Emma's Comic Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve read The Killing Joke in full, probably a couple of years, but I remembered it pretty well. It makes sense since it’s so iconic. Through this re-reading, I remembered that it’s a story about how different people handle trauma. Even when Joker degrades Commissioner Gordon the whole day, even showing pictures of his daughter naked and shot, Gordon comes out of the experience sane. It’s ultimately an uplifting story about how humans survive through adversity. Joker is almost trying to convince Commissioner Gordon to become insane through logic, talking about how one can break away from all of the world’s problems by simply going mad. Interestingly, it’s up for debate how the Joker went mad in the first place: Was it through his trauma or the chemicals that he fell into?             Though it is true that somedays, I feel as though it would be beneficial to just not give a shit about the...

My reading for this week was four issues of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis Darick Robertson and it’s a romp and a half. When I started reading, I didn’t realize that it was set in the future. One thing to note is that, off the bat, this comic is raunchy as hell. The first line setting the scene is literally “Up a goddamn mountain.” It really sets up the irreverence that this character (and I’m assuming also author) have for this world. Then he blows up a bar because he has a missile launcher and he can get away with that I guess. It’s not until he gets to the tollbooth that I realize it’s a science-fiction future story. With the first shot of the city, Ellis caught my attention and wouldn’t let go.             This is a world where kitchen appliances can get high on robot drugs and people can change their species to any kind of animal, including Aliens. You can upload your brain into computers and essentially...

This week I read two volumes of Dororo by Osamu Tezuka. I had heard of it through the release latest anime adaptation, although I had never read or watched it before and didn’t quite know what it was about. I initially meant to read only one volume, but it was so enjoyable that I breezed through two. Prior to this assignment, I had been interested in Showa manga for a couple of years and have a cursory knowledge of various gag manga from the time. Tezuka’s art style is clearly inspired by European and American comics and animation, with a lot of his background characters looking like they would fit in Popeye or Asterix . Even so, the drama and action of Dororo is palpable and engaging. Hyakkimaru finding out that Tahomaru is his little brother right before he has to kill him is made effective by Hyakkimaru yelling “I didn’t have to know!” If he didn’t know beforehand, he would have had the excuse, but knowing that Tahomaru is his brother made it even more upsett...