Transmetropolitan Assessment

1. Are there any prominent symbols in the story? If so what are they and how are they used?

I believe some of the most prominent symbols in the story are the citizens in the city and parts of the city itself. One can view all of the background characters as references to what is going on with todays society and how we are evolving. An example would be the boy sitting on the stairs, playing video games and getting high off of some weird looking drug, it's almost a parody in a way.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

In some odd way I was able to connect with some of Spider's views. He as a character seems like a shut in and wanting to get away from the city and the people living in it. He believes that the people are reducing themselves to nothing but walking billboards and junkies, which is sort of true. In todays world it's mostly about what you wear and the different highs you can get, luckily there are a vast majority of people still fighting hard against it.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

If I were to adapt this story into another medium I would use an animated series to tell its story. I believe the colors and the visuals from every part of this book is important and need to be translated similarly as it is in the book. A live action movie would not work because of the vast colors would be too harsh to transfer on screen. I would barely change anything except make some of the dialogue more digestable with a slower pacing.

Maus

Maus is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, its a graphic depiction of what Spiegelmans father went through as a Holocaust survivor. It was quite interesting seeing the depiction of different races as different animals. It was an interesting piece to see how someone can take a big event like the holocaust and turn it into a graphic novel for reading to digest alot easier. I believe this novel would not work with human characters due to the fact of it being so real, the disconnect the reader gains from viewing the cartoon mice gives them a sort fresh slate and view point, the reader knows the mice are the ones who are in trouble but its from a different viewpoint coming from a cartoon. The novel won quite a few awards.

Underground Comics

This week in class we read underground comics and that was truly an experience, I was blessed with the fabulous furry freak brothers. Reading that comic was honestly hilarious and and i love how rated R it was able to get due to it being independent. It had lots of humor about controversial subjects and I am able to see as to why people associated with these comics can be seen as lowbrow and slackers. Still these comics were fun to read.

eisner / thompson

Reading Eisner's works are quite beautiful, I enjoy the emotion and fluid movements put into each panel and how painterly some pages look. I also enjoyed the video put in class where he was talking about how he came into designing the spirit and coming up with compositions. Eisner really focuses on the mood of the story and his playful typology through chapters of the spirit really sets the mood for each story.

The Comic Book

This week we talked about the comic book, I really enjoyed reading early EC comics and Tin Tin. I also read lots of the crime comics due to my love for mystery. I enjoyed being able to read all these stories from a time before the comics code and being able to understand how the comics code came to be due to these different comics.

Understanding Comic Strips

I really enjoyed reading early comic strips, I think my favorite comic strips to read were the Peanuts strips by Charles Schulz. I really enjoy Charlie Brown as a character and all the little snippets of life advice you can get from him.

The Graphic Narrative

The arrival was quite an incredible read, I really enjoyed the art and how there was no language barrier. Upon reading i was quite confused as to what was happening in the story and could only pick up a few things as to where the story was going. As the book went on I was able to understand that this was a story about a man leaving his family in order to find a better for them in another land.
My favorite part of this read was how alien everything was, it really gave a sense of how immigration would feel to a person who has never  experienced it, dealing with alot of foreign objects in an unknown land.