Understanding Comics

I really like that in reading this book that I can relate a lot of it back to the things I need to know for my Graphic Design courses. Especially the part about making Icons. It really did help me understand why icons work so well. But I must say that I find it fascinating when he was explaining why he drew himself in such a simplified way. He's right it does make it easier for me to listen to what he is saying. It is so much easier to relate to the character and to become apart of the character. As I'm reading that I just keep thinking how it doesn't really matter what the show is we all pick out a character or characters that we relate to the best with and we take on their roles as our own because we understand the character so much as to say we are them. I never really thought about that being something that was strived for in a story but it really does make sense because we really only invest into something that relates to us and makes us eventually feel better about ourselves and our surroundings. Icons give us something else to look up to, they give us role models to follow, but really only by giving them an outline. We fill them in to be exactly what we want them to be. I really enjoyed the way that he talked about closure, and explains how time moves in comics, stories and movies. It was kind of comical how he uses the scream and relates it to being a scary moment in history. It's just so nice how he relates to history and explains it, and I love that he only uses color when they are actually talking about color. The book really helped me understand more about what was going on with comics, and how they work and what makes them work, and why they work.

Ernst

1. It's almost like the woman is trying to scare the rooster off an egg, or maybe that they are having some sort of a contest.
2. Rooster at a funeral? I think it is very entertaining that there is a rooster in each of these panles.
3. They now barry the woman, she is so beautiful, but in a land of rooster, it seems to be even more tragic because of this. She has heavenly angels and rooster watching over her.
4. It seems that the first tragedy of the woman dyeing has caused everyone else to go down as well. Yet the rooster man and a rooster faced man still stands over her.
5. Did this woman get clucked to death. Two rooster in this one, maybe they were having a cock fight, and the woman got in the way. A rooster faced man comes in the room and finds her in a pile of blood on the floor.
6. A very tall man and a woman seem to be singing and dancing. With the rooster (fate) hiding behind the door waiting for the right time to strick. It doesn't seem to me that these 2 people shall go on living after the other panels. If there were any more I would expect to see the woman dead on the floor very soon.

The Arrival

I really enjoyed reading the Arrival it was interesting and I thought it was really amazing the way that just by showing the story in pictures could get the whole story across. I think what I loved most about it was that this book can be understood by many different people who speak many different languages. Everyone has family struggles, and the family struggle that is shown here was really common for the time that the book was set it. But through time, meeting new people, seeing new things and a lot of hard they all get to be happy again. The illustrations were beautiful I loved how they represented framilar places to me but that they were still abstract enough to be an unreal place of mystery and different beauties.
The book was really consistant everything followed the grid, which made the flow of the images easy to follow. I especially loved how when the man from the beginning of the book with the wife and daughter, when he is on the boat and they show time pass, by showing weather, and differences from light and dark in coloring to show the passing of days.