Seattle U District: City Artifacts Map

Here is a map of the U District marked with the locations of the city artifacts you are researching. We may put photos and Wikipedia entries on this map, or add links to the marked locations.

This set of artifacts includes...

• coffee shops, from Seattle institutions like Allegro Expresso to regular old Starbucks, a different kind of Seattle institution;
• bars, like the historic Blue Moon Tavern and College Inn Pub;
• a community center, its parking lot and the farmer's market that is held there;
• a public library;
• eating establishments that indicate U District tastes, from a vegan cafe to a Chinese grill to a restaurant known for Northwest cuisine;
• recreational trails and sites, like the Burke Gilman Trail, University Playground and Husky Stadium;
• a mysterious public art work;
• a hotel, a multi-use commercial building and the UW Medical Center, all important to the university's and the city's economies;
• streets and other byways that are central to the neighborhood's identity, including one commemorated in a popular song;
• bus routes that connect the U District to other parts of the city and region.

While these artifacts certainly reflect your interests in and experiences of the U District, they also, as a "collection," create a remarkably accurate socio-cultural portrait of this urban community: closely linked to the university at its heart, but at the same time a distinctively Seattle neighborhood.

City Artifacts: What and Where?

For your proposals due Thursday, you need to designate the artifact in the U-District that will be the subject of your study. This artifact can be:

• a public part of the built environment, like a bridge or intersection;
• a privately-owned location in the neighborhood, like a garage or building or commercial establishment within a building;
• a monument or landmark, like a statue or mural;
• an open space, like a park or construction site or vacant lot;
• a "vector of connection" to or within the neighborhood, like a bus-route or bike trail;
• a text that marks the neighborhood, like a set of posters or graffiti.

Obviously there is a lot of overlap among these options--and the artifact can be something else entirely, if you check with me first. Please choose something that's interesting to you. And remember to think about the pros and cons of working as an "insider" (on an artifact that you already know and use) or "outsider" (on an artifact that is new to you).

So where is the U-District? For the purposes of this project, it's the area east of I-5, west of Montlake Boulevard/25th Ave NE, south of Ravenna Park, and north of the Montlake Cut. Here's a map:



University District.
From http://www.historylink.org/I-map/NErav.htm.

You'll want to explore the neighborhood on foot or on bike before choosing an artifact. You'll also want to think about the history of your artifact; a good place to start is with the history of the U-District itself, which you can read about in more detail here. (But don't forget about the other internet sources I provided in the assignment guidelines.)

And please... check with Gabrielle if you have questions!

Researching History and its Representations...

Now that you're writing an essay about your graphic novel and its representational techniques, you may be curious to find out more about the real-world events depicted in it. Please remember that this kind of research is NOT required for the essay, since the essay's focus is on the image-text relationships in your panels. But if you feel that a brief discussion of this event could help your argument or just your understanding of the graphic novel, then go ahead and investigate.

Where can you go for this kind of information? In an email posing this question, Elena mentioned good ole Wikipedia, a clear choice given our involvement with that source so far. But our recent investigations into the generation of Wikipedia articles might be relevant here... for example, in the graphic "novel" Elena is working on, Palestine, the real-world event in question is the First Intifada. Here is Wikipedia's entry for that topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada

Note the warning label at the top that says, "The neutrality of this article is disputed." The discussion and history tabs indicate that the article is edited quite often. Well, given the nature of the conflict and its ongoing presence as a political issue in the Middle East, that's really not surprising! (By the way, you may have noticed yesterday on the HUB lawn the Jewish and Palestinian student booths on either side of the central path... even at this basic geographic level, there is division.)

You can also look into more traditional encyclopedias, written and edited by experts, like the Encyclopedia Britannica--which you can access through the library portal:

http://www.lib.washington.edu/research/

But this approach may not be totally satisfactory, either. For instance, when I searched for "intifada" in Encyclopedia Britannica, the closest match was a very long article on the Middle East. The intifada is mentioned, but as an event it's woven into a much bigger topic, so it is hard to figure out precisely when it began, how it began, what constituted it, how it ended, and so on. Perhaps that's a better way to represent the intifada--as one piece in a puzzle--but it sure does make it hard to grasp what it IS. (I also noticed that Encyclopedia Britannica has a new feature: you can send suggestions to its editors. Hmmm, following the example of Wikipedia, perhaps?)

My goal here is to remind you of something we have encountered before in our readings: hard facts can be elusive and transitory! Paul Auster makes this point in City of Glass, of course, but we've also seen it in theory--for example, in Foucault's analysis of power, in Said's description of Orientalism--and in our own discussions about mass media and popular culture. In short, "knowledge" is always under construction, always conditional, always "ideologically situated."

Does this mean that the representations of real-world events in our graphic novels are as reliable and secure as the representations in, say, the Encyclopedia Britannica? Probably not. But it does indicate that both are representations.

Palestine

Joe Sacco's Palestine is the result of the author's personal journey to Palestine and Israel in 1991/1992. The graphic novel collects different publications chronologically organized into nine chapters with a foreword by Edward Said. The first eight chapters are primarily based on the author's dialogues with Palestinians, for the author is at the same time a character in the story.
The last chapter instead sees Joe Sacco in Jerusalem escorting and escorted by two Israeli women. The narration of the events is therefore unevenly balanced in favour of the Palestinians' point of view. However, I believe that the author is not trying to manipulate the reader or propagandize a determined ideological standing point as He makes his choice clear from the beginning and even dedicates the entire ending chapter to convey that there is a counter side of the story. The novel, seen from this point of view, is actually a work of journalism since Joe Sacco is giving voice -and shape too- to a displaced and often silenced minority of the Middle East.

