So, blogging. Since I didn't do it one of the days last week. I was made up of fail last week but this week hadn't started off so great either. I'm tired all the time. I think the whole working at 6 am thing is starting to catch up to me because no matter when I wake up I'm starting to get tired by like 10 or 11. Friday night I actually went to bed at 1130 because I'm seriously turning into the lamest person on the planet. I had to work at 10 am, which wasn't too bad. But I had to work until 7 and that was lame considering I wasn't supposed to be there at all because I wasn't on the schedule. I haven't worked much at all on my paper for this class yet, though I have been thinking about it. It's just taken the back burner to the project I have in my other class which is due today or wednesday depending on when I get it done. Probably Wednesday.

I also haven't gotten much of a chance to read over Palestine yet because between my project and this stupid thing I'm editing for a friend I've been useless. Not that I'm not useless all the time. Oh well. I'm going to go work on that for a while and maybe get some sleep.

blogging in class

So, I just don't know what happened with this whole blogging thing. No, really, I just don't know why I haven't posted, to be honest. But I'm going to post twice as much this week just to make sure that I am caught up on this whole blog thing. So I'm sitting in class, blogging off of my phone. It isn't broken, so I'm not coming in half hour late. I'm going to take a note here: analysis but no thesis. That is just for my own reference for later. More later, the rest of this blog post is a place holder for when I get home.

So, I'm kind of a jerk and I told David that the final drafts were due tomorrow. Then after like ten seconds of sheer panic I amended it because I found the sheet that said they weren't due until the 21st after all. That is good for me because it gives me more time to solidify my whole little thesis since I don't have anything too narrowed down yet. I was trying to read the walking dead on my break at work today but instead of having my break by myself like I usually do, two of my other coworkers were there with me so I didn't have time to read. Instead we just talked the whole time. I forgot how in love I am with the Walking Dead, though. The art is awesome and the story is just, wow. I love it. I'll probably be updating this more as the paper progresses but right now there isn't a whole lot to report on.

There is roughly three weeks left that all of my roommates and I will be living together but if things continue to escalate the way they are currently then I'm sure that they will have all killed each other before we graduate and I will be stuck covering everyone's rent for the summer. That would suck. Things had finally calmed down around the middle of the semester but now everyone is at each other's throats again and I'm just kind of sitting back watching it happen. Right now I'm waiting for the battle royale to erupt and I want to be there when it happens. I missed it last time because I was at work. I just caught the tail end when I got home. Hopefully this time it will be more epic and I will get to see the whole thing. Once we graduate two of the three of them are moving home so it's just going to be me and one other girl in our four bedroom apartment. The other two didn't sublet but are still paying their shares of the rent so it's kind of nice. Especially because my sleep schedule is so radically different than the girl's who is staying so I'll probably never see her and essentially it will be like living by myself. Come on graduation, I can't wait much longer.

putting the fun in funeral since 2006

Since our conversation about whether or not we thought that the father in Fun Home committed suicide I've been trying to decide whether or not I think it was suicide or an accident. And I've come to the conclusion that I think his death was accidental. Now, I'm no expert and I certainly never met Bruce Bechdel, but from what I gather from the book he seems like a control freak. A neat, orderly control freak. And to kill himself by jumping in front of a truck just doesn't strike me as something that a control freak would do. Not to mention he was a funeral home director. If he was going to kill himself I have to imagine he wouldn't want to be a mess that could potentially need a lot of reconstruction to have an open casket at the funeral. Throwing himself in front of a truck risked having major damage done to his body and who would fix him up since he was the funeral director? They'd have to outsource. I'm not even sure how that would work.

I also think that he left way too many loose ends. There were too many things he left unfinished. Though I suppose with the impending divorce he could have decided to just end it all but he didn't seem like someone to make rash decisions and jumping out in front of a truck is just so... unplanned. I mean, death is messy, but there are varying degrees of messy.

Anyway, I thought way too much about this. And I also found this link: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flbklists/literarysuicides.html which is a compiled list of authors that have committed suicide. Some of them I knew and some of them I didn't, and a couple sort of surprised me. The guy who committed seppeku... wow. The whole thing is fairly macabre but interesting.

