Childhood Cartoons

Yesterday, I was reminiscing about the cartoons that I loved when I was a kid. The main two that I read religiously were Garfield and Peanuts. Garfield was created by Jim Davis and Peanuts was created by Charles M. Schulz.

 As a kid I would always love to read the newspaper for the comics and read Garfield. The comic is about a car named Garfield who goes about his daily life doing whatever it is he likes. Some of the things he does is: eat lasagna, annoy Jon (his owner), mess with Odie (Jon's dog), and sleeps. Honestly, I loved Odie. When I was little until fifth grade I had a stuffed animal of Odie and I slept with him every night. Reading these comics brought back good memories. Unforutnately, one day my Mom accidentally sold Odie in a garage sale. It was one of the saddest days in my life.

Another comic I read when I was a kid was Peanuts!! This comic was hilarious and I absolutely loved Snoopy. Charlie Brown was a kid who went about his daily life trying his best to do anything, but somehow he just couldn't do it, mess up, or Lucy would trick him. Reading this comic helped me be more persistent and determined to do my best even though I would mess up sometimes. Essentially it taught me to never give up... and to get a beagle named Snoopy. Ha ha.

Both comics are amazing and I wouldn't have made it through childhood without reading them. They kept me entertained and out of trouble... for the most part.

Bride of the Water God by Yun Mi-kyung

I've read Bride of the Water God before and this semester I reread it for manga week. In class we were talking about manga and anime. One of my favorites to read was Bride of the Water God. I was surprised to find out that there were other types of asian graphic novels. During manga week, a group of students and I presented about Korean manhwa. While researching for the presentation, I fond out that Bride of the Water God wasn't manga, but in fact Korean manhwa. Learning something new every day. It was a weird feeling to find out 5 years later that it was Korean work and it is called manhwa and not manga. Both similar but different in some ways.

I love this series because of the folk tale that it includes. In Bride of the Water God, "The story of Habaek is one of the oldest myths in Korea and tells of the god of the great Yalu River." The main female character, Soah, was set up to marry someone in the village that she lived in but every year the village picks out the prettiest girl to sacrifice to the Water God, Habaek. Unfortunately, she was the one that was chosen to be sacrificed. The Water God ends up saving her. This manhwa entertains as well as educated others about the tall-tale of the Water God Habaek. Stories like these should always be published to keep the tales going. Reading about other cultures' folk tales are always interesting and fun.

Overall, it's a really nice love fantasy story. Personally, many of the novels and books I read are science fiction/ fantasy/ horror/ mystery genres. It's what I enjoy and the art in this manga is so detailed and beautiful. The line work is amazing and carries your eye around the page. So far, I only have the first four of this series, but I plan to buy more. Definitely going to keep reading.

A Contract With God by Will Eisner

A Contract with God was one of the most popular graphic novels in its time. Personally, I loved Eisner’s art style in the graphic novel. His use of art style and theme would catch anyone’s attention in a second.

This kind of comic book art style carries the reader through the story with its use of vignettes and line weight. Eisner utilizes a lot of vignettes and doesn’t really focus on creating panel artwork that are very structured and geometric. Eisner uses the vignettes to his advantage to create that a sense of flow and movement while reading the story that keeps you going from page to page. His amazing use of line weight is beautiful. Eisner manipulates different hatching, cross-hatching, and bold inking to catch the reader’s attention. The bold ink indicates a hierarchy between characters or is normally the focal point in the page. A Contract with God also has really good composition in all of the pages. Eisner’s use of bold line weight and loose panels create a good sense of unity and well-drawn composition.  As always appealing compositions accompanied with creative line weight and great inking would interest any reader.

In general, sad themes in stories tend to grab more attention than happier themes. When Will Eisner picked a “young, deeply religious Hasidic Jew Frimme Herse” to write about in a super sad depressing setting people would be more attracted to it than if he were a happy-go-lucky Jew that got everything he needed. Audiences love drama and tend to dwell on the negatives, unfortunately. Also, Will Eisner’s storytelling abilities are amazing.

A Contract with God has changed the perspective on graphic novels. Before it was published graphic novels weren’t all that popular. When Will Eisner created this novel, it really boosted the name and creation of the graphic novel to “infinity and beyond.”

Overall, the comic was really good. I loved the artwork and I can only wish to be as successful as Will Eisner in creating and writing graphic novels. Definite read!