Last Blog

    Wow, the semester went by really fast. I can't believe this is my last blog already. I really enjoyed the blog much more that I thought I was going to although some weeks it was a lot harder to write than others.
    The class overall was great. I've learned so much about graphic novels and comic books along with Judaism. Before this class I thought all of these kinds of books were just about superheroes fighting various bad guys but there's much more to it then that and also many other kinds of stories then just the ones that are about a superhero. I find comics much more interesting now than I did before the class and I can see myself reading a lot more f them in the future. The discussions in class helped so much and without them I would have been really lost during some of the graphic novels we read. Even after Megillat Esther The Rabbi's Cat is still my favorite because of the story and the art work.
    This past Wednesday class was pretty fun. All the food was great. I've had hummus spread before but not on pita bread. I usually eat it on bagels. The croissant thing was really good (sorry but I don't remember the name of them) and the Israeli salad reminded me a lot of the salad I ate when I was in France except that salad didn't have onions. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm really happy I decided to take this class.

    I found the second part of Megillat Esther very interesting. The story seemed to get a lot more crazy and confusing once you flip the book upside down. There are so many different stories that start getting intertwined. First there is the story of Esther than he brings in the fight between Rachel and Leah. Waldman also tells a kind of story with the descendants of Esau. Then there is the story that's going on while the story of Esther is being told.
    I'm really glad we discussed in class what was going on with Rachel and Leah and also with Esau's family because I didn't know any of these stories so while I was reading I didn't know what was going on with them. I enjoy how the art style changes along with all these different stories. There are the pen and ink drawings that are used for Esau's descendants and the kind of pointillism that is used for the events that are taking place as the story is being read, and also the main very detailed art style that is use through out the book. The different art styles really help to show that these things  taking place at different times.
    One thing that really interests me is that he shows the pointer that is used to read the book of Esther. It's interesting because he uses the photo realism and it isn't used anywhere else in the book which makes me think that the pointer is somehow really important. Maybe it's supposed to show that something else is happening outside the story and to foreshadow the part where the story is actually being read to a group of people.

    While comparing the graphic novel with the actual version of the book of Esther I was really surprised at how similar the two versions are. Besides a few small things they are almost word for word identical. One small difference I found between the two in the beginning of the story is when the decorations are being described for the seven day feast in the king's garden. The colours of the decorations are somewhat different. In the graphic novel the ropes with linens hanging on them are red and in the other version the ropes are purple. I just found it interesting that depending on what version you are reading the colours of the decorations change. Another difference I found was when the women are getting ready for the king. In the graphic novel the women must spend six months soaking in a tub of oil and in the other version the women spend six months getting oil massages.
    Something I liked better in the graphic novel is that the drawings of the characters show their emotions so well especially the part where the women are being taken from their homes and sent to the king. In the graphic novel you can see how scared the women were and that they were taken against their will whereas in the actual version of the story it doesn't seem like that horrible of an event. Nothing is actually said about how these women were kidnapped. It just says that some women were found and taken to the king. In my opinion this makes the graphic novel seem more real that the Bible version of the story.

Megillat Esther

    Overall I enjoyed the first half of Megillat Esther. It was a little hard to get into at first because I didn't quite know what was going on but after awhile I started to get into it and found it hard to stop reading. One thing I enjoyed was the art style. My favorite art work from the graphic novels that we've read this semester is the art work from the Rabbi's Cat however the style in Megillat Esther is also very good. I really enjoy Waldman's use of pattern and how he uses the Hebrew words and sometimes the English so that it becomes part of the drawings. His use of so many different patterns, textures, and also the flatness of so many of the drawings reminds me a lot of the art nouveau artist named Gustav Klimt. He did many paintings of different women and they are all very flat and illustrative looking. His work titled Adele Bloch-Bauer is probably the most similar to Waldman's art work. So if anyone really enjoys the art style in Megillat Esther you should check out this artist.
    I didn't enjoy the intermissions very much. The first one threw me off because I didn't see that it said intermission on the side of the page so I thought it was still a part of the story. I was really confused for a while. I only read half of the second intermission because I didn't really know what was going on and it didn't have anything to do with the rest of the story.

