Emily Parks

Scott pilgrim is like any dude trying to get over his ex girlfriend, by finding another girlfriend. However he runs Romona, she is some one is who is strange and stands out on her own and doesn’t apologize for it. Dating her would be a breeze but her 7 evil ex’s out are out kick Scott’s ass and he has to prepare to fight or risk losing his new found love. In this comic all characters share a band and it’s super relevant through the whole comic and shown as a weapon against the evil forces. This comic shows life lesson and how to level up in the world like a Mario game. The exaggerated colors And over all aesthic writing of this comic is so genuine and original, I remember first reading this in high school a little after my best friend started drying her hair all the time to be more like Ramona. I thought it was the coolest thing so of course I’d pick up a web series like this. The story centers around change and being able to move on and be better. Scott fights himself and his inner de

Sandman by Neil Gaimen is who I wanted to talk about for this week instead of for European graphic novel. This beautiful sloppy ink work shows the perfect representation of 80s goth and the rest of the era sandman visits often enough as “modern time”. We follow the story of our main character who is the god of dreams. He has first been kiddnapped for his power and in doing so destroyed his kingdom and lost his dream gear and has had a string of bad luck. He takes his revenge with the punishment of eternal nightmares. I love this mysterious goth character. He is like if the lead singer of the Cure had a creepy edgy super power other then music. Sandman struggles to find himself among the other gods like lust, greed, Satan, and even his sweet sweet sister, death. Who is also a 80s goth beauty queen. Sandman becomes larger then life at times making him like many other super hero comics from this era, the only difference is that he is a brooding, dark character with a personal agenda that

This One Summer is a beautiful emotional roller coaster of being s preteen trying to enjoy her summer with her child hood best friend and family. Like most families their is fighting and an unhappy marriage, her best friend is odd and stands against the crowd, and our main little character is Rose. This comic made me cry my eyes out for this simpler time. This is the best written and shown depiction of preteen girls I have ever seen in my life. Drinking to much soda, eating to much candy, sharing dreams, talking about what little they know about sex and love and feeling super cool for sneaking horror movies. I love, love, love this novel. It’s offcialy very dear to me. I recal so many similar moments of my summer,  from being absolutely miserable due to a secretive upset mother, to rolling down main beach roads on my bike, to watching boys and girls much older then me with fascination wondering when is my turn. This novel is beautifully drawn and a great coming of age story that actual

Asterios Polyp is a strange and amazing graphic novel. This is a beautiful blend of graphic shapes and pure color blocks that help tell the story and keep its interest in some parts that may seem boring in a more realistic style. This is one of the most visually appealing when it comes to graphic styles. Our main character reviews his life, his past lovers and mainly the divorce of his first wife. He still mourns the death of his twin at birth. He is very logical and emotionaless which makes him difficult to relate to. He is very tired and the way he talks is so compact and the shapes change on conversation. His pessimism and blunt additude towards other people is unlikable. The difference in him and his wife is showed through their art styles is interesting in the story telling and showing just how different they are. He consists of of blank shapes and straight hard angles and making him more like modern art, his ex wife however is shaded, curvy, and drawn more like a soft person. S

For this class you asked to write our reaction to the Superman comic “Whatever happened to the man of the future?” Along with what connects we made in the story. Reading what was going on without being much a Superman fan, my reaction was pretty overwhelmed. I was bombarded with evil villains I have hardly herd of or seen before this, all breaking the ever famous Superman comic code of never killing anyone ever. This must of been a lot for him having all this happen at once. However the story doesn’t add up in places and I’m sure that was on purpose do to Lois telling the story. In the end of the novel you see Lois kissing her husband with a weird mustache, talking about super man while their son, who literary looks exactly like baby super man, is turning coal into diamonds. It’s obvious to say that superman didnt kill himself but lives on as a normal father. Plus is gold kcyptonite even a thing? I always thought it was green, and why would he just own a room full of it in his secre

