Creating our own comics was exciting because instead of reading and analyzing a comic, we were now the author’s of our own graphic novels.

You can view my group’s comic project, “The Safety Delusion” by clicking … here!!!

To design our comic my group and I used a program called “comic life”, the program allowed us to take pictures from the Internet and modify them with different fitters. We were also able to write captions on the photos, which allowed the pictures to come together and become a story. When we were originally making ideas on a Google doc we all wrote down a pre-draft storyline for our comic and everyone elaborated on each other’s ideas. To plan out the outline we each discussed a general theme we wanted to have present in each page. For example on one page we wanted to have a reality verses expectation meme that emphasized the over protective views of parents today. In another page we compared parenting methods in the past to the protective disposition of parents now. We took the facts from the article to support our own views on the argument. For example, in our concluding panels we discussed the reasons to why parents shouldn’t be over overly protective, because in doing so they are taking away their child’s creativity, confidence and deductive self- learning. Our project was difficult in that we had to find pictures that suited our ideas in an order that made sense for the reader.

I enjoyed listening to other comic projects; such as “The Life I lead” whose comic I thought was really well thought out. (Besides the very funny pun in their title) the general theme was expressed clearly throughout the comic. Their project was different in that they had a continued fictional story that followed the life of one character and how his life was affected by lead. The comic also included different filters, like vivid imaging verses the depiction of the past in black and white for instance.

The comic project allowed us to apply the skills we learned from other texts in class like understanding comics, Vietnamerica and Maus. For example, one group used a tilted image in their comic to represent a chaotic setting, much like Spigelmen did in Maus. Many of the groups used images to represent literary devices like the shattering of glass (used in our project to represent a false utopia). Another group also used cats to represent the people in their stories. Overall I think all the groups did well in depicting the points (either supporting or going against the argument) presented to us in our articles.

In his biography, Vietnamerica author G.B Tran addresses the themes of family history, loss of cultural identity and personal growth. Vietnamerica follows the coming of age journey of G.B Tran, from an ignorant young Vietnamese American unaware and uninterested of his family’s past to a young adult who seeks to learn of his Vietnamese culture and family history. In an interview done in 2012, G.B Tran discusses the impact that writing Vietnamerica had on him as a first generation Vietnamese American. “When I started writing Vietnamerica part of the reason it was interesting to me was because I had no sense of connection to my Vietnamese heritage, my Vietnamese roots. When I finished it I realized I did feel a greater connection to my Vietnamese’s roots. It started with a curiosity, a desire to learn, a desire to experience and basically a child reaching a point were they want to really know who they are, and realizing that in order to do that, they needed to have an understanding of who their parents are.” [1] This quote is noteworthy because it was through writing Vietnamerica that G.B Tran was able to piece back together his families past and in doing so find himself. I think that the overall message Tran wants to emphasize and urge his readers to learn is that we must all value and search to understand our past, before it becomes too late and then from our past we find ourselves.

My Tracing Maus assignment check it out!!!

Spiegelmen writes Maus as an autobiography to illustrate the grieved past of his parents, as survivors of the Holocaust, but also to demonstrate his own relationship with his parents as it was influenced by their hardships in the Holocaust. Art, throughout the comic, uses past and present scenes to demonstrate the influences the Holocaust had not only to those who experienced it first hand, but also to future generations to come. One such example is seen at the end of Maus II, Vladek mistakenly addresses Art as “Richieu” before closing the book. Richieu, was Anja and Vladek’s first born son who died at an early age, as a result of the Holocaust. This may be a subtle hint as to why Art wrote the book. Perhaps he wrote it not only to foretell the life of his father but to add to it a long list of personal accounts. Maus I and Maus II are written as both Art’s and his father’s stories.

Credit goes to: http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/12/maus-and-marketing/

In Chapter 2 of Maus II on page 48, there’s a panel depicting Art sitting atop a mound of perished Jews at his art table. He states that he is “depressed” despite his success. Art steps out of the storytelling frame to comment on the fact that the commercial success of his book wasn’t what he was aiming for, or the effects of it didn’t satisfy him enough. At first glance, it may have been seen as a duty to his parents to recall their experiences, but he may have written it as a personal closure and outpouring of how it affected him.