Mike Green, Eric Meltzer, Adam Lebovic, and I created a comic representation of the article Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr. This project was somewhat of a reverse order of our previous assignments in this course as we had to create a comic based on an analysis, rather than an analysis based on a graphic novel. There was definitely a connection between the two types of projects, but the approach to this one had to be totally different. We had to be creative enough to be able to convey the message of the article while still focusing on how to make the comic visually pleasing and entertaining.

I believe that I played a significant role in the creation of our comic, just as we all did. I pinpointed most of the most critical arguments of the article; ones which I thought we needed to get across to whoever was to view our comic. Seeing as the article is basically discussing conflicting ideas of old vs new, I thought it would be a good idea to embody the viewpoints of the two generations in an old person and a young person. I figured that the best way to get the points across was for the two people to have an argument, just as they would in real life. Once this was established, we just had to create the script by putting the points into conversational form. I also contributed in the animation of the script, but I feel that I played a bigger role in laying down the foundation of our project.

One of the other projects I liked was The Safety Delusion. I found it hard to believe that they found images that perfectly complemented their storyline. I was initially convinced that they were their own creations (which would have been even more impressive). What I found to be the most effective method they used was the combination of both black and white panels and colored panels. It just made certain images pop out more.

I believe that it is a bildungsroman to a certain extent. We can see the progression of various characters throughout the book, as they are changed by both events and time. Through GB’s trip to Vietnam and by writing this book, he has become more aware of what his past generations had gone through, and what preceded his existence. With time we can also see how Tran, GB’s father, grew to resent his father for leaving him and his mother when he was young.

Another viewpoint would be to say that the amount of time that their family spent outside of Vietnam had made them increasingly distant from their own Vietnamese culture. This applies to both GB, who was never aware of much of what his parents went through, and to GB’s parents, who had distanced themselves from their past lives.

My Tracing Maus assignment is complete! Check it out here!

In relation to the recent events of Uganda and South Carolina, we can see a connection between the concealment of Alison’s dad’s homosexuality to the general public. By having a family, he abided by the “family-centered mainstream culture” (Scott Lively). This is also portrayed in his obsession for restoring the house. Alison’s father stops at nothing to give their house a normal appearance but in reality it is a funeral home. This superficiality in his life may have led to him being depressed, and eventually self destructive.

Self-destructiveness is displayed in him having a picture of Roy almost naked on page 101. Holding onto it is self-destructive in itself as it may give rise to sexual temptation. The year of the picture is crossed out, perhaps indicating that Roy may have been underage at the time; hinting at a possible affair between Allison’s dad and Roy.

Alison’s father made sure she dressed in a feminine manner, as displayed on page 97 when her dad asked where her barrette was and threatened to ‘wale her’ if he caught her without it again. He also made a deal about the woman who was dressed

Credit for the picture: http://sequart.org/images/fun-home-roy-660×524.jpg

Fun Home is a book in which Alison describes her upbringing in a home in which her father had a very dominant role, up until his death. The peculiarity in his attitude is multifaceted. The majority of the time, he is a figure who is extremely obsessive over material objects. He was constantly refurbishing their house in a multitude of ways, and wouldn’t hesitate at all to demand the help of others. His love for his material objects is on clear display on page 14, where Alison says, “I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture.” He was even shown to beat his children.

Under the public eye, he was seen as a very admirable man. On page 27, the scene of his funeral, another man was quoted on saying, “I can’t believe it. Such a good man.” “Such a good man,” was then repeated on the following panel. This shows how all his violent and obsessive behavior was only in effect at places of secrecy, such as their house. In addition, yet another secret withheld from the general public was that he was a child molester, as hinted on page 17.

Alison’s calm and emotionless manner during her father’s passing is evident through her calm and detached storytelling of her father’s death.  She lists possible proofs as evidence that her father truly committed suicide.  For example, on page 28, Alison draws the reader’s attention to a specific highlighting her dad created in Albert Camus’s novel of A Happy Death. She even mentions that the highlighted sentence would be “A fitting epitaph for my parents’ marriage.” Alison then proceeds to analyze more potential evidence of her father’s suicide.

This inexpressive feeling of Alison is also portrayed, perhaps more evidently, through her facial expressions in the panels at the beginning of chapter 2.  For example, on page 27, she looks completely uninterested in the praises her father’s friends are giving to her and her family.  Alison’s cold and inexpressive demeanor is clear in the second, third and fourth panels on page 27.

Credit for picture: http://lkleincourses.lmc.gatech.edu/archives12/files/2012/11/post5_A.jpg

In the beginning, the situation was chaotic to say the least. No one knew what or where to write. We then began to verbally discuss the questions that were present in the focal paragraph. Once we all began to write though, text was popping up all over the place. The same questions were being answered by multiple people simultaneously on opposite ends of the document. Intelligently, someone listed out the questions in a numbered format, leaving space for us to answer each question all in one space. I took advantage of this and began to write in the allotted spaces. However, apparently not everyone took notice of this and many people continued to write their own paragraphs in random parts of the document, making it hard to link back to all the other answers to the same question. In addition, due to the fact that so many students were writing at the same time, I found it hard to come up with ideas that hadn’t already been written down. Rewording what had already been written would have just made the document even more redundant. If everyone had stuck to answering the same questions in the same spaces, it would have been a lot more coherent. I cannot, however, blame anyone who didn’t do so as there wasn’t too much communication between our group and it was very likely that they just hadn’t seen it.

The picture, or rather pictures, I used to make my badge somewhat illustrate my personality. If I’m not working on anything important, such as schoolwork, then I’m usually just fooling around in one way or another. Prior to this, I had never made a collage. Seeing that picmonkey.com, the site I used to create the picture, offered the feature, I just decided to make one.

Page 32, bottom panel:

I found this panel to be quite significant as it shows all the people on the train gazing at the giant swastika flag. Anja and Vladek were on their way to the sanitarium in Czechoslovakia when they spotted it hanging in the center of a town. It caught everyone’s eyes as it was the first time they had seen it. Using hindsight, it would obviously have a huge impact on their near future. They began to speculate what it could have meant, but little did they know just how much it would change their lives forever.