lost the value it has elsewhere, and what’s interesting is the way the possibility of his father’s death is what tells him he still cares. And of course, this bothers him.