Death Note

Death Note is a manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The story follows Light Yagami, a high school student who despises much of what he sees in the world around him. The power to create a crime free utopia is given to him through the Death Note, a powerful notebook dropped by a shinigami (Japanese death god) that allows the owner to kill whoever he can see. When Light decides to kill off all the world's criminals, will anyone be able to stop him? Should anyone stop him? This complex story of morals is equally matched by intricate and clever illustration.
The first thing that attracted me to manga was the artwork. I was drawn to the big-eyed characters and fantasy creatures set against realistic backgrounds. The ways in which Japanese illustrators are able to use black and white (and gradients) to express so much really impressed me. I am an especially big fan of Takeshi Obata's work (including Hikaru no Go). Ryuk actually gave me nightmares!! As did many of Light's expressions of rage...
When I first started reading manga, the original publishers would flip the artwork so English readers could still read from right to left and front to back. This would often leave the original concepts for the artwork hard to understand. Luckily, with the huge surge of interest in manga, publishers do as much as they can to have the English versions resemble the original Japanese manga. I found this really well done in Death Note.
Controversy has undoubtedly followed Death Note, though it has not stopped its popularity. Both an anime series and live action film have been created and met with much success. A trailer for the live action film can be found, here. And if you are an anime fan, episodes of the popular TV show can be found, here.
Another tidbit I found interesting was that Tsugumi Ohba remains a mystery to the general public, much like the character L.
Rereading Death Note allowed me to see more clearly the differences and specialties of manga that Scott McCloud touches upon in his book.

Understanding Comics: Part II

Thank you, Scott McCloud. Thank you for explaining so beautifully what I've been trying to tell my parents for years - comics are an artform! And a wonderful, limitless, complex one at that. As cliche as this may sound, McCloud really changed the way I read and understand comics. Understanding Comics had my brain working harder than it has in awhile (honestly). I learned so much about comics, and art in general while reading this book.

One of the concepts I found most interesting was that of the balance between pictures and words, and the different moods and emotions that can be evoked by something as seemingly simple as a line.

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

Last Wednesday, our class was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the new Will Eisner documentary, "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist." I thought the documentary was extremely well done, interesting, and informative. My favorite thing about documentaries is always seeing and hearing the person behind the artwork. I think the filmmakers were very lucky in being able to actually interview Eisner and hear about his experiences firsthand. No surprise that the man behind such comic classics is just as charismatic as his work. He provided so many insights into his own work as well as the comic industry of his day.
I also enjoyed all the other interviews with Jerry Robinson, Art Speigelman and Gerard Jones.

New Yorker Festival

The annual New Yorker Festival is just around the corner! It will be held from October 3rd-5th. Though this year's festival offers many amazing events, these two in particular caught my eye -

Art Spiegelman
“Breakdowns: Comix 101”

Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for his graphic novel in two parts, “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.” He is the author of “In the Shadow of No Towers” and the children’s book “Open Me . . . I’m a Dog!” With Françoise Mouly, he co-edited several volumes of the comics anthology “Little Lit.” He will publish two new books in October: “Jack and the Box,” a children’s book, and “Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!,” a memoir that includes a selection of his experimental comics from the nineteen-seventies.

4:30 p.m. Ailey Citigroup Theater, Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th Street

----------------------------------------------

Worst Nightmares Part 2: “Fear(s) of the Dark”

Following a special screening of the new animated film “Fear(s) of the Dark,” a compendium of animated shorts about phobias, Charles Burns and Lorenzo Mattotti, two of the film’s directors, will talk with Françoise Mouly.

Charles Burns is a cartoonist and illustrator, and a contributor to The New Yorker. His award-winning graphic novel “Black Hole” is being adapted for film by the director David Fincher. His other books include “El Borbah,” “Big Baby,” and “Skin Deep.”

