Maus

One of the biggest element that stands out with Maus is transition that takes place between book I and Book II. Maus I contains two frames of reference; one of the relationship between arty and his father (external frame) and then the story that his father tells of his experience in WWII (internal frame). Book II maintains this dual frame work yet introduces a third almost metacognitive frame in which Arty directly discusses his difficulty in writing the story. Another interesting moment happens on the opening page of book II where this meta fictive element comes into play. Art Spiegelman uses a visual metaphor by making his humans appear with animalistic elements. On page 11 there is a discussion between Arty and Francoise about which animal he will draw her as yet she appears already as a mouse on the page. This metaphor comes back to the forefront a few more times cognitively throughout Book II. On page 41 where Art's third frame presents itself, the characters are drawn all wearing appropriate masks. Then on page 50, an overlap of a character as a mouse/cat plays into the discussion of whether he was a Jew or a German non Jew. Even though these two conscious decisions, that of frames and visual metaphor, are used in his first book, the differences of these two elements in the second book become very interesting to analyze and compare to one another.

Mini comic

My Group

The group I was in had a few troubles with communication in the beginning so our project experienced a few bumps right off the get go. However once we got the communication aspect smoothed out, our group worked fairly well together and each person for the most part shared the weight of the assignment equally. As far as my specific role went, I helped organize how the presentation was broken up between the four of us and helped to facilitate continuous communication as far as our common goals and expectations of our fellow classmates went. Each of us was responsible for our individual power-point material, but Reid did an outstanding job of putting together the material into a cohesive final presentation. Even with conflicting schedules, we managed to meet a few times to discuss and when it wasn't possible we had plenty of further discussion through emails. The actual presentation went smoothly, was mostly concise (although I ended up getting long winded at one point)and followed how we intended it's organization to be communicated.

Chapter 5 Group Response

Synathesia. This idea was the most interesting aspect of Group 5's discussion. They started off with a good example of symbols by drawing on the board: :) vs $$ for instance. But where they really took of was when they discussed the finer points of senses and pictures and how it relates on a neurological level. There is definitely a relationship between senses in comics and that the choices of the artists are mostly intentional or at the very least a by product of standard sensory psychology that is commonly used unintentionally. They also hit on another interesting point that I didn't fully consider and that was the idea that words are also lines. This is obvious of course but I'm talking about the way lines function in comic art to describe and inform. The way a word is presented on the page can have just as much impact on a reader as the lines of the characters or other drawings on the same page if not more depending on the situation. Overall, group 5 did a good job of reviewing the chapter.

Best American Comics

Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian is probably one of my favorite selections from Best American Comics 2008. It uses a base tonal quality of black and white however it shifts the gray to a brown hue. This gives the comic a more round feel where in black and white has a tendency to have more of a flat effect. This effect adds a whole new dimension to the comic that it would otherwise lack. Even though the drawing is still a relatively simplistic non realistic style, this added hue brings a depth and dimension to it while still keeping the mood somber and dark. What really adds to this comic is the panel transition variation. Malkasian uses almost all the different kinds other than non-sequitur. This along with the varied ways she breaks up the panels themselves, using transitions other then box to box, adds a surrealistic fluid feel to the pacing. Lastly I enjoyed the use of “motion lines” throughout. She uses both subtle and overt multiple images in order to create the various motion effects throughout yet the reader never feels brow beaten by the amount used. All these various techniques blended to create an aesthetically pleasing read.