So I really don't have any desire to finish my stats but I have to because there is a test tomorrow. Lame. I am made up of so much fail it is almost painful. I've had a ton of time to study and a ton of time to do all the homework but I always put it off til the last minute and then just don't want to do it at all. Tonight is no different. But I'm going to try to do it now so this is a placeholder for a more meaningful blog that will come later.

my chemistry

It's getting down to the end here and I'm having serious concentration issues. It took me way longer to finish Fun Home than it should have, considering I'm actually fairly interested in the topic. It relates to the project that I'm doing for my Anthropology class (sort of). I'm doing a powerpoint presentation on the Museum of Funeral Customs for my community museums project. It's not that great but I'll deal. The project shouldn't take me all that long to finish. I'm halfway done. It's due tomorrow but I'm pretty sure that since we aren't turning the powerpoint in until we present that I will just have it finished for Friday and I'll be fine. With work and other various shit going on in my life I haven't had the time or the attention span to put a lot of effort into my anthro projects. I really just want to freaking read White Night, since I still haven't finished it. I feel like I am made up of fail. I started working my way through it again this morning when I was on break at work. Hopefully I'll find some more spare time to work on it in the near future, especially because I just bought Small Favors.

In other news, work was awesome today. I was in a fairly good mood despite having to get up at the crack of dawn (or before dawn) on like two hours of sleep. But the usual manager who opens wasn't there so there was no one breathing down my neck about shelving and I actually had time to eliminate all the display shelves in my section and start alpha-ing the rest of the section. My section consists of Fiction/Lit, Af-Am Fiction, Poetry, Lit Crit, Drama, Erotic, GLBT Lit, and Western Philosophy. It is probably the biggest section in the store but the easiest to shelve in and to deal with. That makes my life a little easier and I got a lot of work done today. That just makes me dread going into work Thursday though because I'm going to have to go back to doing what I usually do, which means neglecting my section and not giving it the love it deserves. The poetry section is so out of order it is ridiculous but the normal opening manager hates giving us time to alpha. That's probably the last thing on his list of priorities which drives me nuts because the sections looks like shit all the time.

Anyway, tangent. I started talking about work to talk about Interpol and Jimmy Eat World. We get promotional cds at work and in the morning before we open we can put in whatever we want. Today was my day to pick so I put in Interpol, Jimmy Eat World, some band I'd never heard of called Sona? Lona? I dont remember, and Flogging Molly. I'm kind in love with the first two albums now and I put my name on them. Hopefully I'll get them when the time comes for those to be given away.

I was going to read Fun Home on my break but the display shelf of White Night was closer to the back room than Fun Home was and so I picked that up on the way back there instead. I did finish reading it though and I did like it. Out of everything we've read it was at least more enjoyable than the last two. I still think that Blankets is probably visually my favorite and V for Vendetta is still my favorite story. I don't know. I'm just sad that I missed getting to read Sven on Monday when I was sick.

six feet under > fun home

Pretty much all I can think about right now is Six Feet Under. I mean, Fun Home really doesn't fit in with the whole five season long storyline of Six Feet Under but the whole funeral home thing just kept reminding me of that show. I loved that show. Most television shows lose me after one or two seasons because I get really bored really easily. But I stuck with Six Feet Under all the way to the end and it was so worth it. If you've never seen the show then you should go to Rentertainment right now and rent all of the seasons all at once and sit down and watch them in one go. They are only like twelve episodes long so it wont take forever. Skip your classes, blow off your homework and tests and just watch that show.

And if you have seen the show then you need to immediately go to youtube, find the clip of the last ten minutes of the season finale, and watch it again. Right now.

And then we can all be amazed together.

mini comic o doom

Okay, the comic has been drawn. Now if we can ink it by tomorrow then we are golden and we will be set to turn it in. Holla. I didn't update for Monday because I was exhausted and kind of sick so I'm going to try to get in twice the update this time around. Chances are it isn't going to happen but let's just pretend like this is a mondo update and that maybe it counts for two.