ANIME TIME, the moment we’ve all been waiting for  Well Jesus Christ, was I NOT ever expecting to be writing about good ol anime for a college assignment. My younger 12 year old self is giving me a pat on the back right now saying “this is it, this is what you were training for” and finally many like myself have a sigh of relief knowing all that time wasted in middle school reading shojo, all those days after high school scanning the internet for the newest translation of your favorite manga and drawing terrible giant sparkle eyes was not for nothing. May all this pointless knowledge I have on magical girls and super robot dramas be actually useful!  However I’m not going to pick your average popular series (as much as I would love to rant about inyuasha)  or even one of the more popular Tezuka mangas. As a 12 year old who would grow up continuously willingly to be bombarded with anime, I felt the need to educate myself on every piece of it I could find. It really helped havin

When it comes to older comics I really prefer European comics as the stories don’t tend to be as typical or censored and carry more fantasy elements. Same thing goes for the art which I’ve found in a lot of the examples shared in the course website to contain A LOT more color then other older comics.  The comic I’m choosing to talk about for the world wide pick will be Blacksad by Juan Diaz and Juanjo Guarnido. The comic contains a world run by anthropomorphic characters, our main character being a regular cat who is a detective. Each comic contains a new mystery he has swindled himself into solving. The interesting dynamic of black sad is it’s style, and how the artist chose to depict characters through animals but still refers to human traits and forms of racism. The time line takes place around Jim crow era and even depicts a black and whites only bathroom, but they are all just animals relying on the reader. This comics amazing art brings up humans history of racism without show

This comic storytelling was very immersive on this historical social movement. It’s really incredible storytelling of a recently lived historical event. I feel our world now makes it seem like this history was so long ago when in reality it isn’t far in the slightest. Reading March is a great reminder of how modern these issues in America are and how relative they sadly still are to today’s social issues.  I think having this story told through the eyes of some one who lived through the beginning of the movement, and starting from childhood, was a really interesting and moving take. The comic being presented in only black and white, in ink with wash, I think is really symbolic for this story dealing with Jim Crow. I wish this comic was more prevalent in schools, I feel like if this was read in grade school kids (at least where I am from which is a very low education swamp on the edge of Florida full of ignorant people) would of had a better understanding of these issues much earli

When starting to read the comic, I was expecting something a little more historical or like the books we read in middle school such as “Ann Frank”or "Night". Maus was an extremely personal story like those books but it was more then just a holocaust story. It captures his family and also Spiegelman as a person. Spiegelman story telling was very immersive even though he used animals instead of people to tell it. The style is so simple that the animals are easy to read as symbols for Jew=mouse/Polish=pigs/Germens=cats/Americans=dogs. You can really feel the prejudices in the story from how they look and also how the author probably felt about them. The personal story of Spiegelman is really heart breaking as every chapter starts with him talking to his father and we see his decline in health and watch them bicker. We see the effects of after the war before he begins to tell the story. I felt this way of starting his novel to be more captavating becuase of its relatablity. I

So flipping through these comic suggestions was an interesting experience. It went from engaging to disgust very quickly. The stories were awful and convoluted. They were to quick to really like any of the characters and if the character did stick around (Mr Natural) he wasn’t likable in the slightest. Many of them had sexual themes and really makes me think how different an era it was. Many of the women were over sexualized, or not even consenting. In other comics It was only women empowerment and how rebellious it was for them to have a sexuality of their own and highlighting the artist view on feminism at the time. There are parts of the underground comics i can respect the history of. I see the politics and many ignorant views of different cultures from this time. Its sad knowing some people thought this way and worse that their probably people that still do. Its disgusting in a lot of ways that don’t have to do with many of the nasty/sexist/racist stories. The clunky art style

Will Eisner created some really powerful stories through comics. “The Spirit” and “Contract with God” are really incredible work that doesn’t tell a story lightly. They are filled with intensity and suspense and the way the panels moves through the story really grabs the reader and pulls you into Will Eisner's twisted world. The way Will introduces and opens up the lives of his characters in “A Contract with God” is like a roller coaster, and you certainly don’t want to get off the ride. We watch these characters build themselves, and we watch them destroy themselves, sometimes even commit horrible crimes. Will is able to portray this lighting of raw humanity in tough times, and it is incredible. He prioritizes story over anything, it seems while still maintaining his art and I think that says a lot about Will's character. There are a lot of wonderful comic artists, directors, actors, and game artists that just don’t put the emphasis on story telling. You can have the most bea