Lorenzo Mattotti is a graphic artist. In 2003, he won an Eisner Award for his comic-book adaptation of “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.” His other comic albums include “Fires,” “The Man at the Window,” “Stigmates,” and “Caboto,” which was commissioned by the Spanish government for the quincentennial of Columbus’s voyage to America. He has contributed illustrations and cover art to The New Yorker.

Françoise Mouly is the art editor of The New Yorker and the founder and co-editor of RAW, which first published Charles Burns and Lorenzo Mattotti in the early eighties. She recently launched TOON Books, a new imprint of hardcover comics for beginning readers.

10 p.m. IFC Center
323 Sixth Avenue

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Art Spiegelman will also be signing two new books - his memoir, “Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!,” and "Jack and the Box" a children's book - on Sunday, October 5th at 1PM. All signings take place at the festival HQ, which is located on 18th st between 6th and 7th ave.

TICKETS ARE STILL AVAILABLE FOR BOTH EVENTS!!

Hope to see you there : )

Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics"

Fifteen years ago, Scott McCloud undertook the daunting task of explaining the medium known as "Comics." The result of his efforts was Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
What many view as a simple form of expression is actually far far from it. Branching from Will Eisner's original idea of comics as "sequential art," McCloud provides a definition of comics before further delving into every sensory and imaginative process that goes into a comic creation. I thought Understanding Comics would be easy to read through, as it is designed as a comic book itself (an easily accessible form)! However, I found myself enthralled by all the different theories McCloud presented, and it took me more than a few minutes to truly grasp what he is trying to convey. I read and studied each page thoroughly and was excited by the way McCloud is able to capture and explain the beauty and potential of comics. The way in which he breaks down and explains various techniques (such as different panel transitions) provided a number of insights into both reading and creating comics. I read The Spirit: Umbrella Handles after reading Understanding Comics and found myself analyzing the changes in action over panels, the dialogue, the use of icons. However, McCloud conveys his knowledge in a way that doesn't take the fun out of comics but rather enhances a reader's experience.
There are many terms McCloud defines in his book, the first and foremost being "comics" itself. The following are a list of important vocabulary and "comics language":
Comics (as defined by Scott McCloud): "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer."
Splash page: a full page drawing, often including the title and credits as the first page of a comic book
Thought balloon: internal character dialogue, usually represented in a bubble
Narrative box: narrative boxes are used to convey information not easily understood through thought or speech bubbles and drawings
panel: bordered images, each usually representing a different subject, scene or action; often aligned in a grid format
closure: the mental process that allows readers to imaginatively fill in the spaces in between the panels
gutter: the spaces in between the panels which serve just as important a role as the panels themselves

Will Eisner's "The Spirit"

This week, we read THE SPIRIT: Umbrella Handles, by Will Eisner. Eisner is a true icon in the world of comics, otherwise known as sequential art (a term he created that Scott McCloud will later use in Understanding Comics). He created and produced The Spirit in the early 1940's as a weekly newspaper insert. The Spirit is a masked vigilante, who battles everyone from barons to femme fatales in order to bring justice to his city. The series is highly regarded for employing many style and storytelling conventions still popular today. Frank Miller wrote and directed a movie based on the series, to be released in December of this year. A trailer for the movie can be found here. I had never actually read any of The Spirit until this week, and all the posters and previews for the movie definitely piqued my interest. I enjoyed it very much and could see many techniques in Eisner's work that demonstrated his profound impact on the world of comics. I especially liked what he said about using his splash page as a sort of prologue to his story, rather than using it as another showy title page. He makes clear that story should be just as important to the comic as art, and one should not be downgraded for the other. This conviction is clear within his work. I loved the way it ended just like it began, with The Spirit unconscious in the snow. The story was also pretty hilarious at times, as was the way much of the action progressed. The timelessness of The Spirit was echoed on every page. I loved the simplicity of Sam and the evil-doings of the Baron. Each of his characters seemed to have a very distinct personality.

Can't wait to read more!

Hello!