MOCA: Alt. Comics and Marvels & Monsters

Museum of Chinese in America: Alt. Comics and Marvels & Monsters

Two exhibits in the Museum of Chinese in America

An event of 2012

Alt. Comics and Marvels & Monsters

·         The Alt. Comics portion featured artists from both the East and West Coast who are Asian American who worked on comics touching on the topic of being Asian in America.

·         They have a noted connection web where the cartoonists of the West Coast are part of a group called “Art Night.” The East Coast artists are similarly with their own connections.

·         The artists featured included Larry Hama, Alex Joon Kim, Derek Kirk Kim, Jerry Ma, Christine Norrie, Thien Pham, Lark Pien, Jason Shiga, GB Tran and Luen Yang.

·         Their art featured included works they are currently on, as with the case of G.L. Yang. Yang also worked on American Born Chinese, a graphic novel I enjoy.

·         The West Coast artists notably praise each other in their descriptions.

·         The works featured are that of the original pencils and inks with the exceptions of printed copies of the artists’ publications.

·         The gallery also included sketches the artists did in childhood.

·         Some artists are in relationships or married to some others.

·         The Marvels and Monsters portion featured an analysis on how Asians were portrayed in comics: mostly in archetype yellow face.

·         The exhibit opens with exaggerated color tones of yellow and brown colors that were used on Asian characters in comics: a noted difference from the white comic counterparts who had normal skin colors to them.

·         The archetypes covered were that of Schemers (Dr. Fu Manchu), Dragon Ladies, wise Sages, submissive women and others: all of which still has some prevalence in how Asians are portrayed in American comics and even American media today.

·         The archetypes of making the Asians look evil or lesser than their white counterparts was not limited to Chinese, as Japanese and other races of people were shown to cover the spectrum of archetypes.

·         For the Dragon Ladies, they were attractive foreigners of noted height, as they were drawn as tall as white people.

·         They included pages of Mary Marvel, the Unknown Soldier, Dr. Strange, Iron Fist and other known comics to show how Asians were commonly portrayed with a white character to introduce them. Not until recently had Asians been allowed to be the starring focus of their own in American comics.

·         If one were to wait for a guided tour, there was also an included exercise where one was to draw out your actual self versus your ideal self for Asian participants.

·         Overall, I like the exhibits and the museum and not only because I myself am an Asian American person

REVIEW: The Whisperer In Darkness (Book to Film)

The Whisperer in Darkness: Book to Film comparison

Book by H.P. Lovecraft, first published in 1930

Film created in 2011

The Whisperer in Darkness: Book to Film adaptation

·         The film is in black and white despite this being a modern movie.

·         Characters that served little purpose like Akeley’s son have more for the plot of the film.

·         The characters interact around the time of the letter exchanges as opposed to the interaction being close to the end of the tale. The letters between the Professor and Akeley were most of the parts of the book whereas the film deviates greatly.

·         The son leaves for San Diego in the beginning of the film as opposed to his leaving being already established in the book.

·         They added a character named Hannah in the film that deviate the plot in the third act.

·         The tale ends differently in the film as the Professor’s brain is taken from his body and placed in a jar as opposed to the book’s ending where it is implied that the Professor made it out safely but could still be hunted by the cultists.

·         The letters were not even narrated in the film save for the last one with the lack of paranoia. The growing madness of Akeley is disregarded in the film for the sake of narrative.

·         Despite this title being called “The Whisperer in Darkness” the film only takes the beginning part of the book as the foundation of the film and then changes the plot as the Professor attempts to fight off the cultists.

·         The DVD notably breaks off into its own fit of madness when I was trying to watch it on my laptop. Fitting given that this film is an adaptation of the Cthulhu Mythos.

·         Akeley being an alien was shown as too obvious given his change in dialogue tone as he sounds more aquatic in the film as opposed to an implied natural tone in the book.

·         They add science to the distortion of the creatures in that they finally are able to see the creatures on film as they use fancy star charting technology and tricks to see the dead carcass of one, an anticlimactic part of the mystery whether the Professor believes or not as he seems more in denial than doubtful after all the evidence until the audio recording.

·         The Professor seemed too submissive in the end to the creatures in his ending narrative given the horror of trying to leave and the implied death of Hannah.

·         Given that the film outright gives the concrete and objective details of the creatures, it is not as suspenseful as that of the subjective and flaws of the narrative of the Professor in the book.

·         The fact that the other scientists grew famous despite the efforts of the Professor seemed more spiteful.

·         The proactive nature of the characters doesn’t match the bleak inevitability of Lovecraft’s original tales.