Spring Break... sucked the big one. Well okay, it wasn't that bad I suppose. I spent a lot of time planted in front of my stepdad's HD tv watching all my new dvd's on the blu ray player because it makes it look so much better than my crappy little tv in my apartment. I got four of the 2007 eight films to die for. They are pretty campy and cheesy but I seriously love a good indie horror flick (or a bad one). I got Deaths of Ian Stone, Tooth and Nail, Crazy Eights, and Mulberry Street. I also picked up American Gangster and No Country for Old Men from my dad. I haven't watched American Gangster yet but hopefully it will be good. Also, I'm pretty sure that I left my iPod at my stepdad's house and that really sucks because I don't want to drive all the way back there to get it :/ When I got back to my apartment on Monday of last week the heat wasn't working. So I spent like three days wrapped up in blankets trying not to freeze to death before I went back to Bloomington again. I worked a few days. Ate a lot of food. That was the extent of my break.

Also, I finished reading Stuck Rubber Baby but I left the book in Bloomington. It's probably in the same place as my iPod but I'm far less broken up about leaving that book than I am about the iPod. Probably because the book just sort of drove me nuts with the people all looking the same. Not that I can complain because when I was drawing my mini comic everyone looks the same. I'm possibly the worst artist on the planet but I was at least moderately amused for most of the whole time I was working on the project. Well, I am amused now that I am looking at the finished project. I was pretty stressed out while doing it because as it turns out I am the world's slowest drawer, even though my art sucks it still took forever.

In music news, I did not get Paramore tickets. Woe is me. I did however download the Panic at the Disco leak and I was seriously disappointed. So now I'm kind of pissed that I got Panic tickets instead of Paramore tickets because at least Paramore is going to put on a good show and play music I want to hear. I just wish that the new Panic was trying to be more like Panic and trying less to be the Beatles. Let's be honest, they are not the Beatles. If they only play new stuff at the concert I'm going to be pissed off.

And speaking of Paramore, here's their new video:




and I'm spent. I haven't slept in like 36 hours so I'm going to go work on that.

is it friday yet?

All I can think right now is SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK.

I'm already officially in that mode. I didn't even do the stats homework that was due today at noon and there is no way I'm even going to bother trying to do it. I still have to present my two projects. Or one and a half projects since I started the Iraq project on Monday and have to finish it today. And I have to do the museum one this morning so hopefully I actually get to present, I don't know what will happen if I don't go today.

Also, mini comic group... where are you?

stuck rubber baby

So this doesn't suck that bad, I guess. I really didn't like Collier very much and I wasn't sure I was going to like this one but it's pretty okay. I'm not overly impressed with the art or anything. The people look a little weird, but I'm not going to knock it because I couldn't do better. It's moving pretty slow, so I don't have much to say about it yet. I'm just working my way through it, trying not to get too distracted by their oddly proportioned faces. It also doesn't help that I still have White Night to read and it's getting really good. That and I have a book that I borrowed from a co-worker that I feel obligated to read and get back to him as promptly as possible. I haven't even started that one yet.

PS the time change is already messing with my head.

my life hates me sometimes

So in my last post I was like 'Oh I'm done with projects until I have to do my museum project.' Well I looked at my syllabus and that project is due tomorrow. Fuck my life. Seriously. So I finished my last project Sunday night, studied all last night for my stats test tonight and now that I'm home I have to work on my museum project. It is just a ten minute presentation on Te Papa Tongarewa, the national museum of New Zealand. I just have to kind of give an over view and then talk about how the museum interacts with the communities there and blah blah. Boring shit. Not that hard but I make everything harder than it should be.

In other words, I probably won't finish Collier tonight but I will later. If I do before class tomorrow I will so update this blog again.

coma therapy

The Heritage project is complete. Now all I have to do is present it. I've been completely immersed in this for the past two weeks or so and now it is finally coming to a close. Thank god. I presented a chapter from Anthony Tung's book Preserving the World's Great Cities on Warsaw, which was really interesting. Just a short little presentation about heritage and war (primarily architectural heritage). Now for the big part of the project I have to do all the research for and then present on another city that wasn't included in Tung's book.

So the first half was cake, it was like a book report. The second half, not so much. I picked Baghdad, which is cool and all, but 95% of all the articles and sites I found referencing Baghdad's cultural heritage had to do with the looting of the National Museum of Iraq. That's great, I mean, I needed that information, but that museum does not make up 100 percent of all the cultural heritage. It was a pain in the ass to try and find other stuff for my presentation. It also doesn't help that Baghdad has virtually no promotion of tourism going on right now. Blah. It doesn't help that I fail at the internet and using it efficiently to find scholarly articles and websites that aren't run by nutjobs to use as my references.