The main theme of the novel is perhaps the fact that there's one land for two peoples, together with all the cultural and non-cultural implications that come with this. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seriously makes an issue in itself and can be seen from many points of view: the author's main concern is to tell their stories (not his), to portray the everyday life of the Palestinians and its many, unquestionable difficulties. The city also plays a role throughout the novel: Jerusalem is indeed the city par excellence, the prize of the conflict. Moreover, the lack of a city can be seen as a theme too. The Palestinians in fact don't really have a city but rather 'curfewed' villages. No such things as Benjamin's arcades or post-modern metropolis are present in the graphic novel, but a supportive community inhabiting occupied territories.

The visual style of the graphic novel is pretty much straightforward. The focus is mostly on the written text and the panels don't require a particular interpretative approach to be fully understood. The layout of the pages, however, is influenced by the content of the story: mainly geometrical when the author is in inner spaces, chaotic during the outdoors, messy when violence breaks out. Nevertheless there are also symbols that visually corroborate the written story, e.g. the mud that's all over the streets of Palestine or the walls that clearly define portions of space.

Persepolis 1 & 2

Plot-
This graphic novel is more of a memoir than a fictitious story. Marjane “Marji” Satrapi is a young Iranian girl at the beginning of this tale. She is parented by two avant-garde parents, liberal and perspective to their daughter’s unique situation. The fundamentalist party of Iran has just overthrown the existing government, enforcing a strict regime of Islamic practices on the whole nation. Marji is an adept school child with a hunger for knowledge. She reads, listens to her parents’ conversations, and even sneaks into a protest in hopes that she can gleam some information about her fold in history. This first-hand education is made real and dangerous when her beloved uncle is arrested and killed.
In order to escape the persistent situation, Marji’s parents send her to Belgium, to continue her education and live in a peaceful environment. If only it could be that simple. Once in Europe, Marji finds it hard to assimilate and find friends. Not only is she restricted through language, but her culture is discriminated by some very interesting folk, like her boyfriend’s mother. The very thing she was fleeing from is being projected onto her, because of her skin. She eventually makes friends with the marginalized, and experiments with drugs and ideology. After finishing secondary school, Marji feels lost and pulled between her Iranian roots and her present Western environment. She decides to return to Iran, in a burst of homesickness, but her ideal dream is flattened upon arrival. Iran is in much the same state as when she left, with the only major difference being that the streets have been renamed after martyrs. She tries to adjust, but finds it very difficult until she enrolls in art school and marries. This interim doesn’t last long and soon she finds herself wishing for Europe. In the end she returns to her foreign home.

Themes-
Identity crisis, xenophobia
Fundamentalism- assimilation
Knowledge=power
Class struggles (maid’s love, dad’s car)
The Marginalized people
War/ Society against individual

Drawing Style-
Marjane uses wide, rounded images—very soft in nature. Setting the story in the perspective of a nine year old, some of the pictures are very childlike and endearing. As the novels progress, a certain attention to detail grows with Marji. The panels do not have a specific formula such as nine to a page, and often there are full page drawings. Using only black and white, Marjane shows the stark difference in Iran during that time period. Many of the fundamentalists have beards covering their entire mouths and have uni-brows. The dialogue bubbles are much the same throughout the characters, but become jagged when someone screams. Implementing her Islamic background, there are many beautiful patterns and geometric images to structure her panels.

Shutterbug Follies

Plot
Shutterbug Follies is a story of a young girl who, working at a photo shop, happens upon some photographic evidence of murder. She begins tracking the suspect, despite all odds, becomes determined to solve the crime.

Themes
Feminism is a major theme that runs throughout the story of the little, teenage girl who unveils the evil works of a dangerous man. While she enlists the help of other men to solve the crime, she is always the gutsy one who drags them along.
Another theme is the role of the city as a dangerous place and a blanket for high crime. Also the diversity in the city is commonly depicted throughout the panels.
Art, you could also say is a recurring theme. There is a play on the definition of art, what is accepted as art, and the many forms it can take.

Visual Style
The visual style of this graphic novel is distinct in its use of color, lack of narrative, and the unique panel adaptations from a typical form.
The pictures themselves are very vibrantly colored and styled in a manner typically associated with regular comic books in appearing cartoon-like. They also include little sounds like a comic book would (clack when a phone is slammed down). Furthermore, the entire text appears in dialogue with almost no narrative with the exception of such phrases as "later that day." Where any narrative could exist there are series of pictures demonstrating the progression.
Also, another visual technique employed in this graphic novel is the manipulation of the panels. Certain panels appear through the lenses of binoculars or cameras and others exist as photos or negative film slides.

