Berlin

A book is a book.
However I am enjoying this one. I like the Historicity of it, not just fact but emotions of the moment. I think capturing the style of life during a historical moment is difficult for a historical text to do, but any art piece makes it more comprehendible. Berlin compiles two of the most complementary forms that allow for emotional expression, art and literature. I think the novel should be assigned in history classes that cover WWII instead of dry historical articles. It would be refreshing and educational for the class.

Random Post

Its beautiful out and I do not want to be studying or working right now, I bet everyone else feels the same in the class. I find it hard to work when spring is finally here and tests are starting to pile up again. Finals is going to be an atrocious time. One this is though at least  for this class I can go outside and type my posts or read the books. Many other classes, the homework and studying required is too difficult to maintain on the Quad, So I end up stuffed into a small little cubicle in Granger Library still as pale as I was mid December studying for some godforsaken Chemistry, Bio, or English class. We need more than a week off this semester... 

Thanks to this class though I have an excuse to get out of the library and have some kind of fun. 

Proposal

So I cannot make it to class today because of an exam mixup in my Bio. Class that had to be worked out. I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out what specific historical event that involved iconography i could focus on for my paper. I wanted to do a short walk through history discussing the importance of Images, but it would be too broad. Therefore I need a specific event or time period to work on. If anyone has any suggestions that would be great! 

Here are 2 of my main ideas. 

- the first written language- cuneiform ( argue then that our letters are infact just symbols) 

- the egyptian period/ rossetta stone 

Thanks in advance for your help~ 

Fun Home

So Fun Home. 

I kinda liked it. I felt that the novel could have expanded more in many places and the end though powerful was rather flat. I did enjoy the allusion to icarus though. I also question the validity of the story/plot. When we first started this class, I read blankets and assumed that it was an entirely fictional piece,  because thats what comics were to me, fictional cartoons. Not until the very end did i realize that the craig from the book was Craig Thompson the author. By reading the novel this way it made all the unbelievable aspects of the work more acceptable for me, because in my mind it was a work of fiction. After i had the realization that it was a memoir, it was too late for me to start questioning details because I had already finished. This was not true for Fun Home, i knew from the beginning that this was supposedly the true story of her life. I felt that it was believable for the most part, but some of the crucial details, such as the diary and the letters, made me question the reality of the work. I would like to know if those were real objects she wrote the story from, and if they were did her re-reading of those texts change her outlook on the story and alter the way she remembered her father and her childhood? Could things really have been as bad as she expressed at the beginning if at the end her father was "always" there to catch her? 

Some of these questions popped into my head as i was reading and it disturbed the flow of the plot for me. I think it is better, if you are looking to enjoy the work, to read it as a work of fiction or semi fiction in-order to accept the unreal. 

 Overall it was a controversial peaice becasue of the topic and the possible ramifications of the text to those still living and i think the book tried to tiptoe around that fact leaving out important ponts that could have enhanced the plot, but its understandable .

Thats my final take on Fun Home

Fun Home

Meh, I can take it or leave it. I would not recommend it to any of my Friends where as I have lent out both Watchmen  and Blankets already.

I am looking forward to talking about the Final project though, I hope it is open ended so we do not have to do an essay. I think this class is a rather creative way to form a writing class with both online writing and in class writing and many different styles. When I signed up for a class about writing I expected like 5 essays and 2 in class essay/exams. Dare I say, I was pleasantly flabbergasted, 1 because there was really no essay writing involved, and 2 we were doing things I had not imagined i would write in college, LIke this blog and a manifesto and a comic. How cool. Everyone who asks what my 300 class was, kicks themselves when i tell them because they took some normal dry English course that they barley remember. I on the other-hand will remember this class for a long time to come because it has expanded my range of writing abilities. 

Fun Home

I have enjoyed reading fun  home thus far. The artwork is my favorite out of all those we haver read, its not to complicated but not overly simplified.  The colors are especially interesting and bring much to the page with out being robust like the distracting colors of Watchmen. The black line art with a gray-green watercolorish wash is very unique, well unique to me as my field of knowledge when it comes to graphic novels/ comics is limited. I did a little research on the book because I have been enjoying it and I discovered that the author, Bechdel, both wrote and illustrated Fun Home over a series of seven years. She would take a photograph of her self dressed as the character she was about to draw and then draw from that photo. I think that is such an ingenuitive manner in which to find inspiration for the characters movement and look. 

As well while researching I found many different covers for the book. I think they are all interesting but the one we have fits the most I believe. 

Mini Comics

We looked at a few groups Mini comics today! I loved them all. The art and creativity that went into each one was impressive. I think overall it was a great project and I throughly enjoyed the results. Each incorporated an individual flare to the comic production just as the novels we are reading have their own artistic nuances( even if they are by the same authors). Each comic was well put together and emphasized the importance of cooperation and collaboration to the development of comics. Moreover the morals that each presented were creative and unique i think that requiring that "ah ha!" moment in the assignment was insightful because it made us as creators think outside the box more. 

I enjoyed the constructive critizim of our groups work and everyone else's, I think the class is respectful while remanning opinionated. I look forward to sharing more works in the class. 

I can't wait to see the rest of the grooups works!