Scooter Girl

Scooter Girl made me want to punch myself in the face. Going into the manga within the first few pages I could tell that it was going to be a angsty romance novel. So I tried to channel my inner girly high school self in hopes that I could come out of this manga enjoying it. I was unsuccessful I did not channel my inner girl well enough or this manga was just to much cheese for me to handle. It is so unoriginal that its obnoxious a popular boy who has it all meets a girl who he cant get and makes him fall on his ass. He tries to move away and he slowly regains his life but of course who shows up but the mystery girl that cant get and his life falls to shreds again. This whole process kind of continues until the end when he confesses that he really does like her and doesnt just want to get in her pants and they ride off into the sunset on there scooters. Ick. Throughout the manga I coninously caught myself saying things 'really...? really??'

The bottom line of this primarily being the art was nothing special the story was certainly nothing special. I could have found something much better to do with my hour that it took me to read the first volum.

Jimmy Corrigan

I really enjoyed this graphic novel, my friend who had previously had this class told me how much I would like especially being a GIC major. I kind of shrugged it off until I opened up the graphic novel to read and it really took me away. First off the style of the graphic novel is absolutely fantastic. The saturated colors that worked so well together the very architectural drawings that were placed on the page with absolute presision. It made my inner deisgn nerd very very happy. I liked the added elements as well the added pages that had complete cut outs and directions to make a pop up house, or the other that made a really cool flying device. It makes me want to go buy my own copy so i can tear the book up and end up with a cool paper air plane. There were also diagrams thrown in here and there that were very cool very graphic, structured, and awesome.

The story was very sudtle but very good, it was just about a man who is trying to reconnect with his father that he had never met before. Chris Ware did such a fantastic job making the reader really feel for Jimmy. He was so alone and sad and sort pathetic I just wanted to reach inside of the book and hug him. It almost began to be hard to read about his sad and lonely life but I couldnt put the graphic novel down. Jimmy had dreams about what his life could have been like and in a very sad and depressing way it sort of reminded me of the childish dreams of Nemo. I very much enjoyed everything about this graphic novel possibly not the feeling of pitty I had for Jimmy but I will surely be adding the Graphic Novel to my collection.

Monster

It took me a while to get back into swing of reading manga its backwards so it took effort to read. Which panel comes next kind of deal. Or reading the panels in the wrong order and getting thoroughly confused until I can sort everything out. Beyond all that I really enjoyed monster. It had a pretty captivating story. I have always liked the medical drama type show so this was kind of right up my alley. Though I suppose the story wasnt totally original surgeon with a heart who is being used by his heartless boss but, nothing is really original these days. I come across a lot of manga that is angsty teen romance, mechas, or some crazy story revolving ninjas and demons. So a sort of medical drama was a breath of fresh air for me in the manga world.
The art style was basically what I expected it to be. It looked very much like manga. Manga has its very distinct style sharp features big eyes, etc. So nothing really fascinated me about the artwork, I liked the story enough to possibly read the next volume.

King By Ho Che Anderson

King is a biographical graphic novel of Martin Luther King Jr. it followed Kings life from boyhood through college. I have no idea how accurate it was because I don't know my facts are King's life through the earlier years. This graphic novel was very wordy and it gave me quite the hard time to read it. I of course think that MLK was a great man but I not expecting a visual biography even though the title of the graphic novel is King. Reading this reminded me of high school doing a report on MLK, it bore me and slowly reading this graphic novel became more of a pain then anything else. I can understand why this graphic novel could be considered to be great especially for people who want to know more about MLK. I would actually recommend it to anyone who has an interest in MLK they would surely enjoy it. Me not really being one of those people I could have most definitely done without trying to get through it at all.

The one thing that did interest me about King was the art style. It was black and white and very bold. It reminded me of a stamp. I think it fit the sort of dramatic and bold feeling of the narrative. The parts that were in color were just as wonderful. Anderson dawned a somewhat of a impressionistic feel that greatly contrasted the black white but in a very successful way. I had heard good things about King and I really do wish I could have enjoyed it much more than I did. I think you really have to be a history buff to enjoy this one.