A Scanner Darkly

Summary:

A Scanner Darkly is a novel written by Philip K. Dick, which eventually turns into a film and then back into a graphic novel.  Using still shots from the film, the graphic novel is created with actual scenes from the movie.  The graphic novel is essentially about a character who is an undercover cop, by the name of Bob Arctor.  Bob gets caught up in drug usage and an identity crisis while trying to investigate on the drug known as Substance D.  Substance D is a highly addictive drug which is known to cause the two halves of the brain to work independently.  Bob plays the role of "Fred", the undercover drug addict investigating Substance D, which he eventually becomes an actual addict and confuses himself; leaving Bob to spy on himself as "Fred".  Ultimately, Bob is checked into a rehab center called New Path and takes on a different identity, Bruce.  Bruce finds outs that New Path is actually the supplier and distributor of Substance D -- ending the novel with a sort of twist on the drug issue occurring in the community.

Main Issues, Themes or ideas:

- Identity crisis

- Drug addition and persecution

- Morality

Visual Style:

The visual style was definitely unique in the sense of using still shots from the movie created out of the novel and developing a graphic novel from the actual scenes in the film.  A program, rotoscope, was used to create this sort of animated look that made the style even more riveting and distinctive.  

Maus I & II

Summary:The novels cover two story arks:It details Art Spiegelman recording his father’s, Vladek’s, account of the Holocaust.This task spans over quite some time and during this the novel paints a picture of Vladek what has become. He is in poor health, his behavior is erratic, compulsive, and has an unhealthy relationship is his second-wife, Mala.He novel ends with Vladek’s death.As his father recounts his life leading up to and during the Holocaust, the book retreats from the present and becomes a narrative told from Vladek’s perspective.He married Art’s mother, Anja, who was a member of a prosperous family in Poland.When the Nazis came to power things were difficult for them and all other Jewish families.Their condition got worst and worst and their attempts to survive were made all the more difficult because of rampant deception.Eventually they were split up and sent to Auschwitz.With cleverness, conservation, and a whole lot of luck, the two survived the war and moved to America where Art was born.After a few years Anja committed suicide.


Main issues, themes, ideas:
Racism/Diaspora
Value
Father-son relationship
Power
Collections
Self-reliance/Trust
Survival


Visual Style: Art Spiegelmans is pretty consistent with his visual style.There is little detail in most of his drawings and they can seem to take a backseat to the novel’s text.There are occasions that the visual style dramatically changes which can be quite jarring and punctuating.These sweeping alterations create a foreign atmosphere and give insight to the different aspects of the characters and author (who is a character in the book).Throughout the novel Art represents groups with certain animals.The Jews are mice, the Germans cats, the Polish pigs, the American dogs.The symbolism is apparent and its consistent use begins to meld the relationships between these groups with our perception of the relationships between the animals they are being represented as.

The novel jumps between the present day and WWII, but as Art becomes engrossed in his father’s tale of the Holocaust, aspects of the story seep into the drawing of the present day.For example, while conducting an interview during a drive, the silhouette of lynched Jews can be seen in the forest beyond the road they’re driving on.The bridging of these two worlds is a powerful visual technique that demonstrates how Art has been affected by constructing the novel.

A Scanner Darkly

Plot
The graphic novel "A Scanner Darkly," is based on the movie adaptation of the novel by Philip K. Dick. Set in a dystopian Orange County not too far in the future, protagonist Bob Arctor is an undercover cop who goes by "Fred" while investigating the drug scene of the highly addictive Substance D. Substance D is known for its potent psychoactive effects; continued use of it will eventually lead to the user's brain splitting into two competing halves. With the majority of the population addicted, Arctor goes undercover as a junkie and becomes addicted himself. Amongst the police force, Arctor's identity and others' is concealed by a "scramble suit." This measure actually leads to Arctor having to spy on himself; that is, officer Fred has to spy on Substance D junkie Bob Arctor. This crisis is amplified by the effects of addiction on Arctor's cognitive ability. Finally, Arctor is admitted to New Path (a rehabilitation center guarded from government surveillance) and discovers the source of Substance D within New Path's garden-commune. Arctor was chosen by the police force to enter New Path as an actual addict in order to confirm it as the distributor of Substance D.

Main Issues:

• Drug addiction and paranoia
  
• Identity; the psychological, physical, and emotional aspects of it-performative identity
  
• Government surveillance and conspiracy
• Criminal - Cop relationship

Visual Style:
The graphic novel images for "A Scanner Darkly" were stills taken from the film version that was released in 2006. The film was done in a unique style known as rotoscope, which includes the preliminary digital filming of real actors (you might recognize Keanu Reeves, Winona Rider, and Robert Downey Jr.) followed by animating over. This produces an interesting effect; here's a link to view the movie trailer if you're curious as to what it looks like.

Maus I & II

1. Maus, by Art Spiegelman is a story about Art's father, Vladek, who survives the Holocaust. The story starts in the beginning of WWII, and continues on until the end of the war. Vladek's struggles during the war are described by his son. Everything from having to hide himslef and his wife, Anja, in bunkers to escape the Germans, to actually being prisoners in Aushwitz. During the book, Vladek tells his story to his son, yet at the same time we are shown the troubled relationship Art has with his father because of the war. Maus shows not only how WWII affected Vladek during the war, but also how it continued to affect him the rest of his life, especially his relationships with people.

