Little Nemo and More

Winsor McKay's Little Nemo in Slumberland is a full-page weekly strip depicting Nemo having fantastic dreams that were interrupted by his awakening in the final panel. The strip is considered McCay's masterpiece for its experiments with the form of the comics page, its use of color, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, perspective, architectural and other detail. When reading Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice, it was a quicker read then what I expected. For that at the end of each comic, the final panel is always little Nemo waking up from his dream. Hearing that Mckay always has Nemo wake up at the end of his comics, gave the comic artist a signature of repetition. Making the artist quit unique. His use of colors helped depict where he was placing Nemo at the time. With blues and whites gave a cold feeling, and show that he is at the Palace of Ice. His panel size variation also helped him make the comic seem more real, since it played on the timing in the story. Overall, I enjoyed the little adventure that little Nemo went on. 

Other two comics that I read were Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant! and Some Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Beaton's comics strip (394) was a little three panel comic making fun on how an american sit compared to the British. It was a nice small comic that was straight to the point. It was a black and white comic with the same panel size. It s characters facial expressions and how the comic was drawn added a humorous quality to it. Krazy Kat now it a different story. When reading some Krazy Kat in class I had a hard time reading it. Then I was told to read it out loud, then I could understand it little bit more. The comic uses slang making it unique, but could be hard for some readers to follow. Though, if the reader can not follow along through the text, they won't have a hard time following along through the illustrations. The quirky little characters makes the comic seem timeless for anyone. The use of colors too, it has a sense of old time tones of colors, but I think that adds to the old worn out jokes it features. Overall, both comics displayed a corny joke with humorous illustrations. 

Comic Theory

Not a lot of people put too much thought into the process of how comics develop or what even makes up a comic. During the development stage the artist or creator of a comic put a lot key things into thought. Like in Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics, Scott goes into what a comic really is and how it uses certain vocabulary, icons, colors, its "moment to moment", time sequence using frames, and basically other key ideas that wrap up the whole story. The most important point I feel that Scott McCloud makes about what makes a comic is the "moment to moment" or "aspect to aspect" sequence. Some comics are wordless so the panel to panel aspect is almost the comics grammar. To make a comic work, the panel-to-panel of both ideas flowing makes the story understandable to the reader, and can properly be read. I feel the time sequence plays in the same idea of this, since how many panels are repeated of something or how small or big one is also helps the reader understand how to read the comic and get what the artist is trying to do. Though McCloud likes to keep those main ideas away from each other by separating them in different chapters.

Another artist that helps explain the comic theory is Roger Sabin in his book Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels. The book talks about the development of comics from the 19th century to today's graphic novels. Sabin talks in great detail about each era take on the comic. He also supports his work with including detailed images of the comics during that time period. I think a great point that Sabin makes in his book is that the generations of comics have changed a lot over years and how now we have manga and anime more in comics then not even being a thing in the 19th century. Though, comic artists still use old tricks in new works, so the old saying "don't fix it if it's not broken." Is a great representation of old comic book tricks that still work. Like for example to use color to convey certain emotion in a panel. An oldie, but still a good goodie. 

My Response to The Arrival

When first glancing at the graphic novel The Arrival, I was nervous to see no text or words to follow along with the story. Though, surprisingly I was shocked to find out it was easier to follow along through pictures then if reading words line by line on a page. What helped a lot in the pictures was the gestures and facial expressions that the figures gave, giving us an idea what they were trying to show or say. Like when the man had to be taught of how the other world worked, a lot of the people that helped him along he way had to show him through pointing or demonstrations. For example, when the man is trying to earn money he decides to put up posters, later though other man who hired him to do this task shows him he was doing it all wrong. The man was putting the posters up the wrong way, this was shown in the surprise look in the mans face, and the aggravated look in the other man's face with the poster in his hands the right way. There are way more situations were facial expressions and gestures showed what that scene on the page was trying to convey. Another thing that stuck out to me is how the author Shaun Tan showed the changing of seasons with the transformation from the foreign flower dying slowly. It gave a nice time lapse, but also giving the reader the information that it was a different time period now. Overall, I feel like Shaun Tan captured the story of showing how foreigners feel when coming to a new place. Tan draws it like living on a new planet that almost non real to someone, and that person has to learn different things and different ways to do things, even if its odd to them. In conclusion, words were not needed in this novel, for all the images said it all.