Non Fiction -V- Graphic Novel

I have a student in my first period class who is a comic book "junkie" at the beginning of the year I did not think much of it when he would pull out his comics on a break or in between lectures, assignments etc. Then I started taking my English class on graphic novels, I started taking more notice of what it was he was reading. The other day I sat down and talked a bit with him about his "graphic novels". He was surprised I new the term, he actually said "how do you know that term"? I told him I was taking this class and was studying graphic novels, his eyes lite up and he was off!!! I couldn't get him to stop talking for about 10 minutes. I think he named every single graphic novel ever written, his favorites and why they were his favorites in that short about of time. I asked him what he thought the difference between a graphic novel and a regular novel was. He said nothing really, except one has pictures which help your imagination to see what the author is seeing in his or her own imagination and the other you have to use your own imagination to make things up. Pretty smart kid!! I also asked him what he thought of the graphic novel Maus, he said "oh everyone who reads comics knows Maus". I asked him if he thought it effected it because it was based on a true story, he said no, I thought about that as the day went along and he is right, it actually makes it better knowing that what you are reading actually happened to someone. So to answer the question can a graphic novel be a true story and still have the same effect on people, yes! Even though the story is true you still use the elements of graphic novels to get your point across, like time and space, the gutter, closure, etc. Lets take the story of Maus, in this novel Spiegelman has an advantage in his art work that he can do that can not be done in other types of novels. Using his imagination he can turn his characters into whatever he wanted them to be. An example of this is he turns the Nazis into cats, and the Jews into mice. Everyone knows that when it comes to cats and mice the cats are the predators. In his art work he can convey to his audience the predator nature of the Nazis against the Jewish people with out having to utter a word of it. Graphics are amazingly powerful when it comes to subliminally conveying a message the author wants for you to receive.

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The Two Faces of Anarchy in V for Vendetta

As someone who has only seen the movie version of V for Vendetta once many years ago and have never read the graphic novel, I wasn’t exactly sure how similar or different the movie version would be to the graphic novel. I was in for a surprise when I discovered just how vastly different, they are from each other. With that being said, they do have some similarities when strictly looking at the motives of the characters. Let’s dive into those motives and how the author and illustrator of V for Vendetta achieved getting these motives across to their readers. In Scott McCloud’s chapter of Understanding Comics “ Blood in the Gutter ” we are presented with different panel – to – panel transitions, and an introduction to the term “gutter” as being the white space between the panels which is where the audience of reader “takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (McCloud, 66). After finishing reading V for Vendetta , several themes or ideas that were most prevalent...

Iconic Abstraction and the Vocabulary of Comics in Hellboy

In Chapter 2 of Understanding Comics , McCloud talks about two key concepts I’d like to discuss: he identifies reality , language , and the picture plane as a representation of the pictorial vocabulary of comics, and he expresses a scale for iconic abstraction of comic art. As readers following the action in comics, we are guided by what objects and events cartoonists decide demand focus in each individual moment or panel. This focus via simplification of reality - referred to as abstraction - provides a rhythm of reading the visual representation of a sequence of events, controlling the timing of action and dialogue through spacing of panels and objects on a page. McCloud makes it clear that abstraction in comics is really just about the representation of ideas . Conceptually, we can perceive a specific drawn event, such as an explosion or a fight, without that event being pictured exactly or photorealistically. Rubble or glass flying midair can represent the impact of fights depi...

Sita's Ramayana, a struggle not that much different from others.

As I began the graphic novel it came clear to me, that I had to do a bit more research in order for to understand where this novel was coming from, where it was going and what I and it's target audience could get from it. So off to research I went. I found out that Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit tail, that is a major text in the Hind religion. It was written between 500 and 100 BC. The story line is about Prince Rama and his wife Sita, who is kidnapped by King Ravana, who tries to convince Sita to marry him though she refuses. By the way King Ravana has ten heads is quite evil... ( no wonder she refuses, I think I would have as well..) So with the history of the tail in mind, the graphic novel is easier for me to understand. Sita's Ramayana is an adaptation of these Hindu tails that were originally paintings. I think it is awesome that it is now written as a graphic novel which also uses pictures to get it's point across. The use of color in this graphic novel is simply ...

ENG 4433: Topics in World Lit

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