Johnny the Homicidal Maniac ~ Week 14

For this week we were asked to read web comics in particular Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. They stuff the title of the reading I really didn't know too much about the author subject matter besides what the title specified. Then I realize it’s the art work style of Invader Zim which I watch as kid. So I ended up reading some Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is the first comic book by Jhonen Vasquez. The series tells the story of a fictional serial killer named Johnny C. as he explores the psychological and possibly supernatural forces, which compel him to commit a string of murders. The series produced two spin-offs titled Squee! and I Feel Sick.

The series focuses on Johnny C., a deranged killer who elaborately slaughters anyone who irritates him. He drains his victims of blood to paint over a wall in his house to prevent a monster from escaping. He likes stars, the emotionless function of insects, watching people get abducted by aliens, etc. Not that much is known about Johnny's history. All that is known is that his parents were killed by an evil man, thus setting the course for Johnny's life as a masked crime fighter, or, perhaps not. At present, Johnny’s more his own enemy than any external mind could be. What with the discomposure of what may have been, at one time, a fine, intelligent mind. Johnny is, possibly, more hideously mentally malformed than the people he seems to think have ruined his world.

Todd Casil, better known as Squee after the noise he makes

when frightened, is a young boy who lives next door to Johnny. Both of his parents have no care for him, especially his father who works countless hours and leads a miserable life after having Squee as a child. His only shown friend other than Johnny is a small teddy bear that he carries around named Shmee. Shmee tells Squee that all his fears and nightmares are inside him in a dream. Squee is also friends with Satan's son, with whom he attends school.

The art style that the artist uses for this comic really cements the subject matter.  For example the line work is scratchy and not perfect, which can help show that Johnny or Todd’s life story isn’t all sunflowers and sunshine. That there is a dark presents from them. The line work also helps bring in a creepy atmosphere and in some cases it can be cute yet vicious. The reason why I say the artwork can be cute yet vicious has to do with how the artist does his proportions for the figures and how he brings emotion to the characters. An example is on the left. I feel that the little creatures surrounding the boy are cute, but they do have a really creepy atmosphere and tone to them because of how they are drawn. I find that the artist body of work really is fun and interesting even though the subject matter is a guy killing people.

Some little things that I really enjoyed about this comic layout is the artist changes the border of each panel dictating on what’s happening in the frame. For an example from a page from one of his comics on the right, the first long panel on the top has

the traditional nice clean border of Todd trying to sleep with his bear.  Then in the next frame, which is the largest on the page, depicts one of Todd’s nightmares. If you look at the border for this panel it goes from being the traditional clean border two is scratchy, jagged, sharp, uneven border, which complements how awful Todd’s nightmare is. The rough border also visually shows the reader how intense the nightmare is for Todd and the reader can get a clue that something intense happened. The final two frames on the bottom depict Todd waking up. The borders on these two are still jagged and rough but they are not as impactful as the last large frame, which makes sense because Todd is waking up from his nightmare at this point.

If you want to read something creepy, bloody, gory and like reading off-the-wall comics then I personally recommend you to read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. It is a good fun read with a twist.

Hellboy ~ Week 13

This week we were asked to read comics about superheroes. I didn't want to read one that was about a superhero in tights. So I ended up reading Hellboy. One reason why chose to read Hellboy was because I have watch both movies that they produce and I wanted to see how it correlates between the comic world and the movie world.

Summary:

A well-meaning demon whose true name is Anung Un Rama, Hellboy was summoned from Hell to Earth as an infant on December 23, 1944 by Nazi occultists. He was discovered by the Allied Forces; amongst them, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who formed the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. In time Hellboy grew to be a large, red-skinned demon with a tail, horns (which he files off, leaving behind the signature circular stumps on his forehead), cloven hooves for feet, and an oversized right hand made of stone. He has been described as smelling of dry-roasted peanuts. Although a bit gruff, he shows none of the malevolence thought to be intrinsic to demons, has a strong sense of humor and works with other strange creatures in the BPRD. This is said to be because of his upbringing under

Professor Bruttenholm, who raised him as a normal boy. Hellboy works for the BPRD, an international non-governmental agency, and himself against dark forces including Nazis and Baba Yaga, in a series of tales that have their roots in folklore, pulp magazines, vintage adventure, Lovecraft Ian horror and horror fiction. In earlier stories, he is identified as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator."