I found the reading Ben Gurion's Golem and Jewish Lesbians in the Jewish Graphic Novel book very interesting especially since I'm planning on writing my research paper on golems. I enjoy that they talk about the history of the golem and that humans and golems were commonly compared in different religious texts. They give the example that wise people don't interrupt, they think about things before saying them, and they give accurate answers among other things. The golem is then viewed as the opposite of this. The author then goes on to discuss that the golem has inspired films, art, and even music. I think I will look into some of these things when I do more research for my paper because I would like to talk about how golems have influenced pop culture. I never thought about looking for music or plays that have been inspired by them. The only movie I have found so far that had a golem is the movie Castle in the Sky. In this story the golem had been created the floating island called Laputa. I am vary interested in seeing if I can find any information on the artist Ido Shemi who according to the reading had an art exhibition that was inspired by golems.

waltz with bashir

I enjoyed the movie "Waltz with Bashir although it was pretty depressing.  I liked the fact that if was animated because there was a lot of violence whereas if the people had been actual actors I don't think I would have liked it as much.  The violence along with everything that happened in the movie would have been too much.  Another thing I enjoyed was the style of the animation.  Recently I've been watching a lot of movies by Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese animator.  The animation style in "Waltz with Bashir" is a bit different.  It's a lot darker and less colorful, not to mention the way the artists draw the figure is completely different.  Something I found similar is how realistically the background is drawn.  The water and buildings all look so real that at times it's hard to tell it had been drawn but yet the people are all being animated looking.  I enjoy this contrast between the background and figures because it makes the characters stand out so much.  One of the most disturbing parts in the movie for me was the scene with all the horses dieing.  The looked like they were in so much pain and it made me feel terrible.  The couldn't even walk anymore and how they were just falling over was really horrible. I don't remember if it was actually said what had happened to them.  The other scene scene I found disturbing was at the end of the movie where they switch from animation to recordings of actual people.  It reminds you that the massacre actually happened, rather than just being a story portrayed through a cartoon.

    Every week after doing the other readings for this class I try to do the reading from the B.O.S. book and end up getting completely lost and board not even half way through the reading. I have not been able to finish one reading from this book so far.
    I thought that maybe the reading for this week "Jewish Memoir Goes Pow! Zap! Oy!" would be different because it's by the same author as Jobnik which we have read so maybe it would be easier to understand what she's writing about. I was very disappointed. Not only did I not understand what gonzo comics were until class but I haven't read "Portnoy's Complaint" which she talks about a lot or "Binky Brown" so I found it hard to follow along with her thoughts on these comic books. However, I did enjoy the part of the reading where she talks about her childhood and how she was first inspired by comic books. I just wish the rest of the book was more like this instead of people talking about other author's comics and how they feel about them with the majority of these comics being ones we haven't read in class.
    The B.O.S. book seems to be aimed more at individuals who have read and know about many different comics. Until I took this class I had not read a single comic book and knew nothing about them. If I did have more of a general understanding of these authors and the different comics mentioned I think this book would be a lot more helpful and a lot easier to get through.

Jobnik

    I have to say that Jobnik is probably the most confusing thing I have read this semester. The discussion we had in class Wednesday on the history of Israel cleared up some of the questions I had but there are still a few things I don't quite understand.
    Something I'm unsure about is what's happening in the second half of page 65 where she is standing outside looking around and then suddenly starts falling over and ends up laying on the ground. I wonder if she is so amazed and overwhelmed by all the stars and planes in the sky that she just falls over but this can't be right because her face doesn't show this kind of emotion. Also, the way she falls over it looks like she got hit by something because of the way her arms are stretched out in front of her when she falls. I also don't like how much the story skips around. I understand it's supposed to be a journal and if she's not writing everyday the events aren't going to flow together that well but even all the events that happen in a single day don't connect with each other. One minute she is laying on the ground looking up at the sky and the next she's being asked by some woman for her papers. It makes the story hard to follow.
    I especially found it difficult to understand what was going on in the first few pages of the story because of how the different frames overlap and some of the word bubbles start in one frame but the words are actually in another (page 11). I wasn't sure what I should be reading first.