Whatever, it's done. I'm probably going to present today. I say today because it is 4:55 am right now, which means in less than 12 hours I will be done with this thing for good. Unless I don't present today and then I will go on either Wednesday or Friday, which gives me a couple more days to worry about the project. Then it is blissful freedom! Until we have to do the Heritage COUNTRY project. And that doesn't even begin to cover the projects I have to do in my Museums and Communities class. I wish I didn't put this stuff off until the last minute, I swear.

Anyway, there was a point to rambling on about all of this. The topic I sent in for the comic book is: the effect of war on cultural heritage. and if it needs to be more specific then that, then we could go as far to focus on one aspect of it, like the looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad. (I copy and pasted that straight out of my sent email because I'm lazy).

How original! Yeah, anyway. It could be interesting. But I'm sure everyone else will come up with a topic that I like about ten million times better.

Also, I bought Eric Victorino's book the other night. It hasn't come yet but I've read some of it from various sources and I'm in love. Usually, I hate poetry. But I think his stuff is good. There is very little poetry that I can actually enjoy. I need to stop obsessing already.

I also need to not stay up so late because I had to edit this post twice for mistakes.

30 days of night

Seriously one of the coolest comics ever. And also a pretty B.A. movie. Well, it probably isn't all that great by most standards, but I'm into horror movies and I tend to like all of them, no matter how bad or campy they are. But 30 Days of Night was pretty sweet.





The first image is from the movie and the second is the cover of the first trade of the 30 days of night series. I really like the artwork too and I think that the people who did the make up and the special effects for the movie really did a pretty good job of trying to bring Templesmith's creatures to life.



The art is so dark, it really fits the mood of the comic. It's been a while since I last read it but I'm thinking I might have to pull out the first trade and read it again. I have the second volume too, somewhere, and the rest I can get from work. Now if I can just justify reading 30 Days of Night instead of working on my Heritage City project.

she draws the costume correct in thick, black and red eyeliner.

I just finished writing my manifesto. Admittedly, it was more or less done last week when I had the draft done but I went back and expanded on everything and then wrote a semi-conclusion. Rock on. I probably would have gotten it done a lot sooner if I hadn't spent so much time listening to Mindless Self Indulgence and Strata, which really aren't good for this type of writing. I finally had to switch over to something a little calmer so that I could finish it. Since it's printing right now I'm listening to Strata again and obsessing just a little bit over finally having something new to listen to (even if Strata isn't all that new). But anyway, I was talking to my friend who was sending all of the music to me and we were talking about the song that I happen to like the best by them, which is called: Cocaine (We're All Going to Hell). It's my favorite Strata song (and I think it's hers too, though she didn't really specify other than telling me she also really liked it) and she told me that when the song first came out it caused the band to have their music player suspended off of their myspace account because the song is about drug use. I thought that was fairly interesting given the whole free speech thing. Eventually they got their music player back on there and that song is still there, but it took months for an appeal to go through. Craziness. So then I was fishing around on myspace and I was on Eric Victorino's myspace (lead singer of Strata), and he has the world's longest about me section, in which he refers to himself as a domestic terrorist for 'excercising his right to free speech'. Reading all of that and hearing my friend talk about it kind of just made me think a little bit about V for Vendetta and the whole issue of control over the media and information that is being broadcast. Who gets to decide who hears what and blah blah blah.

Anyway, let me just sort of sum up this whole block of text for you:
-Fawna rules for hooking me on Strata
-Strata rules for being Strata
-Eric Victorino rules for being unafraid to have a voice
-Myspace sucks for trying to block Strata's freedom of speech
-Mindless Self Indulgence is not conducive for paper writing

And for your listening pleasure, the song that got them suspended off of myspace:

v for vendetta

Despite the complaints against the film adaptation of V for Vendetta, I just have to say that I think that Hugo Weaving is a total B.A. The movie made loyal Alan Moore fans want to cry, but I'm wondering about all the people in the class. What did you think of the flick? Was anyone else able to break the connection between the movie and the book and just enjoy the movie for what it was?