2.
Identity
Gender
Race
Religion
Mental illness/Effects after War
Father/ son relationships
mother/son relationships
Class separation

3. The characters in the novel are presented as animals. The animals seem to have a hierarchy consistent with the nations/religions of the time. The Germans are cats and the Jews are mice. During this time the Germans deinitely were more powerful than the jews and did trap them just like cats trap mice. They kept them confined to small towns and did not let them no what was going on until it was too late and they were in the concentration camps. Also, once in the camps, they were trapped everywhere they went and would eventually be killed. The Americans were represented as dogs. The US won the war and did defeat the Germans, so it would only be appropriate that they would be dogs, since obviously dogs eat cats. This kind of hierarchy is shown across all nations/religions.
Also, the cartoons are all shown in black and white. When the father is telling his story, in the beginning of each part, they show him and his son. This way we see the interaction between Art and Vladek, and can see how their relationship has been affected. Once Vladek is deep into his story, the cartoons then switch to images of the past. These images give us a better understanding of the kind of things he went through and how he felt. Art goes out of his way to point out certain things. These things are usually separate images from the line of the story. Art likes to put important things in boxes separate from the other images. He does this alot with drawings of places, such as bunkers or camps. These are important images because otherwise these places would be very hard to describe with just words. Art also tries to draw the reader in by putting signs in separate boxes as well. Signs that were posted or letters that were sent are shown separate so that the reader is reading them, the same as Vladek would have.
Lastly, there is narraration at the top of most of the images, which is coming from Vladek as he decribes the events to his son, or Art as he describes his father. The author also shows dialogue between people in the images, giving the reader more insight on how it was during the time. Doing this makes the story more complete and easier to follow especially since we are constantly going between present day, with Vladek and his son, to the past and the war.

Shutterbug Follies

Shutterbug Follies is about an 18 year old girl named Bee who solves a murder mystery where the Killer takes photos of the victims right after their graphic death posing as news photographers and artists. The killer took the photos to be developed at the Photo shop that Bee worked at. During this story she puts herself in danger to uncover the truth about the murders.

One of the main themes in this story is feminism as Bee is an independent (though she lives with her mom), young woman who convinces men to help her and defeats a male enemy. Another is the City life and how diverse it can be/is. The city also provides a good cover up for the criminals. Also, Bee is an “ordinary” person who goes on to be the hero of the story and there is even a little romance.

Some of the theories embedded in this story are Marxism, Orientalism, a little Queer theory, the Other, and feminism.

Some of the major visual aspects are that the book is in color, that there are many different points of view, ex. a undeveloped picture or looking through binoculars, and there are virtually no narration throughout the entire book as the picture tend to tell all that is needed.

Persepolis 1 and 2

1). Persepolis wasnt so much a story with a plot as it was a memoir of Marjane Satrapi and her life growing up in Iran during the revolution. As the graphic novel progresses, you can tell that her understanding of the real world does as well. In the beginning, she believes what she is taught in school and is conflicted when her parents try to explain otherwise and what is happening with their government. The story is a good narrative to get a sense of how a child views war and what is "morally" right. The war causes her family to split up, while she goes to live and attend school in Europe where she experiences typical adolescent trivialites: sex, drugs, rebellion, love, etc. She goes through an identity crisis when she visits Iran and she feels like she doesnt belong here, as well as not belonging in Europe.

2). Themes/Main Issues:
- Identity Crisis; Marjane trying to be true to herself and her heritage while finding an identity for herself.
- Marxism, materialism, and class order
- Family Relations
- Power
- Self awarness and education

3). Marjane Satrapi creates visual pictures that are often dark, black in background, and with a lot of shadow. This emphasizes the dreary times of the war and how she is feeling (lost or all alone). The panels are often mixed up, averaging about 9 panels per page. But when she feels something is especially important, she will dedicated a whole page to the illustration. Her visual arts are very well put together and it correlates better with the story.

Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened

A Joyous Eastertide
Story and Illustration by Phillip Hester

The Plot: In "A Joyous Eastertide," a man tells his 25 -year -old daughter about his childhood. When he was a young boy, his mother committed suicide, leaving him all alone with his father. The boy’s father marries a woman with Tourette’s Syndrome. When the father dies from the influenza, the boy is left in the care of his new stepmother. During this time, the boy has terrible nightmares and would sleep in the same bed with his stepmother. Over the years, the stepmother takes very good care of the boy. He would grow up to be an assistant medical examiner. One day, he realizes that woman he is examining had neatly trimmed her pubic hair into a heart. Instead of finding this situation amusing, he begins to remember his stepmother. This woman on the examining table had chosen to ignore the embarrassment and had given this simple gift to someone. This reminds him of his stepmother who had taken care of him, even though he wasn't even her real son.

The themes and ideas of “A Joyous Eastertide” include family, sacrifice, love, acceptance, and death. The stepmother took care of this boy who wasn't even her own son. She chose to love him and treat him as if he were her own child. Similarly, the woman on the examining table sacrificed her embarrassment and made the heart in her pubic hair.

The visual style: There is a recurring theme of lines in this story. On the legs of the Jesus statue, there are cracks in the feet that the boy thought was the blood from Jesus’ wounds. Again, we see lines when the boy is lying in bed with his stepmother and he is examining her hands. He saw those lines as a “net of her abiding kindness.” Lastly, we see lines in the feet of the woman being examined. These lines reminded the man of the lines in his stepmother's hands. Another visual technique that this story has is the three panels showing the face of the stepmother as she scrunches up her face. Each time, the first panel has the drawing of the woman with a soft face, and the second is always the scrunched face. The last of the three panels always has the same soft face seen in the first panel.

