Reading, writing, watching, and collaborating

9/13

McCloud Starts off his section by asking: “What is the secret of the icon we call The Cartoon?” (29).

I feel like that is one of the questions that we were debating in class. What is it about this Graphic Novel that allows us to Identify with the characters more than with the film? McCloud answers that by saying that we are automatically identify with cartoons as a human race because “we assign identities and emotions where none exist” (33). For me, I got more out of the comic because I was making the meaning through abstract representation of language and images, but I wasn’t with the film. The secret of the Cartoon is using human brains to their best advantage to make a point/or a story. A comic is rather ingenious because humans will start to make meaning/ understand a comic panel faster than a sentence because that is how our brains are designed. Essentially, humans are visual and special creatures. There are studies that conclude that humans with remember things by how they are laid out versus the words on the page.

I believe that is why the Memory Palace is a large memory tool taught in Psychology to explain the functions of location/ orientation in the brain. The combination of images in comics with words is relatable to the memory Palace because I believe that it plays with the same part of the brain with registration of images. (If anyone in curious about the memory palace, they can read about it in Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer)

In Creative writing, we were reading a non-fiction piece, and this quote really resonated with me in this class:

“I told the big man in the red sweater what I truly believe, that the book is out of my hands now and he’s entitled to any emotional reaction he may get from it. (I did not tell him, but I’d been thinking it, that his story with his own father might be resonating here, too.) ‘I don’t think that my old man was a prick, though’” (Puchart 335).

The reader is the interpreter, the understand-er, and can get whatever he wants out of the text—and it might say more about the reader than the author of the piece. McCloud illustrates this concept that it “says more about us then the text/medium when he says: “who I am is irrelevant. I’m just a piece of you” (McCloud 37)

9/6

Please forgive me Professor T:

I am having the worst time having anything to discuss about class this last week for a discussion post. I felt as if I wanted to analyze the texts that we were experiencing, and everyone else wanted to discuss favorites.

I understand that likes/dislikes are important part of the literary world. Most readers don’t pick up a novel for their literary “value”; they pick up a book that is going to keep them reading, and flipping pages until the end. Film is quite similar, especially when you look at television shows versus movies. If you watch a television show on Netflix, when you finish with the first episode, Netflix will automatically load the next episode without you physically clicking “next episode”. When a person is picking out a book, they are looking for a book that will make them automatically turn the page to see what happens next, It will be a programmed want, and not a “I have to read this because it should be some sort of genius”.

In class, we should discuss the differences in watching the next episode in the series vs not. This would possibly let us see what the text did to make the audience desire “the next page”, while others only fulfilled class requirements. The elements that attracted the “next-page” people hit the correct audience the first time; and me on the other hand, I am still shopping for the right book.

A side note about McCloud:

I think that using a comic format to talk about comics is really interesting, and I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it. I have never had an article like this to assist in analysis of a graphic novel.

Something to keep in mind for later:

Does a scene in a comic strip correlate with a film scene?

8/29

We All have a Favorite

Definitions are interesting things. They allow you to find an “agreed upon” meaning of a word or sound or thing. When we were in class Professor Thomas put this on the board “?ing 'conceptions' of literature (instead of Definitions)”. The plan was to break into groups and discuss the beginning of the Walking Dead. Personally, I was stuck on understanding what was on the board in relation to what we are planning to learn or focus on in the class. The largest thing that we discuss or compare is Literature and Film. The argument being that Film is another form of literature, and therefore should be “unbound” in the standard understanding of the definitions for each thing.

To help me focus on the task ahead I decided to define some Key terms in her post:

Conception:

1)a complex product of abstract or reflective thinking

2)The sum of a person’s ideas and beliefs concerning something

3)The originating of something in the mind

Definition:

1)an explanation of the meaning of a word, phrase

2)A statement that describes what something is

3)A clear or perfect example of a person or thing

Literature:

1) written works (such as poems, plays, and novels) that are considered to be very good and have lasting importance

2) Books, articles, etc. about a particular subject

3) Printed Materials (such as booklets, leaflets, and brochures) that provide information about something.

What I will be doing in this course is studying film as a text, in comparison with other genres of literature. Essentially, I will be focusing my out of class research on the phenomenon of Doctor Who. I will be comparing all the facets of literature that Doctor Who (DW) is involved in: television, comic, fan-fiction etc. I plan to delve into how different elements of DW is relatable to the other topics/readings in this class.

To start: the classic episode of Doctor Who was quite different from what would have been expected of something contemporary like the Walking Dead. The age in computerization and sound was obvious from the start. To compare The Walking Dead to Doctor Who I would start with the contemporary series with the 9^th Doctor. The elements are very different, but the importance of “running” and being smart enough to solve problems in the thick of action is a theme that is apparent in both 1^st episodes.

In class we kept focusing on what seemed realistic, fake, what characters we like/dislike, and what the purpose of each character in the text. In Doctor Who, there is the Doctor and his companion. As a general rule the two of them are the characters that travel and interact with others episodically; therefore, the only true connections built with the audience are the two main characters. (Which pulls me on a tangent---every Whovian argues about their favorite companion/doctor. Maybe that is just the first element of storytelling. We all have a favorite.)