    One thing that makes The Rabbi's Cat such a wonderful book is the cat. I just love his personality and how arrogant he is. He acts just like how an actual cat would act and some of the things he says are so funny and they are things that I think a cat would actually say if it could actually talk. I had a cat growing up and the cat in this book reminds me so much of him.
    One of my favorite parts of the book is towards the beginning when the cat says how the rabbi doesn't bother him when he does things and the pictures show him running around on the table knocking everything off and making a mess. Then there's a picture of the rabbi sitting at the table not really looking upset but just like he's excepted the fact that the cat is messing up his papers. I think this is probably because the cat does it all the time. I also like how curious the cat is about everything. He's always questioning the rabbi about things and wanting to learn more about Judaism. He even follows the rabbis students around to see where they go.
    I also like the way the cat is drawn even though it's not very realistic. He's so cute with his big ears and bright green eyes. Probably my favorite picture is the one on the title page for the chapter called The Bar Mitzvah. He's peaking out from between some books looking like his up to something that's not going to make the rabbi too happy.

The Rabbi's Cat

    I know from class Wednesday that a lot of people didn't really like The Rabbi's Cat that much especially not the art style. As for me I really liked the book and the art style and I think it's my favorite thing that we've read so far.
     One thing I like about the art style is that the characters all look so different from each other. The one thing I found confusing about Maus was that all the characters looked so much alike and I found it difficult sometimes to keep track of what was happening to which characters and who was saying what. I also like the amount of detail that he includes in so many of the pictures. There are some drawings that are very flat looking and not as developed as the others but I like these as well. It seems like in these drawings he is more interested in showing the facial expressions of the characters because this is more important that what's going on around the figure. It also gives your eyes a chance to rest since there  is so much going on in the other pictures.
      I also really enjoy the colour that is used in the art work and I don't think it would be the same book if it wasn't in colour. There are so many scenes that give you a certain feeling or emotion because of the colours that are used. For example, I think part of what makes the cat's dream so effective is the fact that a lot of light blues and other muted colours were used. It gives the reader a kind of dreamy feel when they see these colours especially compared to the bright warm colours that are used in the majority of the book.

    Something I found partly comical and partly kind of sad is the part in Maus where Vladek goes to the store to return half eaten food. First he tries giving the food away to Artie and Francoise. When they refuse and since he can't eat it he decides to return it because he can't bare to throw anything away especially not food.
     It's funny because I can imagine the look on the workers faces when he asked to return the half eaten food. Also, I can see why Artie and Francoise were too embarrassed to go into the store with him especially since the only reason the store worker finally took back the groceries was because he felt bad for Vladek because he's old, sick, and was mistreated in Auschwitz.
     The reason I feel bad for Vladek is because surviving the war and the concentration camp made him this way. He could have been a bit stingy to begin with but it's the war that actually made him like this. It's easy to see how this can happen. He spent so many years saving every little bit of food he could find, and not just food, every little thing he owned because he had so little. One tiny piece of bread could have prevented him from starving for another day. His old shoes filled with holes kept his feet from getting frostbite. The fact that he saved everything kept him alive and now that the war is over he's finding it hard to change.

   While reading Maus II I really enjoyed the part where Vladek meets the Frenchman. Even though it wasn't that big of an event in Vladek's telling of what happened in Auschwitz, I found it very touching.
     As seen with some of the other events that happened, when people are starving and living in such horrible conditions, they are less likely to share things especially food. Not only did the Frenchman give Vladek food to eat he had so much that he was able to trade the extra in order to get other things he needed. Vladek's encounter with the Frenchman reminds me a lot of his statement to Artie in the beginning of the first half of Maus. He said something about being locked in a room with no food with your so called friends and see if they are still truly your friends. This being said I think the Frenchman was one of the few true friends Vladek had  in the concentration camp.
     The Frenchman was not only a help to Vladek, and was probably one of the reasons he survived, but Vladek was also a huge help to him. Before Vladek came along he had no one to talk to because no one else spoke French or English. I couldn't imagine being stuck in a place like that with no one I could talk to about the things that were happening. Not only that but to not understand what any of the Nazi guards were saying would have been even mare terrifying. At least Vladek understood German and Polish and was able to communicate with them. I think Vladek also saved the Frenchman's life and kept him from going crazy.