Maus I & II

Maus by Art Spiegelman is about the life and death of Vladek Spiegelman, Art Spiegelman’s father. Vladek’s memories center on his struggle and will to keep himself and his wife, Anja, alive while hiding in bunkers, dealing on the black market, sneaking out for food, being sent to Auschwitz, and finally being reunited at the end of the Holocaust. Vladek also often remembers Art’s deceased brother, Richieu, whose life was taken when he was very young. As Vladek recounts the story of his close encounters with death as a Jew during the Nazi occupation of Poland and much of Europe, another story comes to light—that of Art and his relationship with his father.

The main issues, themes or ideas raised in these two graphic novels include:
Father-son relationships
Racism
Classism
Sexism
Survival
Power
Identity
Humanity

Art Spiegelman uses a visual style that is both modest and complex. For the majority of the novel, he uses bold outlines of characters with simple cross-sections and lines for textures. As such, the several portions that do not follow this visual style seem like interruptions. These “interruptions” include more detailed images, images of characters as humans, maps or diagrams, and photographs. Spiegelman also uses much visual symbolism which reflects and emphasizes the issues raised by Maus, for example, the depiction of Jews as mice and Germans as cats.

Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened

Homesick by Joshua Hale Fialkov, illustrated by Micah Farritor
From Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened

Plot: Based on a postcard written by an American in France at the start of the Great Depression, this story shows a snapshot of life for Marj and Frank, two Americans in 1930s Paris. While Frank is thrilled with Paris and happy they scrimped and saved for this, their shared dream, Marj hasn’t adjusted well to the weather, people, or attitudes of Paris and wants to go home. This drives a quiet, awkward wedge between the couple as we see Frank somewhat pretentiously becoming “Francois” leaving “Marjorie” floundering, alienated in the big city.

Main issues, themes, ideas: Like a lot of the short stories present in this collection (if not all of them), Homesick revolves around the feelings of loss and loneliness. Marj yearns to go back to her American home, feeling out of place in the foreign city. Her husband is sort of leaving her as well, by trying to turn himself into someone else and assimilate into this place that Marj doesn’t like. This story also invokes the idea of the city, since it is set in Paris and location is a focal point in the story – Marj wants to go home, Frank admires the skyline and calls it “paradise”, and the large last panel is Marj left alone, dwarfed under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Once again, here the city is an imposing, important ‘character’ in the story, where people can lose themselves or take on new identities.

Visual style: The style used in Homesick is unique amongst the stories in Postcards. Unlike a lot of graphic novels illustrated with harsh shadows and a very two-dimensional feel to them, the images in Homesick have a melting, smudgy, feel to them, almost like watercolors. While some of the other stories are visually more dramatic or noir-ish (Quarantine) or look like a comic out of the Sunday newspaper (Time), these illustrations are very muted, cloudy, and gray. The watery, runny grays help communicate to the reader the experience of the dreary weather that the protagonist is so depressed by, and the muted style further reinforces Marj’s impression of the pretty but bleak setting. The portrayal of the setting itself provides a large, empty, space that emphasize the long, awkward silences in the story, echoing the quiet displeasure and soft anguish of the characters.

Persepolis 1 & 2

Persepolis chronicles the young life of Marjane Satrapi, the author, growing up in Tehran, Iran during the Islamic Revolution.  Satrapi not only describes the political and social events that occured during her time there, but she adds her own flair to the graphic novel through comedy and her interesting graphic style.  Satrapi was raised in a progressive environment; her parents were Marxists, and many of her family members have been jailed or executed due to their political views.  She grows up wanting to protest the war just like her parents, and she does this in her own way as she grows up.  Eventually, after their neighborhood is bombed, Satrapi's parents decide that it is best for her to move to Vienna, Austria to continue her schooling away from turmoil.  She does this, sad that her parents will not come to live with her.

Persepolis 2 begins with Satrapi's life in Austria.  Although she makes friends there, she still feels like an outsider and misses her family and homeland.  After she graduates from high school in Vienna, she returns to Iran.  She gets married, begins to study art at a university, and divorces.  She decides that Iran is not where she should be either, so she departs again.  

Some important themes present in both Persepolis books are class conflict, power and political struggles, and the search for one's identity. 

The visual style of these graphic novels includes deviation from the standard 9 panel layout, long and ominous shadows, and the frequent use of black background for panels instead of white.

Mail Order Bride

Mail Order Bride is a story of a young Korean girl name Kyung who is sent to America as a mail order bride. She is wed to Monty, a 30 something year old virgin who works and owns a comic and toy store. At first everything was fine, Monty had everything he had always wanted, but as things develop, Kyung's identity is developed and revealed as she explores artistic endeavors, the progression of her character through radical changes challenges the typical domestic female and Asian stereotype. The story proceeds to change both Monty and Kyung's and leads a disastrous clash.

The novel addresses so many topics; Identity, Innocence, Stereotypes, Gender & Race, and Sexuality. To describe and provide examples to these topics without writing pages and pages would be impossible. All of these topics are dealt with at many at a time.