·         The creatures look too CGI in the film t be considered scary and the effects seem too goofy, but the latter can be forgiven given the 1930’s feel of the film.

·         Overall, it was a thrilling and excellent film, even with its deviation from the source books. The fact that it was by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society gave it faith to the works of Lovecraft but the film adaptation itself is inferior to the source material in suspense.

Bibliography

Lovecraft, H. P. The Whisperer in Darkness. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2007. Print.

 The Whisperer in Darkness. Dir. Sean Branney. H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, 2011.

REVIEW: The Whisperer in Darkness (Book to Comic)

The Whisperer in Darkness: Book to Comic comparison

Book by H.P. Lovecraft, first published in 1930

Graphic Novel adapted by Mark Ellis, first printed in1991

The Whisperer in Darkness: Book to Comic adaptation

·         While the graphic novel combines elements of all of the Cthulhu Mythos, the original short story by Lovecraft only briefly touched on elements like the Necronomicon, Azaroth, and even Cthulhu himself. The main focus in the original Whisperer in Darkness short story was focused on the Outer Ones and the cult that allied with them as opposed to the followers of Cthulhu in this comic adaptation.

·         The comic is a noted sequel to the short story in that the events of the comic takes place after the short story, with Professor Wilmarth being rescued by the Muskatonic Project protagonists, who are inserted into the story.

·         The suspense and doubt of the reality of the short story is uplifted in the comic as it is clear that there are aliens and other gods in the comic, with the cult of the Outer Ones about to kill and take the brain of the Professor had it not been for the Muskatonic Project.

·         They force the timeline of the Mythos onto the beginning of the series, which took several short stories of Lovecraft and even his successor authors to build.

·         For some odd reason the end talks about the writer and editors of this comic and feature a good third of the last part of the book about the DC, Marvel and other series titles they worked on that isn’t the Cthulhu Mythos.

·         The suspense and mystery of the original book is downplayed in the comic as it becomes a thriller shooter narrative with the Project members fighting off the cult members Indiana Jones style.

·         The madness-inducing gods are notably lackluster in the depiction in the comic.

·         The priests of the cult are wearing stereotype South American blood ritual clothing in the comic, though given the depiction of other ethnicities in Lovecraft’s own work (like him noting Middle Eastern people as “Arabs” and being superstitious) this isn’t out of context.

·         The story in both comic and book take place in Vermont of all locations, emphasizing the American-centered mindset of the authors of both works despite the cross-cultural context The Great Old Ones have on the world the Mythos is based on.

·         The comic ends in victory of the protagonists as they manage to fend off an agent of Cthulhu, as opposed to the tragic end of the canon Lovecraft stories and the bleak inevitability of mankind in the cosmos in said canon stories.

·         Overall, the comic was okay but the source material is excellent.

Bibliography

 Ellis, Mark, and H. P. Lovecraft. The Miskatonic Project: The Whisperer in Darkness. [S.l.]: Millennial Concepts, 2008. Print.

Lovecraft, H. P. The Whisperer in Darkness. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2007. Print.

MoMA: The Quay Brothers Exhibit

The Quay Brothers Exhibit

A Museum of Modern Art Exhibit

An event of 2012

The Quay Brothers Exhibit

·         I liked the exhibit a lot for its macabre tones.

·         The exhibit was on two floors, the second floor and the basement, of the MoMA

·         There were noted displays of the puppets and the diagrams of the works they have made, and they also included the short films that the Quay brothers directed, animated and/or were influenced by.

·         The exhibit starts with a biography of them and their relations to their hard working mother, in addition to the artists that influenced them greatly.

·         The Quay Brothers notably studied in their home state of Pennsylvania but had to find work in England by the BBC as their work was deemed too macabre for American tastes at the time.

·         The entire exhibit was in a dark lighted room where the only light sources were from the displays with their own distorted lenses to look into or the films to which the Quay Brothers worked on.

·         The tones of the works that the Quay Brothers worked on were mostly on the macabre and the tragic, as a more horror themed work was what they were aimed towards.

·         Of the films that they worked on was the acclaimed “Street of Crocodiles” which was supposed to convey the cultural decay of the metropolitian life.

·         Other films that they did were a dance choreography work that a male and female dancer performed in the recording and several commercials with bleak themes like the tragic death of the weeds in a “Raid” commercial.

·         The figures on display had noted wiring and photorealistic eyes on the figurines, in that most of the figures were made of wires or realistic looking porcelain and had eyes which were shaped with irises and such to a fine detail.

·         They made a tribute piece to the Metamorphosis where a man became a giant cockroach and hid under his bed.

