Cat Leivonen - Literature of Comics & Graphic Narrative

I grew up reading webcomics more than printed ones, so I’ve followed a few artists and platforms throughout the years. Some of my favorite series to read were by Bleedman on Snafu comics. These included Powerpuff Girls D and Grim Tales from Down Below. It was interesting to see doujinshi style fan-stories by an American creator because I was already interested in manga and familiar with that scene; I found his work through Deviant Art. Line, a popular texting app for international friends, especially in Japan, introduced me to Webtoons, where I currently subscribe to probably over a hundred different series. These usually publish weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Some have music like Siren’s Lament and some have simple animated gifs like Axed that add motion to small aspects of what might be compared to a panel. Because of the vertical scrolling format, there’s usually only one full panel of the screen at a time. Depending on the artist, webcomics might be fully colored, as most are from

  Since I had read Watchman a while ago and didn’t care much for it, I decided to instead read Kingdom Come this time around. The biblical title intrigued me. This story had a lot more scriptural elements than I expected from a superhero story. The main character wasn’t a hero, but a preacher who quoted a lot of verses and related them to the events of the apocalypse he witnessed; there were also the ideas of messenger angels and prophetic dreams. Even though supers were almost the undoing of the world, they got compared to gods several times throughout the story. The story headlined a lot of major Justice League members but mainly focused on the top three, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It had a lot of similar relationship dynamics as other comics about these characters, probably to maintain consistency. The premise of metahumans fighting for the sake of fighting without discipline or restraint, but more out of selfishness and pride, was an interesting take that reminded me somew

The comic version of this story seemed a bit lack-luster compared to the animated movie, in my opinion. Although beautifully illustrated, something fell a bit flat for me in the storytelling. Joker’s escalation didn’t seem as realistic to me in this version and the violence seemed tamer; I’m not sure if that’s because of censorship issues or what, but I preferred the animation. When Joker talked about the fragility of man in a crazy world, I understood what he meant. I’ve also experienced how easily breakdowns can happen when stress piles up. I haven’t suffered like the Joker did or been tortured like Detective Gordon, but I’ve faced other hardships and relate to how life can sometimes go against you. I think a live-action film adaptation of this would be interesting to see, but it’s hard to say because I wouldn’t want to abuse the actors. I just think some motion and music could help bring the story to life more and make the hard-hitting mental punches feel more real. This story follo

Women have as diverse and interesting comics and graphic novels as men. Each has a unique story and style.  All the stories I read also featured female protagonists, all different from each other in appearance, personality, and behavior. Femme Magnifique, translated as 10 Magnificent Women was more of a non-fiction biographical anthology about amazing women in various fields like science, art, and politics. Each story was written and illustrated by different people, so they had a broad arrangement. I was delighted to see some of my favorite inspiring figures like Mary Blair and Sally Ride. Through the Woods, an anthology by Emily Carroll, has a very striking visual language with a limited color palette featuring black, white, red, and blue; each story is like a miniature fairy tale but with a dark ending. Overall, that collection was a bit unsettling but still drew me in to read more because of the way it looked and how it was written. I sympathized with the characters and wanted to kn

 According to Joyce Saricks in “The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction”, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman epic would qualify as literature. By her definition “literary fiction often involves a concern with social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition, with a focus on "introspective, in-depth character studies" of "interesting, complex and developed" characters.” Sandman has all of these. While somewhat disorganized as the beginning of the great story, "Preludes and Nocturnes", volume one of ten, follows the king of the dream world as he recovers his powers. In the process, readers see an abuse of power that pushes people to their psychological limits. While trapped in the diner, people descend into madness by various means and we learn about each of their interpersonal struggles. Some have financial concerns, others wrestle with sexuality, and more resort to violence; the line between dream and reality gets blurred, and we can se

 When writing this manga, Osamu Tezuka had not seen the live-action movie by the same name from the ’20s; he’d only seen a still image of the main character and created his own story based on that. Later an anime adaptation was made of his version. The Metropolis manga echoed similar elements to Osamu’s other creation, Astro Boy, by having a scientifically engineered child get adopted by people and learn about humanity. Since this was a collaboration with another publishing house. Tezuka only had half a year to make it, so he combined elements from previously unpublished works, but he ended up having to cut out a lot. Michi, the main character, discovers their powers with the help of friends and has to overcome the big bad for which they were created. Tezuka’s love for Disney is evident not only in the round-eyed, soft-lined cute characters but also in the monstrous rats with the scientific name Mikimaus Waltdisneus. There were a lot of fun breaks of the fourth wall, as well, where cha