Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Week Nine: A Wide World of Comics


In class we discussed Eurocomics and some important people who created early comics in Europe. Rodolphe Topper, was one of the most influential people in european comics, making albums and pass them around. Marie Duval was one of the first french cartoonist and contributed to a journal her husband was apart of. Caran d'Ache was a Russian who also made caricatures in the early 19th century and these were the beginnings of comics and the creations. We talked about the multiple influencers who were also in our reading for this week.


Nikopol Trilogy seems to be in a dystopian France taking place in 2023 that faced a lot of nuclear wars and also has alien inhabitants. It begins talking about a particular governor who is wants to trade all of his oil in return of immortality. He ends up not being successful. While this is going on we meet a character that falls from the sky and his name is Nikopol. He loses a leg in this process, and ends up waking up in a metro station bleeding to death. This is when we meet Horus who ends up building him another leg, and subsequently possessing him. They seem to agree on a common goal, Nikopol's goal being political and humanitarian and Horus' personal revenge of a divine by seizing control of the oil. Some personal thoughts is I like the fact they have press clippings talking about the politics and even can include some author's notes. This is kind to show the progressing of what they are doing and how it's effecting Paris. Afterwords we follow a character named Jill. The story from there progresses strangely, and she becomes almost like another main character. It's interesting that we see this theme of nuclear war and dystopian Paris living alongside aliens, this makes for a very interesting set illustrations. I think it keeps this theme of french sci-fi with Egyptian gods and the political power between them because it's so strange.

Friday, March 8, 2019

Week Eight: Stereotype and the Ethics of Representation

Comics and Graphic Narratives can sometimes represent both males and females bodies and personalities in ways that people would deem as perfect or in some way interesting because of a trope that they usually follow. This week we are talking about how we see representation in these. Superhero comics are the most popular comics and have characters and that can be influenced to toxic masculinity, or tropes that follow very unhealthy and abusive ideals. Like how male protagonists are shown to have emotional detachment, aggression, hyper competitiveness, and violence. These are seen to be positive aspects of a character however I think it is harmful to have ideals or representation that people need to be a certain way. Just like how females in media are sexually objectified and have expectations that aren't real or healthy.

Stereotypes like these are there for people to feel okay for the prejudice they carry with them. You don't have to make racist characters because of stereotypes.