·         Most of the attending patrons were there on Friday due to an event the MoMA was hosting, but the majority of the viewers to the Quay Brothers exhibit were young adults to much older adults.

·         The Quay Brothers were in fact rejected once by the BBC for a work relating to pens that they made as it was deemed too bizarre even for British tastes.

·         One of the commercials for Doritos in a theater had a couple, a young boy and various other adults watching pornography in a nonchalant manner.

·         There were included post-modern displays as with a display of a deer with antlers sticking out of the painting and a chimney area with a viewing scope with maid shoes on the top of it where one watched a recording of a maid heating a building.

New York Comic Con 2012

New York Comic Con 2012

A New York City Comic Convention

An event of 2012

New York Comic Con 2012

·         The lines were long

·         Christopher Lloyd, Peter Davison and Adam West were guest there

·         The anime scene and dedicated areas of last year were notably missing

·         The center seemed smaller as the areas previously opened were now in repair or closed off altogether

·         Artist Alley was notably made smaller: with more space given to well named artists in the American comics business and independent artists and online artists were now missing

·         Brentalfloss, internet celebrity, was there

·         There were a noted amount of cosplayers this year: and even a Greatest American Hero (me)

·         Wii-U titles were there: including Pikmin 3 and Zombie-U for demos.

·         The artist alley was placed in an area where the previous autograph and card game areas were last year.

·         Phone reception was a nightmare in the Center past the entrance.

·         The free ticket lines were not lackluster as getting multiple ones are more difficult compared to last year, especially with the tickets being given at 8 am as opposed to the previous 5 am rush.

·         Construction made it impossible for people to get to the center normally and the entrance was forced from 34^th st to 38^th street.

·         Troma films, the creators of the Toxic Avenger, was there

·         There were a noted amount of Fiona cosplayers from the gender bending Adventure Time fan creations and a lot of Banes form Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.

·         There was a Delorean from Back to the Future, a Batmobile and a Mystery Machine where one can take pictures in.

·         The main show floor was obviously packed, especially in the gaming sections.

·         Assassin’s Creed 3 had a live demo for people to try.

·         The Capcom booth had Darkstalkers, Devil May Cry and Okami HD: the last being a noted financial failure but artistic masterpiece in gaming history. Its revival on the PS3 may be a good sign towards a possible financial success in the series.

·         There was live Harry Potter Quidditch for people to play.

·         Playstation Allstars was difficult to play given the Smash Brothers template I grew up with.

·         There was a noted lack of Power Girl cosplayers this year, possibly in protest to the dumb New 52 costume that Johns has given the character lately.

·         Ironically, there was a professional model who dedicated her theme to being Power Girl, a sort of “Professional Power Girl.”

GALLACON 2012

Gallacon 2012

A Gallatin Comic Convention

An event of 2012

Gallacon 2012

·         Gallacon was notably the first comic event of NYU.

·         As a Comic Book League member, I was the only one there

·         The three guest speakers were Daniel Ketchum (an editor of Marvel) Amy Reeder, Heidi MacDonald, and Bon Alimagno.

·         Daniel Ketchum talked of the gay marriage of Northstar and Kyle in the X-Men comics and how comics are commonly used for a metaphor for real world events.

·         Based on Daniel Ketchum, we are at least guaranteed that the marriage will NOT end with the two selling their marriage to the devil to save the life of a loved one (THANK GOD)

·         Amy Reeder and Heidi MacDonald talked of women in comic books and how there was always women in the media but they were commonly misrepresented until recently.

·         Apparently Mrs. MacDonald was put off by Power Girl’s breasts originally.

·         The gallery exhibits showed art from the Comic Book League and other artists.

·         The CBL comic issues shown were like in a format similar to a comic stack.

·         The other arts were of some random anime sketches and a more defined layout on a canvas

·         Notably Mr. Alimagno had his speech cut short due to the time the other speakers spent on their speeches

·         Based on Mr. Alimagno, specialty comic stores and even DC and Marvel Comics would more likely be in jeopardy once someone finds a working online comic format similar to iTunes and Amazon.

·         Being from the San Francisco Bay Area and having countless bookstores close in my area, this view is noted

·         In a panel from later on, an editor prefers to have sketches and layouts in photocopies and digital.

·         They prefer to have a cover page layout, a dialogue layout and an action layout of pages for reference in what people do.

·         The odds of making it big in the industry are notably limited so they encourage going to any means of distribution, being it smaller publishers or online comics read for free.

·         Writers are noted to build a portfolio by anthology writing books and collaborator works.

·         The job of editors is notably lacking in detail.

·         There were no cosplayers in the event.

·         Most of the attending were older persons.