I'm going to post a blog with thoughts on the actual test when I'm not stressing about my manifesto, which I shouldn't be stressing about but I am.

manifestos and heritage

So this week is a little bit of the suck. It just seems like I've got so much to do and not enough time to do it, though it is still early enough in the week that I'm still procrastinating and just making it a lot worse. I haven't picked a topic for my manifesto yet, though I've been kicking around a few ideas in my head. It's just an issue of the fact that I missed the manifesto explanation day in class and I'm not entirely sure what guidelines there are aside from the links that were posted on delicious. You can be sure that I will be bothering someone in class tomorrow for notes from last Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday) so that I can figure out exactly what I'm doing. That way I can try to get it done before the weekend.

On top of my manifesto I also have my heritage city project due for my Heritage Management class. I'm not thinking that is going to be too difficult it is just going to be spreading all the information out over ten minutes. My heritage city is Baghdad, which has a boatload of heritage management issues going on right now. And in my Museums and Communities class our project on Chief Illiniwek is due next week and though a majority of it is already done it's just kind of going to be an anxious week until we can present it and get it over with. I need a few more people to fill out surveys for the project but don't worry, some of you are going to get asked in class tomorrow. Hooray.

After next week I'm definitely just going to take a day and sit down and finish reading White Night. Usually when a Butcher book comes out I drop everything and read it all in one sitting. This time I bought it in hardcover ages ago and I've been so swamped with stuff that it has been sitting on my dresser collecting dust. The paperback just came out so I bought another copy of the book just because paperbacks are far easier to tote around. It's going to be awesome. I just have to make it to next week.

who watches the watchmen?

this might be tl;dr for some of you but i found it on the interweb and felt like sharing.

Fox sues over 'Watchmen'
By Leslie Simmons

Feb 12, 2008
20th Century Fox has initiated a legal battle against Warner Bros. over the rights to develop, produce and distribute a film based on the graphic novel "Watchmen."

On Friday, the studio sued Warners, claiming it holds the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to "Watchmen."

Warners plans to release next year a big-screen version of the popular comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The cast includes Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman. It is the studio's policy to not comment on pending litigation.

But Fox seeks to enjoin Warners from going forward with the project, saying in the lawsuit that it seeks to "restrain (Warner Bros. Pictures) from taking actions that violate Fox's copyrights and which stand to forever impair Fox's rights to control the distribution and development of this unique work."

Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all movie rights to the 12-issue DC Comics series and screenplays by Charles McKeown and Sam Hamm. In 1991, Fox assigned some rights via a quitclaim to Largo International with the understanding that the studio held exclusive rights to distribute the first motion picture based on "Watchmen," according to the lawsuit.

When Largo dismantled, the rights were transferred to producer Lawrence Gordon. Under a "turnaround agreement" between Fox and Gordon, the producer agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he entered into any agreement with another studio or third party to develop or produce "Watchmen," among other things.

The project apparently bounced around to Universal and Paramount before returning to Warners. Now, Fox claims that neither Gordon nor Warners has paid the buy-out price or advised the studio of any other conditions required under the agreement, including procedures necessary to acquire the rights to "Watchmen" from Fox.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

source.
ontd post with comments.

I'll brb with a real blog post later.

oh hey pbwiki pt 2

That was simultaneously entertaining and painful. Mostly because the information was interesting and all stuff that I already knew a lot about, which made the project fun but painful because I working with sources on the web is difficult. Especially when it comes to citing. Ugh. But it's done. Or at least might part is. Though I have a feeling I will be logging in before I go to class tomorrow just to make sure that everything looks as neat as I think it does right now.

If you actually look at our wiki and read the portion about Joss Whedon, some of you Buffy fans might be interested in his comic book Fray. I've got a copy laying around somewhere (I think it's in Bloomington) and I could probably let you borrow it (if I can find it).

Also, there has been a discussion about who is better.

Hayley Williams, the lead singer of Paramore:


or Sherri Dupree, the lead singer of Eisley:


Not that anyone ever reads this, but if you have an opinion in the matter you should definitely comment.

oh hey pbwiki

haha.

bored

I thought McCloud was okay at first but it's really starting to bore me. It could be a lot worse but it could be better, too.

ozymandias

Originally I intended to text in my post from my cell phone just to try something different and to see if I actually had the patience to do it. Admittedly, I have a sidekick so it wouldn't be as difficult as texting it in off of a cell phone without a full keyboard, but it still counts, I think. However, that thought changed when I got to reading Watchmen and got to the part of about Ozymandias. Then all I could think about was posting the poem by Shelley that we were forced to read my junior year of high school in the second semester of my English Lit class. I hated that class, mostly because the teacher I had was kind of nuts. She actually told me once that she couldn't believe she was approving my outline because it was such a piece of shit... no joke. It was a piece of shit, but I was seriously sick that week and I didn't need to hear from here that I sucked at writing. But I digress...

