Web Comics!

I read A Year in Waiting by E.K. Weaver and I really enjoyed the comedy and vulnerability she showed and how bluntly she told her story. I related to it a lot, having worked in customer service myself for a long time. I’ve had jobs where I went to sketchy places and sold vacuums door to door and ones where I cleaned college dorms and bathrooms, yet working retail was the worst job I’ve ever had and I noticed a lot of similarities between that and her job as a waitress. I think that’s what made this comic so compelling. Nobody really talks about the horrors of customer service and a lot of the time the people working those jobs are seen as incompetent, when in reality it’s a lot of hard work and is extremely demanding. Also, as she showed, a lot of the workers have side jobs or are students on top of being a part of the wait staff. Her drawings really emphasized for me how exhausting that type of work is. Especially the part where she drew her “Care-o-meter” being depleted after a long shift. You really don’t have any room left to care about anything after working somewhere that makes you smile for 8 hours straight. I think her comedic approach to the her depressing job was really admirable and the fact that she made such a great comic about it is really inspiring.

For this week I decided to post a comic I made in Comic Club a little while ago. It isn't related to what I read but I thought I would take this opportunity to post it online. We all made comics inspired by the themes of "Florida Man" and "Weather" and published them in a little zine we sold at Paper Jam. This course really inspired me to experiment with comics and their form. Before I always found making comics really intimidating but seeing all the different ways that people approach it through the readings in this course has really inspired me.

Link:

https://tapas.io/series/freaking-florida

Watchmen

Reading Watchmen and Batman the Killing Joke really made me rethink my opinions on superhero comics. I’ve written them off for a long time as all being the same old cliché story but these two comics actually really captivated me. I think the premise they both have of superheroes and villains being real people makes them far more relatable and creates a deeper storyline. I liked how in Watchmen the characters were all normal people who chose to become superheroes who are now all retired. I really found the end of the first issue interesting with the autobiography of Hollis Mason, which recounted why he chose the path he did. It was super interesting to read this huge monologue from the point of view of the character that really dug into his past and what lead to the decisions he made. I found the opening really awesome with his bit about the cashier that wrote romance novels and how he took her advice in writing about something to make the readers sympathize with him. I was not expecting him to tell the story that he did! The poor guy who killed himself was a really dark turn in his story but it made the seemingly untouchable superhero character far more human and gave him some fault. After reading Batman the Killing Joke I wrote in the assessment that I wanted even more of that depth from that comic. I really enjoyed the parts where we delve into the Joker’s past and his psyche. I think the best part of how Watchmen approached this with Mason was that they did it in prose. I thought that method was far effective in really delving into his thoughts than doing so in comic form. While I think it would’ve been interesting in comic form I don’t think it would have allowed them to dive as deep, because it would just take so much more time to draw a panel for every sentence written in his autobiography. I think that in Batman the Killing Joke, while the flashbacks of the Joker were incredibly well executed and intriguing, I was left just wanting to read more about him. I wanted that autobiography that Watchmen provided.

This One Summer by the Tamaki cousins

Reading This One Summer I was reminded a lot of my own pre-teen years. It was super relatable to me. I think that’s a really confusing time in everyone’s life and the Tamaki’s did a great job portraying that with Rose’s erratic behavior and tumultuous emotions. I found it interesting that although this was a comic about women, written by women, the main character was so sexist at times. But it actually made a lot of sense. I think a lot of women go through a time where they are sexist because of some sort of weird mix of self-hatred and what society tells us is wrong with women. It’s easy to deny your own identity as a woman in hopes to be “different” from women you perceive as sluts or women you perceive as stupid. Like how Rose sees the older girls as sluts and the women in the movie as idiot girls who only make it harder for the men. I think her hatred towards them was bred from society’s stereotype of “slutty” or “stupid” women and her own insecurity in not wanting to be seen as that. She really rejects her gender throughout the comic and projects her hate and insecurity on those around her. You can tell she doesn’t really see Jenny as a person but rather just as a slut in her way. Obviously, this behavior also had a lot to do with her difficult family situation, and I don’t think Rose is a bad character; in fact, I think this flaw is what makes her so believable and relatable. I know I’ve gone through times when I’ve been judgmental of other women because of my own insecurity and fear of being seen as less than human. Being seen as a sexual prop or as incompetent is a huge fear of mine, and I’m sure many other women too. It was cathartic to read about Rose’s evolution through that time and past it. By the end of summer, you can see she’s changed and is now accepting and caring for herself and the women around her. It was refreshing to read.