https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manqu%C3%A9

appropriate for memoir

this is my favorite panel so far

the real question is why hasn't she tried to commit suicide yet

definitely related to Oldbuck

I think he is just flipping the same leaf over and over

what a twist

eyepatch? the dog is still starving? this story is not going where I thought it was

he must think he is a gift from god at this point

oh man what a sentence

Does the lady have any say in this? Didn't she turn him down already?

reminds me of those photos of dogs trying to bring a whole tree branch inside a doorway

the power of love I guess

Picturing him just slouching for that long is hilarious

I strive to be this dramatic one day

starting off with alliteration for a comical tone

Howdy ho, it's Jon again. The girl on the Blind Faith album was 11 years old. The photographer wanted to capture a girl on the cusp of womanhood to represent transition and human progress. Bechdel is pretty close in age to her in this scene, which is interesting as this page begins to highlight her interest in the masculine like this topless eleven year old holding a phallus. Cool parallels seeing as this whole book is a tale of several key transitions in Bechdel's life.

Howdy, Jon Myers here. Fun fact, this album cover was wildly controversial because of what the woman is holding: the hood ornament of a Chevy Bel Air. It's viewed as a phallic symbol. So there's an interesting double meaning here with Roy examining the cover. At first glance he's looking at the topless girl, but on further inspection he's actually digesting the phallic imagery.

Watchmen seemed to do this in many ways. Particularly Dr. Manhattan's role

Also an unrealistic depiction, seeing as still marginalized Native communities are some of the first to be devastated by environmental and climate disasters. See Dakota Access Pipeline

He does this not only with the book's overall structure but also when the people in the future are sticking their heads into floating windows of time. This scene makes the act less familiar to the viewer and mirrors the viewer's own act of reading a graphic novel like this.

And perpetuating the common media myth that climate change-induced disasters are inevitable and equally devastating. This is done through the reappearance of humans in the 2200's, a move that seems intended to soften the blow to the reader.

Does Konstantinou mean that because "Here" operates outside of the typical logic of comics that it shouldn't be called a graphic novel? Do we agree?

That kind of fourth wall breaking happens multiple times in this novel and it never fails to freak me out. It's not just the creature that's more intelligent than one would assume, the entire novel is. McGuire seems to have wanted to make the reader PAINFULLY aware of their role as reader.

YES

I love that -- "applied epistemology"

That's a really interesting way to think about time.

That's a cool way to put it.

The overlapping panels does make it seem more digital even in print.

The future going back to see the 'history' within this room like us reading the novel to see them doing that but also seeing centuries of history before this scene.

Who knows what evolution is going to do...

okay, so when I first finished reading here I think I felt what is being described here. I was really conflicted because on one hand, I felt empty... I felt insignificant, and I felt like things were moving around me much faster than I originally perceived. and it was a very somber feeling... but then at the same time, I was awe-struck reading this book. while I felt all of these melancholy feelings, I also felt like I was part of a greater narrative, and started to think about the beauty of everyday life-- like many of the events depicted in here... and now that I'm thinking about it, while it was weird for me to feel these two seemingly contrasting emotions at the same time, that's what's happening throughout here as well...

powerful

but the title of this book challenges this idea...

a game-changing comic indeed, especially when you think about it like this!

Woah. WOAH. I didn't even think about this. But this is so true. This is very surface level, but even think about an app like instagram where we preserve TINY BOX-LIKE PICTURES on our phones that we can access anywhere at anytime. We are physically standing in the present but holding a digital artifact from the past in the same "frame." Woah!

okay, I think I'm starting to piece this together better. are we talking literally about windows as metaphors, like the panels on the physical page of the text?

this part of the article is starting to go over my head. SOS!

ha!

I think that logically, the "rhythm" of Here shouldn't be a smooth as it is, because of all of the crazy stuff McGuire does with "simultaneous" moments happening through time all in the same space, but it flows so well... which I realize is probably because I suspend the reality of past/present/future while reading other graphic novels and this one demands that we are aware of the complexities of time that panels can produce

I love thinking about panels this way-- like it watchmen when we were describing the "staccato" like chapter of Dr. Manhattan's focus chapter

woah woah woah, wait, I think I missed this?