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818

I just thought it was kind of interesting to come back and read that poem again after reading the first four chapters of the Watchmen (I had a lazy weekend and I didn't finish the whole book, so no spoilers, please). I mean, it's kind of surreal to think about. Ozymandias, King of Kings, is reduced to stumps of legs left in the sand with nothing of his former glory surrounding him. Is that what it is going to be like for us one day? Just the fading memory of a broken statue crumbling away in the sand? Kind of depressing. Even more depressing? Being Jon Osterman and getting to just chill and watch while all of this happens.

I vaguely remember there being a painting that went along with the poem in the English lit textbook but I can't find it. I googled it and couldn't find anything and since it's 3:30 in the morning I'm going to call it quits on that. I didn't want to post the image that badly anyway.

Also, if you click here it will take you to the IMDB listing for the Watchmen movie that is due out in 2009. Don't go there if you don't want to be spoiled. I think that some things are given away just in the cast listing. You can also catch the occasional Watchmen update post on oh no they didn't, but that's only if you feel like weeding through pages upon pages of pointless celebrity drama to find something.

When I went to oh no they didn't to get the link for my blog I saw this and had to post it:

it made me laugh

Okay, going to bed before I find anything else to post.

losing the feeling of feeling unique

I really had every intention of wrapping Blankets up with a thoughtful blog post about what I thought about the ending. But that's not going to happen. Not tonight, anyway. I'm pretty sure I've got the plague (okay, I'm dramatic) and I'm too tired to be insightful. All I can really say is that I'm just sort of glad that it is over. Not that I didn't enjoy the story. I did. I am just done going back and rereading parts to try and come up with something to say about the book. I could probably talk about how I like that he finally just lets go of Raina or how I like that when he comes back from Raina's he tries to form a kind of bond with his brother. Or I could talk about how it was sort of interesting the way that he transitioned from being someone who had a lot of faith to someone who was questioning to being someone who flat out had no faith at all. Maybe instead I'll talk about it in class.

Right now I'd like to just take a moment to say that the new Panic at the Disco song was released yesterday (I think, that was when I heard it anyway) and it's pretty good. They are kind of my guilty pleasure. Please, reserve all judgments. I do have some concept of good and bad music, I just tend to like a little bit of everything. And I happen to like that song a lot. Listen for yourself if you'd like:



Also, I work at Borders and we get the promotional stuff when the store is done with it and I grabbed the Eisley cd and also Circa Survive. I've heard of Eisley but not really the other. Opinions, anyone?

sometimes i hate the internet

Blankets. Again, I'll probably spend the duration of my blog rattling on about the graphic novel instead of saying anything at all about Understanding Comics. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike McCloud's work... I just don't like it nearly as much as I do Thompson's and I don't have nearly as much to say about it. I should probably preface this post with the fact that I waited to do it until after I got off work and I worked all day on no sleep. With that said, some of this might make no sense, though maybe it will make more sense than anything else I've written thus far. You've been warned.

When leafing through the chapters that were assigned for Monday, there was one panel that stood out to me more than any of the others. On page 360, the panel where Craig and Raina are in the diner. We've spent a lot of time in class discussing size in the graphic novel and I thought that it was really interesting how Thompson decided to portray the distance between the two by making them tiny in comparison to the table they are sitting at and all the items on the table. And the body language of the two characters in the panel I think says a lot about what they are feeling. Craig is looking at Raina in such a longing way but the expression on his face is almost hopeless. And she's reaching for him, as if she really does want to be with him, but at the same time she has her head turned away because they are in public where other people can see her. Another thing that emphasizes the space between them is the length of the panel. Instead of breaking it up like the other panels on the page he's let the panel reach from side to side. It reminded me of McCloud's discussion on panel length and how it represents space and time.

I feel like I could or should say more but as I'm looking through the chapters I don't have anything else to say at the moment. Not that I don't have a feeling one way or another as to the rest of the going ons in the two chapters we read but nothing just jumped right out at me other than that panel. Maybe next time. Maybe next time I will also put some spiffy pictures in here to help break up the text a little. I'm too tired to do it tonight.