    I enjoy Spiegelman's choice to draw animals instead of humans. As I said before in my last blog, it makes sense to draw the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats since cats chase and usually kill mice. I really didn't see the fact that the Poles were portrayed as mice a negative thing. It might be because I really like pigs and I don't think of them as a bad animal but I thought that Spiegelman just needed some sort of neutral animal and just happened to chose a pig. What I mean by a neutral animal is the fact that pigs don't usually go after mice but if they are really hungry they will eat just about anything even mice. This kind of describes the Poles because of how some of them were good and tried to help the Jews but others sided with the Nazis.
    I really think his drawings of the animals are great because they show so much emotion. The Nazi cats and some of the pigs looks so evil because of the way their mouths are drawn with their teeth showing. Even though all of the mice look pretty much the same you can tell if they're feeling sick or scared because of the way the eyes are drawn. You can see so much of what they're feeling just by looking at their faces. This would be a challenging thing to do especially when you are drawing mice but I think Spiegelman did a great job at it.

    I've just finished reading the first half of Maus and I really enjoy it so far. It's so different from all the other books I've read about the Holocaust. A lot of the events that have happened in Maus are things that I have read before like the Jews having their businesses taken away from them and the various things that happened inside the ghettos. However Maus gives a new twist on all of these things. The reader is seeing these events through the eyes of a Holocaust survivor. The fact that Artie is interviewing his dad and that the story switches back and forth between past and present shows a kind of connection between this event that happened in the past with where we are today. This is something I haven't seen in any other book about the Holocaust.
    I really enjoy Spiegleman's style of writing. It seems like he wrote down exactly how his father told the story because the things his father says aren't always grammatically correct and sometimes the word order is wrong. It shows that English wasn't his father's native language and it makes it feel like you are actually at this interview.
    I find it interesting that he chose to draw animals instead of people. Even though he used animals I don't think it takes away from story or that it makes it seem less real or less serious of a historical event. It makes sense that he used mice to represent the Jews since mice are commonly chased out of houses because people don't want them there just like in history the Jews have been chased out of different areas because people didn't want them there.

    Thinking back to class on Wednesday and about our discussion of Magneto, I have to say that I agree with the person who stated that Magneto seems to be going against everything he believes in. In the article on the X-Men that we read for class it states that Magneto is obsessed with replacing humans with a mutant race like himself. This seems a lot like what the Nazis were trying to do only instead of a mutant race it's an aryan race. Magneto wants to stop discrimination from happening but yet he is actually creating more discrimination. It says in the article that he is afraid of humans but yet he makes a statement in one of the comics that he doesn't want to live to see another people destroy what they don't understand and fear and here Magneto is destroying the human race because he is afraid of them.
    Even though Magneto feels like he doesn't fit in and that he's an outcast he seems to be acting more like a Nazi. In my opinion Dr. X seems to be a more Jewish figure in this story even though he wasn't actually in the concentration camp. He just want a world where everyone can live together in peace. He isn't discriminating against anyone and he is trying to teach the mutants how to use their powers to do good things and help people instead of hurt them. Dr. X seems to be the more Jewish figure simply because he isn't trying to change the people who are different.

    While reading the chapter on the Silver Age in "From Krakow to Krypton", I was amazed at how much the comic book industry was hurt after the 1954 Senate Hearings which claimed that children who were reading comic books were illiterate and becoming delinquents. I find it strange that people thought comic books were promoting illiteracy because even though they do have pictures they also have a lot of words as well so in order to fully enjoy them you need to be able to read. Shouldn't these parents have been happy that their children were at least reading something?

    The delinquency thing I don't understand either. By the time kids are old enough to read well they usually understand that the kinds of things they are reading in their comic books aren't actually real. They're not going to start jumping off of tall buildings and beating people up because this is what they read about in their books.

     This whole thing reminded me a little of when Harry Potter first became popular. There were a lot of parents who wouldn't let their kids read them and they thought that the books should be banned because they thought that they were going to turn their children evil and make them want to become witches and wizards. Children may like to pretend and dress up like wizards or their favorite super hero but they know that they can't actually fly or cast spells because these things are make believe. I would think that parents would be happy that their children are reading even if it's not a book that's educational; they are still learning to read better.