I can generalize and say that there are two or three different styles used in the book. One style, which takes up the majority of the book, is the artist's style to portray the story; Cleanly drawn characters, few facial details, nothing elaborate so to say. The second style is drawn in a realistic manner, drawn like fine detailed pencil art, the kind you'd find in art galleries. These pictures are all of Asian women drawn in a very sensuous, seductive tone. The third style is much like first, but all of them are of the same Caucasian woman in two different forms, one represent as naked, spirited, freckled and “free” while many others are represented as clothed, uniform, cheerleaders.

Mail Order Bride: Mark Kalesniko

1.) Monty, a 39 year old virgin, orders a bride from Korea, Kyung, a woman with almost no accent. They live in a tiny town, Bandini, where Monty, overgrown man-child, runs a comic and toy shop, even though he keeps his most prized collections in his home. With little time getting to know one another, Monty and Kyung get married, in hopes that they will bond after the ceremony. The night of the wedding, Kyung consummate their marriage, with little or no help from Monty who is too awkward to make the first move. Kyung does this out of boredom and obligation to her new husband who paid her way from another country. From this moment everything goes downhill from there.
Monty has always wanted a beautiful Oriental woman to wait on him hand and foot in a traditional manner, fulfilling all the lustful fantasies of a stereotypical Asian wife. At first Kyung, is not sure of herself and she's not even sure what she wanted to get out of the marriage.
As time passes, the more Kyung learns about her husband Monty, the less she likes him. Kyung's life consists of wifely duties and listening to Monty's older companions complain about her health problems.
Later on Kyung tries to have her own life, and after meeting Eve, who's half-Chinese as quite outspoken, takes some classes at a local art school. In art, she discovers her own beauty and ability to express herself. Eve does not repress a single thought especially when it comes to Kyung's husband. Kyung finds herself with a new role model, and a friend. Monty is beside himself with the idea of losing his wife, and all of his stereotypical ideas of Asian women. Kyung tires to explain her interests, and her new found passions trying to involve Monty, but he wants to live his life on his terms. He doesn't want a better life; he wants his toys, his comics and his mail order bride.
Kyung realizes that her life with him will never improve. She responds by treating her husband with cruelty, and she does not pretend that she likes him or that she will tolerate Monty and his childish behavior. When Kyung and Eve decide to take a road trip, Kyung was going to run away from home, but when she is betrayed by Eve she returns back to her home. Upon arrival she destroys the toy shop, and as Monty returns home and discovers the damage, they fight while yelling profanities at each other. The story ends with a miserable Kyung, trapped in the life of a mail order bride, fulfilling all of her husband's wishes.


2.) Some main issues, themes or ideas addressed in Mail Order Bride are dealing with the stereotype of Asian women being submissive and obedient. Kalesniko dealt with many stereotypes, also including the geek which challenges the image of the successful business man, which Monty is, but does not illustrate many professional, business like qualities. The author deals with peoples insecurities and how they play out in real life. I think one of the central ideas in this graphic novel is the lack of communication between Kyung and Monty. There are many other themes and ideas, but these are the ones that stood out.

3.) The visual style used within the Mail Order Bride novel includes the use of simple drawings of the characters, in contrast his detailed surroundings gives a clear idea of the tone set and how important the complex details of the background play into the graphic novel. Also, Kalesniko uses two methods of his drawings, very thin delicate lines with detailed precision, and dark thick lines that make the images more abstract.

Persepolis 1 & 2

1. Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis 1 and 2, tells her story of growing up during the Cultural Revolution in Iran during the 1980’s. Throughout Persepolis 1, we learn and experience the history and background of the revolution through Marjane’s childlike viewpoint. At the beginning of the story, the Iranians successfully protest against the shah’s rule, but their newfound freedom doesn’t last for long. They soon find themselves rebelling and having to deal with the new, restrictive lifestyle changes imposed by the Islamic fundamentalist regime that soon takes over the country after the downfall of the shah. Marjane’s story is one of bittersweet memories. The readers share her feelings of sorrow and horror when her beloved uncle gets executed and her close friend dies in a bombing but we also celebrate with her when she finds creative ways to rebel against the regime. At the end of Persepolis 1, however, her parents decide it would be better to send Marjane to a French school in Austria. Marjane leaves Iran, and spends most of her teenage years in Europe experimenting with drugs and learning about love in Persepolis 2. Marjane appreciates her individual and social liberties in her new environment, but nevertheless experiences an identity crisis as she struggles to fit in with her peers. When she returns back to Iran as an adult, she finds some happiness, but ultimately decides that the “Iran of today” is not right for her. At the end of Persepolis 2, she leaves Iran for good.

2. Some themes, main ideas, and issues in Perspolis 1 and 2:

Finding and defining one’s identity.

East and West (cultural differences)

Class differences

Political conscienceness

Importance of education/self-education

Anti-war themes

3. Satrapi often uses black backgrounds and outlines her characters and objects in white, effectively creating a dark atmosphere that is appropriate for a war-time story. Occasionally she would break up the traditional structure of the 9 squares per page and insert in larger and longer panels that lean towards a more interpretive understanding of an idea or an event. In these panels, Satrapi often uses geometric patterns and fluid lines to emphasize the emotions and feelings of her childhood. In addition, Satrapi uses symbolic images, such as stairs or slap hand marks to further assist our understanding of a theme or main idea in her graphic novel.

