Jarod- Exploring Visual Literature

From Little Nemo in Slumberland  to Calvin and Hobbes and Krazy Kat,  so many of early comics were primarily if not entirely based around cartoons and lighthearted, shorter "strips" of comedic observation or slapstick. Involving simple stories and characters, the objective of many of these seemed to be to attract younger audiences with the cartoon characters, never delving into more serious themes, reserving those for political cartoons or propaganda. Some early recreational comics however do explore more developed characters, such as Alex Raymond's Flash Gordan, an early adventure comic that focused on themes of science fiction, romance, and even aspects of war; (though HEAVILY filtered). These early adventure comics were some of the first comics to have continuing stories over multiple issues of a comic, involving much, much longer comics rather than a traditional "strip" of panels like previous cartoon oriented comics. These adventure stories were aimed at sl...

           The point that I found to be most profound in the work was his discussion on the human imagination, and how it bridges the “gap” between comic panels, and in effect interprets everything that happens over the course of a comic. The human mind’s ability to interpret a collection of ink as a symbol of an apple or religious institution or even the IDEA of a symbol is amazing; going far beyond basic visual association. Taking something so relatively basic as seeing a recognizable symbol, (which in itself already relies heavily on the user’s ability to connect symbols to themes established) and creating a character we often project ourselves onto becomes more fascinating the more thought you put into it! All visual narrative is meant to provoke some sort of response, be it deep psychological inquiry about the nature of humanity or a quick joke about a dated, modern issue, sequential art like comics take this to extreme levels. Whether a simple strip ...

Jarod Frank Analysis of Shaun Tan’s, “The Arrival.” Shaun Tan's, “The Arrival,” is a fantastic example of conveying narrative themes and complex character interactions without the use of dialogue. Through the emphasis on gestures, body positioning, and facial expressions, we are able to “fill in” to a great degree what we imagine the characters are conveying; regardless of anything literally being said. One such fantastic example of this is when the main immigrant man is trying to find an apartment, beginning by asking another man where it could be. We see the quizzical look he local man as he looks over the immigrant, who pulls out a drawing pad and draws a bed, pointing to it. Such a natural progression of actions, reactions and continued actions are the basics of human communication, not necessarily needing words to convey an experience we all are familiar with: questioning. While the situation is mundane, the comic being able to convey this series of emotions here and n...

Notes on “The Rooster’s Laughter” Jarod Reizian Frank Page-by-page synopsis 1.      A woman in heavy cloaking dances near a rooster, likely a witch or enchantress of some sort, bestowing her magic, granting sentience and sound body to the eggs the rooster has just laid. 2.      One of the first of the “Rooster Men” watches over the dyeing woman, alongside with the original rooster blessed by the enchantress. 3.      The rooster men have a burial for their beloved enchantress, all the while studying the human form of still living humans, in particular, human females (like their enchantress). Possibly for the purposes of invoking magic to revive their beloved mother or to learn the differences between humans and human-sized bipedal roosters. 4.      The Roosters have now spent a good deal of time hiring women to pose and allow them to study them, it appears as though they are trying to learn...