    I really enjoyed the article from "Up, Up, and Oy Vey!" I liked the style of writing and how it's less formal than a lot of text books and other scholarly works. It makes it more fun to read but at the same time I learned a lot from it.
    His writing seems to be pretty thorough in that he doesn't just discuss the Thing but he also talks about the other characters in the Fantastic Four and how they initially turned into super heroes. This is very helpful to me because I haven't seen the Fantastic Four movie and I haven't read any of the comic books. The background knowledge helps me understand who the Thing is and and where he fits into the comic book world.
    Something I found interesting in the article is when the author discusses the influence of Judaism in the Fantastic Four. Not only is the Thing a golem but the Fantastic Four focuses on family and trying to get along with each other and work together which as the author states is important in Judaism. Not only that but the fact that there are four members in this family is symbolic in that it shows completeness and symbolizes the four building blocks of matter.
    I like the fact that the Fantastic Four comic book went back and explored the Thing's past. I think it gives the character more depth and makes him seem more like an average person instead of a type of monster. It helps make the readers feel more sympathetic towards him.

     Something I found interesting in the first chapter of "From Krakow to Krypton" is how much Superman influenced other comic book super heroes. Superman was one of the first to wear a costume and have two different identities. One being his everyday/average person identity and the other being when he wears his disguise and fights crime. His costume, which includes tights and a cape, caused many other super heroes that were created afterwards, like Batman, Captain America, and many others, to wear this same type of outfit.
     Superman is portrayed as having super human strength and uses it to fight villains and other bad people who are hurting the other innocent good people. He is a kind of protector for everyone who is doing the right thing. The public really liked this about him which is why other super heroes became so much like him. The artists and writers of other comic books wanted their characters to be successful too. Some artists actually got in trouble for making their character too much like Superman.
    I find it interesting how much he has influenced the comic book world because if it wasn't for Superman, comic books and super heroes wouldn't be the same. Superman is what started it all and without him we wouldn't have characters like Spiderman, The Green Lantern, and many others. Not only did Superman make comic books the way they are today,but he also gave people hope when things weren't going well and when good people were being mistreated. This is one of the most important things about Superman.

    Overall I thought that "A Contract with God" by Will Eisner was an okay graphic novel. I like the fact that all of the stories connect with each other by showing what life was like in the city where the author grew up. I enjoy how it shows this kind of struggle to survive. A lot of the characters are struggeling to find some sort of identity and all of the characters are lonely and trying to deal with it in one way or another. Frimme Hersh lost his daughter and deals with his emptiness by blaming God, taking a mistress, and eventually writing a better contract so that God can't hurt him again. The Street Singer deals with his loneliness by getting drunk all the time. The Super is lonely and because of this he is angry and takes it out on other people so no one likes him. Once his only friend, his dog, dies he commits suicide because he lost the only thing that loved him. Rveryone in the story "A Cookalein" cannot wait to go on vacation because no one is happy with their life. By going on vacation they can ascape and live a completly different one. The younger characters are all desperate to find a husband or wife to take care of them.
     One thing I don't like about this graphic novel is the fact that none of these stories are happy. It doesn't seem to be a very accurate portrayal of this city. It couldn't have been that everyone's life was horrible and everyone was lonely. There had to have been at least a few people that had a good life and were happy. The only character who had a remotely happy story was the young woman in Cookalein who finally falls in love with the doctor and she doesn't even fall in love with him until after she was raped.

       Out of the four stories in "A Contract with God", the one that shocked me the most was The Street Singer. It shocked me because he lives his life singing in the streets for money everyday just to waist the money he makes on alcohol when he could be using it to take care of his family. He then goes home at the end of the day drunk and beats his wife and child. Then when he finds someone who can help him have an actual career singing he seems very disconected and doesn't pay attention to anything the woman, Diva Marta Maria, is saying. When she asks if he'd ever heard of her he asks if she has something to eat. When she tells him about her singing career and about her husband he is too buisy eating. He seems to be in a different place the whole time. It's hard for me to understand how he could care so little when someone is trying to get him a better job so that he can get his life back on track.
       Not only do I feel bad for the Street Singer's family but I also feel bad for Diva Marta Maria. Her husband was drunk all the time and beat her just like the Street Singer does to his family. I think she knows that he is a drunk too, which I don't see how she couldn't because of how he is acting when he was at her house, but doesn't really care because she is lonely and just wants someone that she can take care of again.