John Wayne's Blog

                  Protagonist in a lot of the old comics is male. Starting from the 60s, more and more female protagonist appears. Captain Marvels and She Hulk were two popular comics which the protagonist was female. I believe the female protagonist appears because of the women rights movenment.                   Carol Danvers was the protagonist in Captain Mavel. Carol was a United States Air Force officer and was a colleague of the superhero Mar-Vell. Later in the comic her DNA was fused by Mar-Vell's which made her great strength and power. Later she became Captain Mavel, and joined the  Marvel Superhero team, the Avengers.                    She Hulk was first introduce to the world in 1980 by Stan Lee. Her original identity was Jennifer Walters, Doctor Bruce Banner's cousin. She became the She Hulk in a emergency blood transfer from her cousin. But she was different from the Hulk because while became the big strong green hued superhuman, she maintained intelligence and

                I believe Comic as Contemporary literature has various defination. In the comic Fountain by Darren Aronofsky, the story is very fantasized. The art meadium is water color. The story has a huge world view, and it really jumps in a big range in a relatively short amount of narration. In the History of Violence by John Wager, the art medium is pen and ink. The story takes place in normal human world, and its much more close to really life. The narration of the story is linear, and progressive through time. Where as the Alice in sunderland by Bryan Talbot, the art medium is very unique. It is like a graphical mix shear. The story is about local historical folk tales and legends, and it takes place in North East England. In the Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Niko Henrichon. The stroy is ficinalized base upon the war taken place in Iraq. The narration is linear. There is really no defination of Comic, and comic as a contemporary literature can means a

               Battle Angel Alita is a Japanese manga series written by Yukito Kishiro. The theme of the manga series is Cyberpunk, which the human world has developed significant technological breakthroughs. Things, even human bodies, are hardly mechanized. The story happens in a post-apocalyptic era and the protagonist is a girl cyborg named Alita(Gunme), who has lost all memories and is found in a garbage heap by a cybernetics doctor. The doctor fixes and takes care of her. I like this manga series because Cyberpunk is one of my favorite styles of story. People are changed, and the world is difficult to survive. I love how advanced technology not only changes the human body parts but also changes the human mind. And the non-linear narration of the story is interesting. More and more threats are discovered, as she discovers her truth and memories. At the end it makes people think to whether the development of advanced technology is involving the people or destroying people.

                     Persepolis is a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. It is an autobiography of her childhood and adult life in Iran. During that time of her life, the Islamic Revolution was going on. And we can see in the novel that how the Islamic Revolution effected her early life. The Islamic Revolution involves lots of significant events, and one of the most significant events is overthrowing the continuous Persian monarchy under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Most of the movements were supported by the U.S. At that time, terrible things were happening. As a child, Satrapi was forced to face problem created by the political issue during that time. Such as wearing a veil, using and presenting the foreign product, and even her life was being threatened on a daily base. After reading Persepolis, I feel sympathy for Satrapi. Not only the terrible things happen, but they also don't go away because they have deeply affected her life and changed her. In the second volume, we can obviou

               Over the years living in the U.S, I have seen much differences. I am very sensitive to these differences mainly because I came from a conserved country, and In my mind, America is much more open. Besides that, I believe the greatest difference I felt between my country and the U.S is people in the U.S are willing to speak up for themselves. The book March is an example for that idea. The Civil   Rights has been a serious question for decays now. March is a comic talking about the early stage of the Civil Rights movement. The story is being presented through the perspective of the U.S Congressman John Lewis and the leaders of the Civil Rights movement. There are three volumes of March. They each talk about the same things but through a different person's perspective of view. That is a very interesting way of presenting a story because we can see how things can vary between different people with different identities.

                   After reading the Maus again, I have new thoughts in mind. I have read Maus back in high school. When I was reading the book back then, I did not like it. It is a comic talking about the German holocaust-- presenting a cruel story only using such a "simple" medium. I believed the horrible and terrible things happened in that part of the world at that time, should have been presented with something that is more "complex" and more "matured". However, I changed my mind as I read Maus the second time. Spiegelman talks about his dad's (Vladek)story during the Holocaust. How has he "lived" through and how could he be alive.                    He used rats to symbolizing Jewish, used cats to symbolizing German, pigs as Poles, frog as French, and dogs as American. I believe these are a really good symbolization of the condition at that time. Predator and prey, cat hunts the mice, and German kill the Jewish. It is very effective fo