Future of Comics: Erma

https://tapas.io/episode/255222

A web comic I extremely enjoy, that is on a more simpler side of things is called “Erma”. It’s a slice of life horror story, about the daughter of this worlds version of the Grudge. I would liken it to a similar vein as the Addams family, especially since the majority of the comic, asides from guest illustrations and a few random pages here and there, is done completely in black and white. It has a wonderful cast of characters that help push a theme of acceptance that runs throughout the entire comic. In the very first page you can see how the teacher is horrified by erma, in that she actually kisses a cross, and then her and the other teachers talk about how something like her could ever get accepted. As the comic progresses, you can see the teachers come around, but one thing I noticed is that the kids don’t actually care that Erma is technically a monster. There are many instances of her doing inhuman things but they are always treated with an innocent sense of comedy I would expect from children. 

One of the main things I value from this comic is the artistic growth from the creator, which is easily visible if you look at the first group of comics and the 5^thpage of the current arc. In the first page his perspective is off and his lines are super wobbly and untrained, kinda like he scribbled it out as a random idea and never intended for it to go on this long. In the current arc they journey to japan for a family reunion and when they first see the city its mind-blowing. The perspective is on point and astounding and the level of detail is not something I would have ever expected if I had just seen the first few pages. This is super valuable because its one of the more extreme cases of artistic growth I’ve seen in a web comic, and it inspires me to go out and make one as well. Which is important because a good comic in my opinion should enthrall and entertain as well as inspire.

Erma also deconstructs the standard horror monster trope extremely well while also enforcing it in a finely achieved balance that I feel is especially pronounced and only achievable due to her age. For starters yes she does enjoy horror films, watching them like comedies often, but its very quickly shown that she has a child-like obsession for cutesy things such as this universes version of my little pony, going so far at one point to mind control her babysitters boyfriend to get her an expensive playset. Which while ignoring the mind control part is something I can see a child doing by sneaking onto an amazon account and ordering something. Same thing really.

They just do an absolute wonderful job of balancing otherworldly monster with young girl and it’s amazing.

Erma has also been materialized in the way that recently they have made little surprise bags of erma merch goodies for this years thanksgiving as well as accepting funding so they can make a mobile game.

Women in Comics

While in western culture the comics industry is for the most part a female dominated market, though that’s not to say that women haven’t made extreme contributions. Alison Bechdel may be the most well known outside of the comic circle, for creating the Bechdel test. This test is one of the main ones  that most main media is judged by and will likely still be used in the upcoming century or so.

The women creates made sure that women were no longer just the bombshell eye candy or ditzes to show off the male leads intelligence. From these women we got women who were three times more dimensional than all of the adult female characters before. And we got some comics specifically made for women talking about our problems from our point of view. 

Manga tropes

One of the main difference between Western and eastern comics is the basic conventions of each genre. Due to both cultural differences and main audience sought after completely different bases were formed. In Manga there are two different main genres of comics Shojo and Shonen. Originally made for different genders Shojo focused more on slice of life stories, though often with some fantasy element. Shonen focused on more action based and violent adventures. Because of this they established a lot of conventions different from the western world. Add in that the characters are based off of idealized beauty and made more simplistic.

And everyone knows the basic generic anime/manga tropes, there is always the one character who believes solely in the power of friendship, there’s always the over the top first problem who either is severely outmatched after the main characters first power up and the girl with the huge chest, amongst many many others. these are the more modern day tropes that have taken hold and while some are quite wholesome to see, like such as the anime gasp, power of friendship always coming true, edge lord with a heart of gold. And the cringe worthy tropes that I know we all want to drop off the face of the earth. Such as the Loli trope, the anime girl with boobs way too big for her to be standing upright and still being supermodel thin otherwise, alongside the extremely perverted comic relief character that’s just super cringy and not actual funny..

Though these are more modern tropes that are increasingly more common in recent years, older tropes are still heavily prevalent. Such as the trope of a magical guardian animal creature in some stories, along with Transfer student, the window seat in the back, Op main character, Self insert main character, Extreme exaggerated faces, and Punching your problems away. These are still heavily prevalent in todays standards but are classics that most anime’s have.