Hellboy’s art style is very gritty, unique, very playful. I really enjoy the use of facial expressions and the different use of black line that the artist used throughout the comic. The use of color with the black lines really helps make each character pop and it’s own very unique way. All of the different monsters and characters are vastly unique to one another and individualize. It is hard to be confused on what’s going on the story. It’s very cleanly made with the use of the format, color, different characters and graphics, which all together reads beautifully.

The personalities are really fun to see and how the artist used them. Each character has their own unique personality will help enforcers this comic storyline. This comic is really funny and it really pokes fun at the Nazis in different ways. For an example Hellboy fighting with Hitler and then Hellboy basically kills Hitler. A person in the Nazis party finds Hitler’s head and takes it and hooks up Hitler’s brain to a monkey.  I don’t know about anyone else I find that first it is extremely funny and secondly it was really off-the-wall crazy. The storyline is really random and sporadic. Even though story set up that way it’s still makes for a really fun interesting read.

Love And Rockets ~ Week 12

For this week we were asked to read comics about women or by women. I decided to read love and Rockets for this assignment. Love & Rockets is a comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez; sometimes their other brother Mario Hernandez would be in the process. 

The first issue of Love & Rockets was self-published by the

brothers in 1981, but in 1982 it has been published by Fantagraphics Books. The Love & Rockets Volume 2, magazine was temporarily stopped its publication in 1996. However in 2001 Los Bros revived the series as Love & Rockets have several ongoing serial narratives. The most prominent being Gilbert's Palomar stories and Jaime's Hoppers 13 stories. It also contains one-offs, shorter stories, surrealist jokes, and more.

In Palomar it tells a story of a fictional village in Latin America and its inhabitants.  It has vibrant characters and fantastic events.

Hoppers 13 follows the story of the tangled loves of a group of characters, from their teenage years in the early days of the California punk scene to the present day. The two memorable

members of Jaime’s cast are “Maggie” and “Hopey”, whose on-again, off-again romance id a focus for many of the storylines.

The brothers like to play with passage of time in a relatively realistic manner. For example in Jaime’s Hoppers 13, Maggie's character, a pro-solar mechanic, debuted as a slight yet curvy young adult living in a world both distinctly chicano and punk with a sci-fi twist. As she develops in more detail, she started to gain weight slowly. Over the years, Maggie and the other characters have evolved, growing more layered and complex as their stories develop. The present Maggie, who now wears her hair bleached blonde and has a penchant for wearing sexy bathing suits,

is the manager of an apartment complex. Jaime has also made extensive use of flashbacks, with Maggie and the others presented at different ages from toddlers through teenagers and young adults to thirty-something’s.

The brothers have two very different styles. Gilbert’s style is rougher, but you can still see what is happening in storyline. He also uses a lot more type and text in this work. Jaime’s style is more clean cut and tight then his brother. That is really the only differences between the two brothers besides the stories being completely different.

Acme Novelty Library ~ Week 11

For this week we were asked to read comics that are in the category of contemporary literature. I ended up reading Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library.

 

Acme Novelty Library has adopted numerous formats in the course of the series and, similarly, doesn't feature a continuous cast of characters. Ware's first major graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, was originally serialized in Acme Novelty Library between 1995 and 2000. Jimmy Corrigan is the saga of a lonely childlike man and his alienated ancestors, partly inspired by Ware's hopeful but unhappy reunion with his absentee father. Issues are imbued with the defining characteristics of Ware's work; a pervasive sadness and nihilism

permeate tales of disappointment, thwarted affection, and the dehumanization of the individual in a modern and mechanized world. Through the use of apparently extraneous novelties, such as cut-outs and flip-books, and prose parodies set in tiny fonts.  Ware blurs the boundaries between author, the reader and the character.