Shutterbug Follies

This graphic novel follows a young girl names Bee, who works with photo development in the city of New York. While developing pictures for a "crime scene investigator" she becomes suspicious of the graphic pictures. She decides to investigate on her own. Using the help of a taxi cab driver and a few friends she scurries around New York following the man, Oleg, in his Russian Mafia type adventures, eventually getting a little too close for comfort. She finds herself in the house of Oleg as he catches on her to spying and after an intense action scene manages to get herself out of the sticky situation and Oleg into jail.

Some themes and ideas, I would have to agree with Lori, is defenetly the city experience and atmosphere which allows Bee to investigate. Like in the City of Glass, the city creates a setting in which Bee can follow Oleg without being completely obvious. Another theme was the detective style and action.

Another theme I saw, which ties into his visual techniques, was the theme of photograhy. Many of the frames were creatively drawn in a fish eye lens or in a photo negative. Also the shape of the book itself was inventive, a long horzontal frame with a hardback.

The visual style was like a cartoon comic book with lots of bright colors and the use of creative frames. There were also many pages that did use words, so on the picture did the talking.

Maus I and II

1) Art Spiegelman’s Maus I and II is about a Jewish Auschwitz survivor named Vladek, recounting the horror of WWII for his son Art Spielgelman, who uses his father’s history and experiences by creating a powerful adaptation of his story through the medium of comics (graphic novels). Vladek’s story for his son spans his life before the war (though just before the German invasion of Poland), and continues throughout the war – he tells of how he was drafted into the Polish Reserves, becomes a Nazi POW, then escapes and spends much time running and hiding, ends up in Auschwitz, and is eventually freed and reunited with his love Anja.

2) The main issues in Maus I and II concern the experiences of the Nazi concentration camps for Jews and other POWs in WWII, the after effects of war – not only for the survivors but future generations – as well as father/son relations, Jewish cultural issues, religious issues, and history.

3) Maus I and II use a very gritty, simplistic, yet highly expressive art style. Characters backgrounds are drawn with heavy contour lines. Lighting and shading is applied through cross-hatching techniques and heavy outlining. There are many scenes with stark contrasts between white and black, with some characters presented as black silhouettes. On a final note, characters in Maus I and II are not presented as humans, but rather animals. Art Spiegelman decided to assign certain animals to certain people, for instance; Jews are drawn as mice, Germans are cats, and Americans are shown as dogs.

On a final note, there is a hierarchy among the characterizations of the various groups of animals, i.e., cats are more powerful than mice, and dogs are more powerful than cats. This is symbolic of the animal kingdom, but relates to the positions of power certain groups of people held during WWII.

Palestine

1.) Joe Sacco's Palestine is about his travels in Israel. He travels all over to see the oppression that is put on the Palestinians by the Jews. On his travels he interviewed many people that had been displaced by the occupation of the Jews and their experiences with the Jewish military, while making friends as well with some of the people he met. Some of the people were very reluctant to give him any information for fear of him being a Jewish spy instead of a real American Journalist. Throughout the graphic novel Sacco also experienced some of the fear that the Palestinians felt when the Jewish military would go by because he felt he may be struck by a stray rock or bullet in the cross fire.

2.) The main issue of the graphic novel is the misunderstanding of two different "cultures". Issues include, faith in ones own religion/culture, oppression by others and identity. The ideas the novel creates is that there are always two sides to a story, people will always talk about something but not many will actually follow through, and that many people will treat others how they were treated once.

3.) The visual style of the graphic novel is simple but very effective. Sacco uses enough words to tell us what is happening in the pictures, but also not enough so that we must pay attention to the visual pictures as well to get the full story. In his visuals he has many people doing many things. His pictures seem to be very complex. This helps by showing the emotions of the Jews and Palestinians and they treated each other, and because we see something we can believe it is more real than if we just read it, whether it be a drawing or a photograph. Also Sacco makes the panels of the novel more scattered and speech bubbles more confusing and harder to read in a certain order when violence seems to take place, just like how the streets would be when violence breaks out and there are people running and fighting in all different directions, chaos.

Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened

“Time,” my short story from Postcards, tells the story of an old man and his true love. The postcard that this story is written about reads “Dear Myrtle, now don’t get brain fever trying to figure out who this is from. Just think apple cake + lemon slice & you got it.” This postcard represents an important turning point in the old man’s life. He had fallen in love with one of the waitresses, Myrtle, and he used the postcard as a valentine to tell her how he felt. While their love story had a happy ending, the old man’s story is not as uplifting. He claims that he no longer has anything to live for, and has a feeling that he is about to die. Instead of being upset about the situation, the old man passively accepts his situation and welcomes the idea of being with Myrtle again.

This short story addresses themes of love, age & youth, satisfaction, and change. Visually, it is generally solemn in mood, with the old man’s character rarely smiling. The author is constantly changing the scope of the panel, zooming in on certain aspects and panning out on others to emphasize times that the old man is the center of the idea and other times when he is observing the situation. The number of panels used varies throughout the story, but there are typically three rows of panels on each page. The fragmentation of Dialogue and thoughts are represented in a few ways, with dialogue in bubbles and thoughts generally in rectangular boxes. Thoughts are also frequently fragmented by the panels and boxes, which helps to isolate certain ideas and organize the general flow of the story.

