Skip to main content

Week 9- Wide World Of Comics

For this week, I reviewed the "Valerian, New Future Trilogy," by Jean-Claude Mezieres & Pierre Christin. An epic science fiction adventure that centers around two radically different, yet very family character archetypes told in new ways. Our main male character, Valérian, a spatio-temporal agent, who fills the role of the broad shouldered, perfect square jawed hero, who travels the galaxy along his lovely female companion and lover, Laureline, an attractive redhead. But about here is where the stereotypes stop, as these characters are constantly being thrown at new challenges, often around the morality of obedience to government and other left wing ideals. The art is fantastic, constantly brimming with divisive colors and interesting silhouettes, making sure you know whose human, whose alien, and whose REALLY alien. The main purpose of the science fiction setting I found was more as an authoritative mouthpiece to display ideals about heroism, but not from a typical, combat or glory-centered point of view. Yes, there are plenty of lasers and explosions, but many a time it comes down to Valérian’s personal conflictions about un-questionably following orders, much to the dismay of Laureline on their adventures. Laureline represents, in many instances, much more than simply sex appeal, but a free spirit and thinker who isn’t afraid to tell you when something bothers her. If she disagrees with Valerian, she’ll not only speak out but take action against it, (though often indirectly), and isn’t the typical damsel in distress whose sole purpose is to be something for the male hero to save. A science fiction staple that’s been noted for decades and will continue to live on in future retellings of the same ideals, “Valerian, The New Future Trilogy," is a story that presents everything we already know in ways we never thought of prior.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 13- "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" - In class assignment

1. My initial reaction to the text I read was sadness followed by acceptance, while certainly a MUCH darker overall tone that ANY golden age Superman story, this joint collaboration by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Perez, and Kurt Schaffenberger, is a damn near perfect end to this "run" of the Superman story. Focusing on the dramatic end of Superman, the story throws all of his most, and a few of his lesser, memorable villains and allies at him at once, a sort of collage of the entire Alan Moore run with the character. As Batman later describes it, "like walking through fragments of a legend." This comic celebrates everything that built Superman, from his allies and backstory, to his bitter enemies and emotional struggles; it ties up and ends practically every loose end previously left open in previous issues of the Superman story, while also providing one massive, yet satisfying cliffhanger at the story's end. 2. I grew up loosely following various versions ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 11- Contemporary Literature

For this week, I decided on reading "Alice in Sunderland," an exploration of famous literature and how it relates to the numerous "wondrous" events that occurred at the city of Sunderland, in North East England. Specifically centering around the famous accomplished writer Lewis Carroll, this sort of biographical novel, sort of review of decades of literature is an interesting mix of art and writing styles. It explores the various connecting factors between the writer, Lewis Carroll  and the Sunderland  area, with wider themes of history, myth and storytelling. The greatest bulk of the story is told from an elderly “rabbit” performer in a near empty theatre, save one loudmouth youngster, who starts off very detached and jaded from his work and focused more on something as “mundane as age.” This relatively relatable, realistic setting as our basis for the story only furthers the imaginative themes discussed in the novel, and makes for a nice reliable background to g...
Post a Comment
Read more

Analysis of Early Comics

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...
Post a Comment
Read more