Comics in the 21st Century

Webcomic posting! I don't read them a lot, but I do love Perry Bible Fellowship, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Horribleville, and SUPER MEGA COMICS. (No idea why I like that last one). The concept behind this is 'closure.' There has been a story arc going in some of the postings I've made, and this concludes it. It feels like a webcomic to me. I should have used expressive linework, but as the text implies, I just ran out of time for anything. Hey look, it's the smiley face from the first comic, uncrumpled! Higher resolution available upon request!

Additionally, because we were supposed to review what we've read this semester, here is a pretty full list!:

Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud
The Arrival - Shaun Tan
Little Nemo (Various) - Windsor McCay
Flash Gordon: Vol. 3 - Alex Raymond
The Complete Terry and the Pirates Vol. 1 - Milton Caniff
A Right to be Hostile - Aaron McGruder
Jack Cole and Plastic Man - Art Spigelman
Tintin (Various) - Hergé
Donald Duck (Various) - Carl Barks
A Contract with God - Will Eisner
The Spirit (Various) - Will Eisner
The Book of Mr. Natural - R Crumb
Need More Love - Aline Kominsky-Crumb
The Book of Genesis - R Crumb
Maus (Vol. 1 and 2) - Art Spigelman
King - Ho Che Anderson
A Drifting Life - Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Phoenix (Various) - Osamu Tezuka
Buddha (Various) - Osamu Tezuka
Astro Boy (Various) - Osamu Tezuka
Mushishi - Yuri Urushibara
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
Ghostworld - Daniel Clowes
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth - Chris Ware
Skim - Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Watchmen - Alan Moore
Sandman (Various) - Neil Gaiman
Arkham Asylum - Grant Morrison
Kingdom Come - Mark Waid and Alex Ross
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac - Johnen Vasquez
Perry Bible Fellowship - Nicholas Gurewitch
electric sheep - Patrick Farley

I probably have read others that I cannot recall right now. It was a semester not shy of text and picture. Hopefully I can keep up the pace in the future. And draw more. And all that.

Oh, and by the way, the posting immediately before this was supposed to be the original Week 14 posting, and this current posting is the re-do. I didn't feel like rewriting and redrawing a comic from earlier in the year, and instead I just planned this out and corrected any spelling /grammatical errors from every posting that needed them. I think that's fair, no? I hope you've enjoyed reading my posts, I tried to make them entertaining.

webcomic

i am very talented

Reconsidering the Superhero/Alan Moore

Yes. I really loved this comic. It made me appreciate the movie less (which I always viewed as maybe a 7/10). So yes. How amazing. Anyway, I decided to try out Alan Moore's style (rather... Dave Gibbons' style) with his characters holding a try-out for recruits. The first is Batman/Bruce Wayne. (Not to spoil anything for you, but did you know they are, in fact, the same person? Who would have guessed?) He is not eligible for any number of reasons. The second one is "Dr. Manattan," who is just Dr. Manhattan's doppelgänger, cleverly disguised with a pair of goofy glasses and a false nose (I should have given him a mustache). I guess he technically joins the team. And the third is Alan Moore himself, represented as a lunatic. I loved drawing this. It took longer than usual. I just wish I did a bit better of a job. But, oh well. As an aside, The Comedian is alive and somehow younger again. Don't ask! Higher resolution available upon request!

Women's Comics

This comic of mine probably comes off as a bit rude. The style has been simplified to reflect the writing (though don't you think those colored lines are great?) and, believe me, my tone has nothing to do with me being sexist or mad at women. This is an (obviously, I hope) unrelented Stephanie Meyer bashing, calling out Twilight and its fanbase. I know lots of women of all ages who seem to think she's the best writer to have ever graced this planet. And seeing as how she has ruined literature (with her 'books'), film (with her movies), and music (with her movies' soundtracks), I figure it's only a matter of time before she ruins art. Whoops, it looks like she's ruining that too! This comic page I made, despite all that, is empathetic to the demographic of girls who DON'T like her work. Thank goodness there are some of them. Higher resolution available upon request!

Comics as Contemporary Literature

Finally, my own style. Oh no! My own style! How abut that skeleton, right? Scary. I've returned to my roots and brought back the smiley face from the very first comic I made for this class. The difference this time 'round is that this comic reveals a lot about the creative process. Almost all of it, in fact. I feel like I'm giving free advice to illustrators, and that I should be charging for this. It's valuable knowledge. "Concept is not execution. Ever." The same could be said of music or sports or anything at all, I guess. Notice the color wheel around my circled self? No? Well now you do. Higher resolution available upon request!

EuroComics/Hergé

Since I decided to, some time ago, draw a comic page in the style of Carl Barks and NOT Hergé, and seeing as how this week I'm to make a comic in respect to the style Hergé CREATED, I've decided to take advantage and make a comic about Tintin. I finally came up with a good enough concept to make it work and be funny. By the end of it, you can see that Snowy isn't interested in the well-being of Tintin at all, but rather, he was just hungry the whole time. I assume Tintin and the guard become good pals, but he never is allowed inside those city walls. Where are those walls? Russia, probably. Anyway. I hope you can see that it was modeled after Hergé's work. I'm happy with the end result. Higher resolution available upon request!

An Introduction to Manga/Osamu Tezuka

Evidently, I can't draw this week. I feel awful. Anyway, I love manga. Truthfully, it's what propelled me into drawing at all (I don't read it any more, but I loved Naruto and Dragonball Z and all the other Shonen Jump crap I was fed when I was younger). And I love Tezuka. Astro Boy was never my favorite thing of his, certainly I enjoyed his series Buddha more, but this one is more popular, so I parodied it. Astro discovers what it means to be human! And it's not good! Alternatively, I was going to reveal that Nicholas Cage was his real father (since he voiced Dr. Tenma in the 2009 CG fliqué I will never see) but that seemed too obscure, like everything else I write. Done (poorly) in pen and brush ink. I tried to get some realistic machinery going there in the background, but eh, this week is a failure, and I know it well. At least the joke is there. I love how Astro completely loses the gleam in his eyes. Higher resolution available on request!