PALESTINE

1) Joe Sacco's Palestine is a graphic novel depicting his travels through Israel---the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and his chats with displaced Palestinians along the way. This graphic novel didn't really have one story to follow...sure the overflowing story was his trip and his travels, but the main bulk of the novel was broken down into other people telling the stories. As in City of Glass, authorship is played with, but knowingly so. Sacco goes the whole book "narrating" the stories of the Israel occupation of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, focusing on individual Palestinians' accounts of terror or militant run ins.

2) Main theme, Issues, or Ideas: I think that one of the main themes or ideas to recognize is, of course, the play with authorship. Sacco is using other people's stories, in effect, to create his own. The role of the city is apparent in the fact that these people (the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, or anywhere for that matter) are confined to the "city" or lack thereof because of these miltary occupations not letting them out for education or hospitals or anything. In this case, the Palestinians are establishing their cultures within the confines of the city, the kids are growing up and have no opportunities to expand their minds.

Another theme, to me, is the conveyance of expressions and emotions through the visuals. Which i will go into in the next section.

To my group: Please expand more on the themes issues and ideas and help me out. :)

3) Description of Visual Style: The visual style in this graphic novel is not highly interpretive as in Paul Auster's. Mainly, the pictures convey what exactly the speech bubble is talking about. No hidden meanings as far as I could see. However, if you look closely, you notice the expressions on everyone's faces as clearly establishing some message. As for our "narrator", Joe, you may have noticed that his eyes (and his main expressions) are hidden behind his glasses, his real eyes are never shown.

I also noted that during extremely chaotic moments, as in a fight breaking out, the panels become scattered and confused, mirroring the emotions, or they just disappear entirely and its a mass of pictures to interpret.

If someone is telling an important story, or it is extremely graphic or painful, there are more panels to a page. Say, 12 instead of 5. It progresses us panel by panel so that it soaks in to us more immediately as a reader and we can be more involved.

To me this graphic novel is all about emotions. A picture is worth a thousand words, and things such as the ones that Sacco speaks of are more impactive with the aid of a picture.

Postcards: True Stores That Never Happened

Postcards is really a collection of short stories done in graphic novel format (more or less it's a collection of short comics). The stories were all inspired by real antique postcards collected by the book's editor Jason Rodriguez. As the plot and visual style of each short is entirely different from the next, our group has decided to have each person post about one story that they truly enjoyed.

My short story was entitled "Quarantined". The story was developed by Jason and RJ Rodriguez and the illustrations were done by Seamus Heffernan. The postcard that this story is based off of is difficult to read, but to the best of my knowledge it reads, "... freind, I received your card this morning and will say that I am not afraid of the quarantine. If you can come when you said on Sat... " This somewhat mysterious letter is turned into a plot about a doctor caring for the people of his town that have contracted a horrible disease. At the beginning of the story the doctor's wife dies of the disease and it seems that he and his young daughter are some of the only people around without the illness. After the daughter wanders into the tents where the doctor is treating his patients he realizes that it is unsafe to keep her with him any more. He writes to his brother who lives in a nearby town and arranges to meet him on the edge of the woods where the quarantine isn't guarded. There, the doctor says goodbye to his daughter and gives her to his evil-looking brother who obviously does not like the doctor. Here the story ends.
The themes in this story are that of loss, hopeless despair and immense self-sacrifice. The doctor's world falls apart at the seems as he loses all that he ever cared for. He cannot save his wife from her crushing illness anymore than he can save his daughter from the clutches of his wicked brother.The doctor must give his daughter up in order for her to be safe; yet in doing so he loses his one last love.
The visual style in this comic captures the atmosphere produced by the morbid subject matter. Faces near melt off the character's portraits, making it difficult to discern whether the person is crying, or just weighed down my the overwhelming circumstances that surround them. The lighting is dim no matter the scene. The characters are illuminated by eerie glows that enable the reader to think of them as ghosts rather than living creatures. The story and visual style work together to create the horrible world that this short takes place in.

Shutterbug Follies

Shutterbug Follies, written and illustrated by Jason Little, follows Bee, an 18 year old film developer living in New York. Her interesting days of film developing become even more interesting when Oleg Khatchatourian drops off film to be developed. Although used to being exposed to somewhat graphic pictures, Bee is horrified at the images she develops of murder victims for Oleg. Bee becomes suspicious that Oleg is not only photographing the murder scenes but causing them as well. She embarks upon her own private investigation, being aided with help from a girlfriend, a taxi driver, and an assistant of Oleg. Bee puts herself in danger by proving that Oleg indeed is a murderer only to find herself in a tight spot (in a file cabinet actually). With the help from her taxi driver friend, Bee manages to escape danger and Oleg is caught.
Because the storyline takes place in New York, the city and its inhabitants play a key role in the plot. The characters all seem to be somewhat stereotypic of those found in a city of New York. Taxi drivers, tattooed friends, immigrants in crime circles, and even ethnic cuisines are all typecasts of a cultural smattering in the city.
Shutterbug Follies is (from what I saw in Odegaard) one of the few graphic novels that uses color. The colors seem to parallel scenes—the dark room is red (danger), the store is green (perhaps mellow), and the night scenes/chase scenes are in muted tones. The book also presents film to look like film, pictures to appear as Polaroids or other styles of prints, and video surveillance shots to look like monitor screens.