This comic was my favorite so far. I really like the different formats he does and the art style. When I look at the main character I think of the baby from Family Guy.  I'm pretty sure when these characters were developed they were most likely looking at one or another. I don’t know which

one came first. 

The author uses a lot of different formatting within this comic. One example of the use of color in the artists format is that he has one half the page in a monotone color palette and the bottom of the page being completely different monotone color palette.  It is an interesting way to set the mood clearly and easily.  Another thing that the author does is he uses color and black-and-white sections spread throughout the comic. I really enjoy seeing the two different types the artist uses and seeing how he incorporates them into his work. His building and landscape drawings that he does is really amazing and the mood that he sets up from them is really impressive and you can get the mood instantly. The comic is really enjoyable to read and it is an easy read. I highly recommend it.

Girls of The Wild's Manhwa ~ Week 10

This week we were asked to read manga. I have read a decent amount of manga. For this assignment I wanted to find one that wasn't really well known that was kind of popular that I haven't heard about before. I ended up reading Girls of The Wild's Manhwa  by author Hun and artist Kim Hye-Jin.

A brief summary of the manga series:

“Wilds high, it has a history of 42 years as a fighting specialist all girls private high school meant solely for the elite. The place Wilds-League is held, the most popular event in the country, the only place in the world where teenage girls have brutal fights with their lives. This year has been changed into a mixed gender school. The only male student- Song Jae Gu, has been granted a full 3-year scholarship regardless of grades. Being someone who had to spend every moment working or taking care of his two younger brothers, he accepted. However, the scholarship was granted with the sole condition he does not leave. But after meeting Queen, the bloody champion of Wild's-League, drenching her in coffee, calling her a "Monster" and other mishaps could prove fatal.”

This manga has a very common storyline that it shares of a lot of other manga.  One example is it takes place in a high school, which in the manga universe is a good chunk; about 65% of manga produced has a high school or a school environment. Which is is not bad it is just something I noticed that repeats a lot. Another example is a complex love story. What I mean when I say a complex love story is in a normal content there would be in love triangle with two girls that wants one guy. Instead for an example there would be six girls wanting one guy in the storyline. So as you read the story sometimes you don’t know which one the lead male will end up picking. They are there are other manga that are more obvious which girl the lead male will pick.

The artwork on the other hand is really different. It does have some of the stereotypical manga looking elements in the characters. One of the things that makes it stereotypical is how the line work is use and designed. For an example the eyes and how the clothing is designed. For me what I thought was really cool about this manga is the action scenes of how the characters kicked and punched other characters. Also the movement of the characters is more realistic or more believable then others I have read. You can see some examples on the right side of the page.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was the backgrounds and the all the details that was put  into them. In some frames the background doesn’t really exist, but when there is a background they are not boring, and very interesting. You can see that the artist put a lot of detail work into the backgrounds, which for me is really different from what I normally read. Normally the backgrounds are really boring and you don’t really pay attention to the background, they don’t call you into them.

            Lastly in the art section, I wanted to touch on something that’s kind of obvious to this particular manga, which is the use of color. This manga is completely colored. The color that is use is nicely handled and well executed. If this mango was not colored I don't think it would've been as interesting or strong with just the black-and-white line work that it has, it would have lost some pats that made it interesting.

The formatting of it is extremely different from what a normal manga looks like. The page for format is extremely long. An example of the page is on the left and right. I found this really interesting and unique because you're basically getting the same amount information but you get to see more details to the artwork. I feel that this set up is more designed towards the art and letting the art breathe from panel to panel. The chapters in this manga are really short then other manga there are about seven pages per chapter. Which is understandable because all the work detail that goes in each page.

            If you want to read a manga that has action, comedy, drama, romance and beautiful fighting girls that want one nerdy guy then you should read this manga.