Reinventing the Superhero

Week 13

When it comes to reinventing the superhero the general standard up till recently was just, give them human problems or slowly make them an asshole/antihero. While it works I personally find it extremely dull to read and don’t particularly care about them. They don’t do anything particularly revolutionary and only some of their attitudes seem to improve alongside these revamps. Plus you also have to deal with asshole people trying to make a name for themselves like that jackass who did the captain America is secretly hydra. That emotionally killed so many people, adults and kids alike and I remember reading hundreds of different accounts of how young children started bawling when they found out their favorite superhero is a bad guy. Stuff like that does NOTHING for revamping a character. I would consider a successful revamp of a character being the current Miss marvel publication. If the big wigs in comics could stop seeing their creations as untouchable gold statues I feel like we would get a lot more like miss marvel, so long as the fanboys don’t try to rip out their spleens when something changes which is always why things turn to shit.

Graphic Novels

Everyone and their cousin has probably picked up a graphic novel by now, long full story arcs generally contained in 1-3 books, that give you multiple character arcs, plot twists and fantastic stories. This is a huge change from comic books, where they constantly are rehashing the same story arcs with a new villain of the week. Its somewhat more rewarding to read a graphic novel over a comic book because it doesn’t feel randomly plopped in times. The stories flow and have sub plots and plot twists and character development that is just not possible to attain in a comic book. Because of this level of development and just plan good stories, graphic novels are becoming more and more widely accepted.

Stereotyping in comics

As far as stereotyping goes I find it’s something that shouldn’t be used at 100% at all. Especially when it comes to villous characters because then it’s usually used to demonize a group of people. The only acceptable time I find this is in regards to Nazi’s. Stereotype the hell out of them. 

The best way in my opinion to use any form of stereotyping is to deconstruct it into small pieces, using only one or two choice pieces to help construct a character. Using stereotypes in this manor I feel is an inevitability especially with secondary characters as a method of padding out their character into a more three dimensional being, even if it usually ends up falling mostly flat. But because of this you are let with so much else to customize and usually will end up eventually discarding the stereotype pieces cause your character is 3 dimensioned without it.

And as a white Caucasian girl the only stereotype I can consider applicable to me, would be the damsel in distress trope.

Killing Joke Assessment

Question 1: What is my reaction to the text I just read?
Mostly confusion and anger. I had a lot of trouble following along, as someone who really doesn't care for DC and Batman in general. The general timeline of the piece confused me as to what was going on at any point, since you had multiple flashbacks interlaced throughout the story. Also why is the Red Hood mask a thing where it was in the story? I thought Red Hood happened because of Joker? Like wasn't that a super big thing that happened??? So why is the Joker, back when he's normal, putting on that mask and going on a heist? And the rage should be self explanatory for Barbara's plight. That just infuriated me to the point I was grinding my teeth together reading it.
And that last bit with the guy talking to the camera about killing Batman. WHO WAS THAT GUY?!?
I have no knowledge about him whatsoever and it completely caught me off guard? what relevance does he even have to the plot of this comic? Was it just to add out the pages and give someone the chance to show batman getting shot in the head? plus the whole thing that the guy did to that child, why did they have to throw that in as well??? You could have easily just implied that the guy is insane in like 50 other different ways. why did you go the Child route


Question 2: What connections did I make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story through which you were able to connect.

I didn't really connect with this story all that much asides from Barbara and Commissioner Jordans plight. I felt rage and pity on their behalf and as soon as they were safe I stopped caring. The entire story really just put me off through its showcasing of different elements, specifically the jokers backstory. I already knew what was going to happen to him so I didn't find myself caring about anyone in his past. Sure the scenes showed may have helped drive the plot forward and explain what was going on, but in the long run I just didn't care. And the last bit with the unnamed guy I remember speed reading through it because I just wanted to finish reading this and forget it existed.


Question 3: What changes would I make to adapt this story to another media? What changes would I make and what media would it be?