And random aside... this was one of the best weekends ever.

winter challenges

The scene in chapter three of Blankets that stood out to me the most was the contest between the two brothers. Of all the scenes in the chapters that we read this time I think that this one is perhaps the most revealing about Craig, or one of the most revealing. The point of the contest is to be able to walk on the ice covered snow without falling through. Thompson's text reads, "...but I knew that I wasn't competing against him, but against myself -- against my own clumsy humanity that had lost synchronization with the earth" (134). As the graphic novel progresses we are shown more and more about Craig's internal struggle with his religious identity. Even when he was a little boy Craig seemed to be at conflict with his identity and it's really interesting to see how he copes with that as a child. As if walking on top of the snow without breaking the ice is a way to fix the problem that he has in feeling so disconnected from everything. Ultimately he breaks through the ice and there is just a drawing of him standing shin deep in snow and the rest of the page is white except for the text that reads, "In that sense, I always lost" (134). The text just foreshadows the fact that his struggles are going to continue on as he grows up, especially as he gets into adolescence.

I thought it was interesting how the scene where they are having the ice challenge transitions into Craig's inability to produce art. While his conflict with identity is shown through being unable to keep the ice from breaking as a child, it is manifested through his inability to draw as a teenager. It isn't until he starts getting letters from Raina that he gets a creative spark and starts producing art again. The thing that causes his creativity to rekindle is the also the exact thing that he spends so much time confused about. Because Craig finds his relationship with Raina to be inappropriate it makes everything that much more difficult for him. On one hand he has his faith that dictates how he should feel and how he should think and on the other he has Raina, who he is drawn to in an almost indescribable way. The relationship is just one more thing to confuse him and cause more anxiety for him as the story progresses. The image of Craig huddled on the floor after throwing away the paper he's masturbated into just reinforces the idea that he is completely torn apart by his feelings for Raina in contrast to what he should be feeling for his religion. Thinking of Raina pushed him into that particular scene and he is ashamed of the result because of what his religion dictates that he should think or feel about such things.

And now on a completely unrelated topic, if anyone is actually reading this, go see Cloverfield. It was definitely awesome and worth the wait.

cubby hole

I finished reading Blankets today because I really couldn't stop at the end of 'Cubby Hole' but for the sake of anyone reading this who didn't read ahead I will do my best not to spoil anything that comes later in the graphic novel.

I suppose that a good place to start would be with why I like the story so much but it is difficult to pin it down on just one thing. The art, for starters, is definitely one of the features that drew me in right from the first page. The characters themselves seem really simple but each panel has so much detail that I found myself taking the time to study all the art before moving on to the next page. What I liked most about the art was the juxtaposition of realism and fantasy. Because most of the chapter focuses around Craig as a child it is fitting that a lot of the images are focused around his imagination. The image of the cot in the cubby hole as a monster adds to the sense of fear that the reader understands Phil is feeling and at the same time it adds depth to the story because you are seeing things as the brothers saw them as children.

The other thing that really made me like the graphic novel was the story. Saying what I like so much about it is difficult without speaking in terms of relatability, which I suppose is how I'll talk about it. I guess I've just always been interested in coming of age tales on account of the fact that I've spent a good portion of my life coming of age, but another thing that I really like about it is how the novel portrays the relationship between brothers. At least as the focus for most of the first chapter, anyway. As the youngest of five kids it kind of rings a few bells (mostly just with the fact that I was probably insanely annoying to my older siblings much the way Phil is to Craig) and it makes me wonder how they felt about me at that age in contrast in how they feel about me now.

I don't really have much to say, at the moment, about McCloud's Understanding Comics, but I did enjoy it. The read was fairly entertaining and definitely easy to get through. Though I will say that I laughed when I saw the drawing of the kraft parmesan cheese container because I am definitely someone who always saw a face in the top of it. Another thing I really liked about the two chapters was how McCloud likened Ancient Egyptian artwork to comics. As an anthropology major I've seen a lot of paintings and diagrams like the one in the book and it was interesting to see them from the perspective McCloud takes and definitely cool to get to think of them as comics.

There's probably more to say but I'll stop before I start rambling and save some of the other thoughts I had for when we are a little further along in the book.

Until then.