Jet's comments (member since Aug 25, 2008)

Jet's comments from the On Reading Graphic Novels group.

All very good points. I just want to point out that I am not saying that your students are shallow, I am saying that Marvel and DC (and any other formula following superhero publisher)stifle creativity (in their readers and their artists and writers) by revisiting their most popular storylines again and again.
Adam and Brady, I should not have flamed you like that, it is ridiculous not to expect pedantry in a discussion titled "Are you a teacher?". Please accept my apologies. Your concerns lie with getting your students to think about literature whatever the means.
I am concerned about the comic form and it's status as an outsider art. I guess all of this recent cultural validation of comics has gotten my dander up. But hey, it seems to be working in Japan and France where comics are respected,so maybe I'm wrong about this.
It's just that comics, to me, belong in that same category as the literature they don't teach in schools, something too dangerous for mere students to be reading and I think we might lose some of that thrill when we start assigning papers on them. Then the student's opinions are subjugated by the instructor's red pen and I think that all literature suffers from that.

So those are the comics, oh sorry, "graphic novels" I should check out to understand this newfangled cultural phenomena. Thank you sir, may I have another?
Look at my profile pic, do I look like I don't read comics (you know comics, the things between the pages of the "graphic novels"). Did I just happen to wander into the On Reading Graphic Novels group of Goodreads, a website about books, while looking for the latest lolcats? Are you a teacher? Do you patronize your students like that? Just toss off a half remembered "best of" list from People magazine followed by a non sequiter; "...comics are a form, not a genre." ???
You know I liked the first version of McCloud's Understanding Comics but I feel that he lost touch with reality when he reissued it with his bizarre cyberprophet finale.
What part of BareFoot Gen really moved you? Have you even read it? And what about Maus' "dense narrative full of rich symbolism," What does that even mean? It's about a father and a son, there are maybe four different locations and only three main characters. How is that dense?
This is why comics should not be in the schools. As soon as the teachers get their mitts on them the mummification of the form will begin. Next thing you know there will be an annotated Love and Rockets and you have to get a degree in "Graphic Literature" before you can publish anything and where will comics be then? In the Grave.

Ultimate Spider Man #'s 7-12 is trash not because it is a superhero comic you haute culture snob, it is trash because it is a tired retelling of a story from last century. It would be like if Shakespeare just kept writing plays about Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and then he wrote a crossover where Puck fights King Lear.

I don't know, I'd be kind of wary of some of the things they call Graphic Novels nowadays. Rick Geary's done some great adaptations of the classics but most of what's on the market is the graphic equivalent of Danielle Steele or Dan Brown. What if a student wants to do a report on Ultimate Spider-man #'s 7-12 collection or something? It's like granting them a license to be shallow.
One of the best things about comics when I was growing up was their total absence from the classroom. Comics should keep at least one foot in the gutter don't you think?

Despite having enjoyed the movie immensely, about two hours in I couldn't help but think it would have made a better miniseries.
Oh sure, I got a chill as the film revisited essential panels and the story moved along as briskly as possible but I couldn't help noticing the omissions; the loss of the entire pirate comic subplot, the winnowing of the psychiatrist's role, the newsstand story ... ... all of these digressions served the greater narrative by taking you out of the main story for a page or two while reinforcing key themes.
The ending was disappointing as well but I won't spoil it by saying why.
In short, great graphic novel, good movie, even better 12 hour miniseries (seriously).

I've also sent you an email.

jessica abel has been doing some good stuff lately, also try alison bechdel's fun home. joann sfar has some really good stuff in trnsltion and speaking of the french try david b's epileptic.
Crumb punk? i don't think so more like crotchety old man.

i second the dungeon series and third ghost world.

also try love sucks and la perdida by jessica abel.

love sucks by jessica abel and some other guy. great teen read but there is some blood.

The Rabbi's Cat by Joan Sfar, epileptic by david b and fun home by alison bechdel. be warned though, these books are not for fanboy supahero lovers. they deal with adult themes.
Watchmen as mentioned above. anything by Eisner. Bone if you like fantasy. Ode to Kirohito on the manga side of things (another adult Graphic Novel).
I gotta say, i read the first SiP book and i didn't care for it at all so i don't know how helpful this will be to you.