·         Daniel Ketchum represented the LGBT community in his speech, saying that different spectrums of sexuality exists so sometimes gay characters are equally critiqued for not being ‘gay enough’ or ‘way to flamboyant.’

REVIEW: Locke & Key

Locke & Key: Welcome to LoveCraft

By Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

First published in 2008

Locke & Key: Welcome to LoveCraft

·         The book notably starts with the death of the father of the Locke family, a key figure who was implied to have had his own mystery adventures back in the day in the series

·         The girl in the well Echo (later to be revealed NOT to be Echo), reminds me much of Sadako from the Ring series.

·         The tale also notably starts with the rape of the mother, which has strained her relationship with her kids.

·         The tale is notably macabre showing the horror of the father’s astral form and the souls of the Locke children having fallen to a ‘dead’ state after going to astral form.

·         Though Echo is notably malevolent, she does keep her promises as in the end she does save the Locke family as promised to Bode and made the murderer Sam powerful by turning him into a ghost

·         Echo also haunts a random lady in the end, implying there is much more to the story than meets the eye

·         The young teenagers who committed the murder and rape are given close to no back story besides passing dialogue. The raping kid only mentions special education and sexual attraction to the mother, but this isn’t usually enough to commit such a crime. Also, Sam somehow manages to kill most everyone he sees, giving a sense of overpowering murder to a seemingly mortal killer in the series.

·         The series also depicts minors being brutally beaten and almost molested/killed on panel, a notably risky narrative style.

·         The keys of magic, so fittingly key to the narrative to the story, are only seen really at the end of the book.

·         The series is set originally in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the characters moving to Massachusetts after the murder.

·         The authority figures in the series are notably incompetent, again requiring the suspension of disbelief that a teenager could overpower a police station worth of police officers to even escape to begin with and had the resources to go cross country to hunt down a family who was more than likely being protected by even more officers. In addition, if Sam had left a string of murders in his wake then the authorities could have predicted a pattern of his moves and acted to redirect the manhunt according to a likely path for him to follow.

·         Fittingly the location in Massachusetts the place is located in is called “Lovecraft,” as the author is the son of another author inspired by  H.P Lovecraft

·         On page 39 there is a provided comic of Bode’s view of the events, which is done with a child’s style of art and narration.

Bibliography

Hill, Joe, and Gabriel Rodriguez. Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft. San Diego, CA: IDW, 2008. Print.

REVIEW: The Crow Film

The Crow (Film)

Directed by Alex Proyas

First published in 1994

The Crow (film)

·         The film notably starts with the death of Eric and Shelley and their relations with a girl named Sarah.

·         The film adds the back story of the four murderers being friends of Eric at one point in their life and that Shelley was a political person who they raped and killed as an example.

·         They added the importance of the police officer in the film to be a sidekick of sorts to the Crow.

·         The crow was explained to be the source of Eric’s revival, as opposed to any other supernatural means.

·         The death was at the house they lived in rather than a random highway.

·         They added more human qualities to the Crow like his humane treatment to Sarah’s prostitute mother and the friendships he kept with the officer and Sarah.

·         Gabriel the cat was already their pet in the film as opposed to being taken in midway as with the comic.

·         They added a drug lord and his Asian sister as the final bosses to the film that the four murderers were working under. In fact, the Asian sister was the one who pointed out the Crow’s weakness.

·         The humane killing of Funny Boy was removed in favor for more vengeful killings, as the Crow doesn’t take a macabre mercy for him in accepting that he killed Shelley in cold blood.

·         The costume of the Crow has a origin story too as Eric takes his boots from the dumpster, his clothes being what he used to wear in his band and his mask painting being what he used to have fun with Shelley with.

·         This is notably Brandon Lee’s last major performance before he died.

·         The Crow gains the ability to read people’s experiences and transfers them in the film, whereas he was just immortal in the comic.

·         Characters that were originally just killed by the Crow in the comic, as with the corrupt store owner, were killed by the drug lord in the adaptation.

·         The film ends in a more happy reunion of the spirits of Eric and Shelley, as opposed to the bleak and ambiguous ending of the comic.

·         The poetry of the comic was left out of the film.

·         Eric was notably sane in the film as opposed to the more mentally detached state he was in with the comic.

·         The prostitute mother and her daughter reunite happily in the film as opposed to the comic.

·         Eric notably plays a lot of music in this adaptation, which had him dancing instead with the comic.

Bibliography

The Crow. Dir. Alex Proyas. Perf. Brandon Lee. Dimension Films, 1994. DVD.

REVIEW: The Crow

The Crow (Comic)

By J. O’Barr

First published in 2002

The Crow (comic)

·         The work notably comes with both comics and poetry, with the poetry being part of the narrative about loss.

