Antonio's lit and media of comics blog

Week 2 Understanding comics Scott McCloud: Okay, in all honesty, I kind of hated this reading. Now, that does not necessarily mean I think it is a bad read, but I just hated it. I guess to me it brought back memories of high school English when my teacher would over dissect a reading to the point where I couldn't care less. The section about icons started really interesting, but the more I read, the more it droned on. I felt like the points it was trying to hit were just too existential to the point where I very much disagreed with them. For example, the point where it said we are drawn to cartoons because when we see them we see ourselves and not another person, I thought was kind of bullshit. Now, had I not studied animation, I would have totally bought into it. But, from a more technical aspect, and I guess some would call it cynical, the reason people are drawn to less complex things is simply because of our small attention spans. For example, had someone shoved a sent

Week 1 Reading Arrival by Shaun Tan: First off, my opinion of Arrival by Shaun Tan can be described by one word, and that is wow. My initial thoughts to the comic were, “okay well the art is really pretty”, and, “oh, so it is going to be another story about immigrants”. However, when I saw the image of the giant serpent spine in the city, the story immediately hooked me in. As the story progressed, all I could think was, “ wow this world is avant-garde as fuck”. In all honesty, it was a bit disorienting for me, but then I realized that the writer was probably trying to help me identify with the main character. The main character was an immigrant to a foreign land, and us being just as confused as he was really helped me as a reader to identify with the character and his situation. The whole time all I could think about was my first trip to the Philippines. I had never left the country before, and all I had known my whole life was the quiet safe comfort of an American Subu