MM Nov 12

Gabriella Pastor

In class today, we learned about graphic novels which are longer, more complex single works of sequential art conceived or developed as a unified work, from periodical comic books. The book we are about to start, Watchmen, is considered a classic text and has several stories within the story. Later, we went over how to read and interpret graphic novels; we formed five groups and were given a handout that had three pages of a graphic novel on it and were told to focus on how many panels each page had, the form and sizes of the panel, as well as the content depicted within it. We were also to identify a relationship between the visual form and the narrative content of the pages. The story followed a character named Daisy Kutter who owns a general store. We discussed the cartoon and as a class said that the colors of the panels reflected the mood of the characters, and that the larger panels tended to set the scene while the smaller ones showed more detail or were action shots. Also, that in general the graphics enhanced a story that perhaps would otherwise be boring. In addition, we realized that you generally go from left to right to read these panels but sometimes you go down first instead of going to the next right one. We then went off on a tangent about movies and the class tried to convince Dr. Mathur that we should just watch movies for the rest of the semester and give up on reading…it didn’t work. We did get to watch some YouTube videos though, the first was a Marvel Movie Tribute and the second was DC Comics Superhero Movie Trailers. After watching the videos we discussed the differences between the characters or superheroes from DC to those from Marvel. Batman, Superman, and the Watchmen, are all DC characters whereas Spiderman, Daredevil, X-Men, Hulk, Ghost Rider, Blade, Iron Man, Fantastic 4 are all from Marvel. We compared and contrasted DC from Marvel and decided that they perhaps target different audiences. We also said that the characters from DC may be more emotional and complex while those from Marvel are perhaps more relatable as they usually go through some experience that leads to them receiving their powers.