·         The comic is illustrated in two styles, with it being jagged and having heavier lines with the violent post-death scenes of the Crow’s loved one and the soft almost acrylic look of the comic in the pre-death scenes.

·         The nature of the Crow’s powers is not made clear in the story, but it does add to the supernatural element of the piece and the surreal Horror genre feel of the tale.

·         The Crow’s mercy of Funny Boy is notable in that he gives Funny Boy a fast and painless death of illegal drug overdose due to Funny Boy’s recognition of his own sins. While the other rapist and murderers tried to make their lives more positive after the death of Shelley, Funny Boy morbidly accepted his death and so the Crow gave him the least gruesome death.

·         The Crow notably has mercy to the innocent in that a police officer, a prostitute, a little girl and other noted side characters not the rapists. He even wishes them a good life as with the case of the officer and the little girl.

·         There is a noted “women in refrigerator” story narrative with the rape, death and mutilation of the Crow’s beloved Shelley was there only for progress the story of the narrative.

·         The flashbacks with Shelley are notably in mostly white as opposed to the dark pages this book is mostly made of.

·         Cats are common in the series as a herald to the Crow being in the area, much like the magic crow which brought the man the Crow back to life.

·         The villains have no depth to them other than that they were rapist and murderers. This seems sociopathic almost in the depiction as the lack of redeeming qualities make the antagonists seem more beast rather than murdering people. Granted this may be what the author was aiming for in depicting people doing dark deeds.

·         The actual death of T Bird and the Crow are notably absent, the former possibly being tortured to an extent that even this series can’t convey. The latter possibly could mean that he finally could die with the murderers dead or that he continued in existence as a vengeful antihero.

·         The one time The Crow smiled he found disturbing given his new nature. This shows his more human side which he shuns now is somehow still there.

·         It is never explained how Shelley knew how her precious Eric (The Crow) saw everything as a magic crow in her rape and death.

·         It is never explained how the commissioner knew of the Crow and accepted his revenge.

·         The irony of constantly seeing Shelley saying she’s safe with Eric or Eric notably seeing the murderers as not a threat before becoming the Crow is used to an almost stupid amount.

Bibliography

O'Barr, J. The Crow. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink, 1994. Print.

REVIEW: Death Note Film

Death Note (film)

Directed by Shūsuke Kaneko

Released in Japan 2006

Death Note (film)

·         The film notably takes more detail in the reactions of the public compared to the manga, as the film opens with the death of criminals and commentary by the populous on what they think of Kira. There is even a fan page on the internet to Kira to which a noted number of forum messengers encourage Kira to continue killing criminals.

·         The film notably abridges the pacing of the manga, as the detail to which Light took precautions in the burning of the Death Note is notably missing.

·         Light notably acts smug and not content with the justice system, letting Shiori, Light’s girlfriend, know the detail to which he hates the current Japanese justice system. This notably makes him more of a suspect to being Kira should common sense be applied. In fact, Light supports Kira. This questionably would have made him a prime suspect.

·         L uses a Mac book Pro in his introduction.

·         Ryuk looks too much like a CGI effect in the film, contrasting with the live action.

·         They added a scene where Light lost his faith in the justice system before picking up the Death Note. They also excluded him saving a girl from a punk by getting the punk hit by a bus.

·         They switched some of the ethnicities in the film, as with the fake L being a Caucasian person rather than a Japanese person.

·         It is noted that things float in the air when Ryuk is holding them from the real world, as normal people can’t see Death gods.

·         The hair colors of the characters are noted to be natural brown black in the live action, as opposed to the distinctive blond or off setting colors key to manga.

·         Ryuk notably acts like a trickster in the film, opposed to his more collective introduction to the series in the manga.

·         The voice actors of the dubbed film are from the animated dub.

·         The FBI agent was targeting Light specifically in his introduction as opposed to being there to search for Kira. This deviates from the manga and suggests that Light was acting suspiciously to begin with.

·         Ryuk is the only seen Death God in the film, as the dimension to where the Death gods come from isn’t included in the film.

·         Ryuk didn’t tell light that he would write his name down as the last victim of the Death Note as with the manga, making him more of an ambiguous character.

·         Light doesn’t monologue/ tell Ryuk he’d prefer not to kill his father like in the manga, suggesting this version of Light is not above patricide in order to keep his sense of justice.

·         They take an entire page worth of Death Note for each death, which is not only lacking efficiency but also inaccurate to how Light killed people in the manga.

Bibliography

Death Note. Dir. Shūsuke Kaneko. Viz Pictures, 2006. Film.