I would change this to the media of a video game. Not a super long one, but maybe a couple of levels,  in the style of a point and click adventure, to pay homage to Batman's detective routes, as most point and click adventures are mysteries of some kind. Plus I feel that suits the relative lack of violence in this piece better than any other kind of game. The changes I would make to the story would be the flashbacks for Joker could be a more separate level with him fading in and out of those memories as he gets the park made for Batman's arrival. I feel like that would help to really ground them into why he's doing what he's doing and justify their existence more. I would honestly just remove the Red Hood aspect of it since it still makes no plausible sense to me as to how that could happen in the first place. And the part with the guy and the camera would also be removed or at least expanded upon to show Batman capturing him and him getting his dues.

Maus

Reading this comic was an experience, and not one I’m sure I would like to revisit in the future. I am aware of the different stories that come from survivors about their experiences as well as media portrayal of what happened. Having read Night by Elie Wiesel twice in my school and seen the movie “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” 5 different times I can understand the feeling of horror when it comes to the holocaust. This story was more horrifying than either of them. It and barefoot gen both threw me to a new level of horror. Part of it was the content of the story, which would horrify any decent human being, but the majority of it was the style it was portrayed in. The fact that everyone is different types of animals adds an extra element to the story when you study the interactions between animals and why each one is assigned to each group, but a secondary result of this is that each is much simpler to draw and portray expressions. The simple style is more soft than what you would expect from a story about the holocaust. And it’s a very important part of the portrayal, as the story done in a style similar to, say, the DC or Mc comic style the entire tone would be shifted. Sure it would still be horrifying but in a far more graphic way, as they would likely show all or most of the gritty details of what happened. That style was meant to shock, while this one was meant to draw you in. Because of the simplicity of this style more of the horror is implied rather than shown, which is a very useful story tactic that probably aided the mass popularity and awareness it received. Because of the use of implication most people who read it, regardless of knowledge about the horrors of what happened, are able to grasp everything in it even if the exact details aren’t known. This way the story can be spread to everyone without people protesting about corruption of the innocent or it being too graphic for anyone.

Dopin' Dan

From the first moment you see the cover for the Dopin’ Dan you can immediately tell that its going to be a unglamorous showcase of the subject matter. Which really isn’t a surprise when you consider all the circumstances that were around when it came out. But the art itself also lends to that appearance, as most comics about military life today show the uniforms prim and proper even if they are simplified. Beetle Bailey, as one of the most common comic strips about the military today, is a great example of this. Each uniform looks different but its based off the character that is wearing it as it’s an extension of that character. But the common theme of them is they are properly fit, with most implied bumps of the cloth being around the elbow and knee joints and where the shirt is tucked in. With Dopin’ Dan the uniforms are not prim at all. It’s a very specific style choice based off this persons view of the military, but the extra bumps and ridges that add character to the comic are also a jab at the subject matter. Again, not surprising given the circumstances in which it came out. But as far as uncomfortable material in underground comics go, I feel like this specific one was a little tame, as they’re was not very much drug use or anything even remotely sexual, which is surprising given the other ones I have read. So as far as comics go ignoring the jabs at the military its pretty chill.

A Contract with God

The comic “Contract with God” is an interesting read all of its own, and makes for a good character study piece. And the art style of it also helps convey the deep and personal story in it, as well as telling the environment and flow of the story. In the first few pages the scenery is these large apartment buildings that are categorized by their downwards shading, the pen-strokes guiding the eye down which is best seen in PDF format, allowing a certain flow to aid the reading. The method of the pen work also aids to setting the mood, their just barely offset lines putting just enough hint of unease in the person which is only echoed by what is quickly reveled. The pen work only gets more and more dynamic as the story goes on, the quick strokes help echo the rage and anger felt by Frimme Hersh, but soon settle into thicker lines and blocks in the middle with the quicker strokes liking the boarders of the scenes, but filling the space at the same time. this helps with showing the characterization of the man, who is rich beyond belief now, but still angry at his core, feeling as though his god had broken a contract and betrayed him. this only becomes more clear as towards the end the angry lines start to take up the majority of the pages, his rage spilling over with glee, thinking he finally has gotten what he wanted. The only time these lines disappear is at the end when Shloime Khreks finds the contract and agrees to it with no hate or malice in his heart.