This article's got me thinking about how much of this story is historical and how much is imagined. What are the liberties McGuire is taking? Like a historian, he is representing the human understanding of history. The section of the book that really raised this Q for me was the scene of the implied rape of a Native American woman by a Native American man. This plus the absence of any real depiction of colonial violence raises questions for me about McGuire's thoughts there (or lack of appropriate thought)

I'd say there's a distinction that could be made here where the space is the main character but the reader is the protagonist. This novel seems to have themes that suggest the repetition of time. Similar occurrences appear over and over throughout time and the space we examine just shows us that view. It is then up to us to connect the dots or not, to choose how to go about reading. We decide the novel's purpose, if there is any, and as such become the person driving that purpose forward as protagonist.

I like this description; there are definitely parts of Here that are very sweet and reminiscent of home life.

I don't know if it's the first successful attempt, but I like this line.

While reading I definitely considered the space of the room to be the main character, not the reader. There's an argument for the latter (it's left up to the reader to decide what's happening between the margins of space and time, especially post-2015) but this narrative still belongs to and characterizes the space. Sidenote: I think it's important to emphasize "the space of the room" instead of just "the room" because, as he says, the room itself is just any arbitrary construct that only exists for a small fraction of time.

I think this is an interesting way to think about how Alison's mother is represented in this comic; her character is portrayed visually instead of verbally.

I think some danger lies in this analysis of sexuality as a result of familial socialization. The book focuses intensely on family, particularly Alison's relationship with her father. That's because Bechdel has chosen to explore that relationship- not a flaw of the work itself. However, socialization is not just familial but a combination of everything one learns from their formative environment.

Basing all of your queer theory on this novel could lead one to believe that queerness can be prevented if children are not raised by non-gender conforming parents. With the most conservative regime the U.S. has been under in decades, this argument could lead to legislation preventing queer people from having or adopting children. Idk, just feel like especially nonqueer people reading Fun Home could benefit from holding the nuance

Back at the recursive pattern again, except Mitchell describes each iteration as filling the gutter of other iterations, creating a linear timeline that the reader pieces together themselves.

The side to side panels where she talks about masculine charms in the left panel shes wearing a very plain outfit, just a tee shirt. However in the right panel she's wearing a more feminine attire and her barrette. We can see how when she grows up she starts to push back on her father forcing her to be more feminine, by losing the barrette and longer hair.

There was a controversy about the album cover of Blind Faith because of an underage topless girl as the image on the cover

The Rifleman is a 1950s TV show starring Chuck Conners. Here's an episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkDebgtF6Hk

Rumours about the girl's relationship to the band fuelled the controversy; among them were that she was Baker's illegitimate daughter, and that she was a groupie kept as a slave by the band members. Actually, the young girl was a London suburbanite, who posed upon consent by her parents and for a fee, as described in Seidemann's mini essay about the origins of the Blind Faith album cover artwork.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Faith

https://www.clarksusa.com/us/desert-boot-history

LIFE Magazine. This event is set in 1969, so which issue do you think this is on the table? http://www.oldlifemagazines.com/the-1960s/1969.html

"Had to Cry Today" by Blind Faith. Full lyrics:

It's already written that today will be one to remember The feeling's the same as being outside of the law Had to cry today Well, I saw your sign and I missed you there

I'm taking the chance to see the wind in your eyes while I listen You say you can't reach me but you want every word to be free Had to cry today Well, I saw your sign and I missed you there And I missed you there

Had to cry today

( via http://www.metrolyrics.com/had-to-cry-today-lyrics-blind-faith.html )

Here’s what the photographer Bob Seidemann said about his vision for the album cover and the reason behind using such a young girl.

“I could not get my hands on the image until out of the mist a concept began to emerge. To symbolize the achievement of human creativity and its expression through technology a space ship was the material object. To carry this new spore into the universe, innocence would be the ideal bearer, a young girl, a girl as young as Shakespeare’s Juliet. The space ship would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the girl, the fruit of the tree of life.”

“The space ship could be made by Mick Milligan, a jeweler at the Royal College of Art. The girl was another matter. If she were too old it would be cheesecake, too young and it would be nothing. The beginning of the transition from girl to woman, that is what I was after. That temporal point, that singular flare of radiant innocence. Where is that girl?”

http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/07/17/the-young-girl-featured-on-the-blind-faith-album-cover/

Reference to Life magazine which is associated with Time.

https://theidleman.com/manual/advice/history-desert-boot/

Cat in the hat.

Dr. Seuss reference.

Orchids?

Gun on the floor.

It was one of the first prime time series on American television to show a widowed parent raising a child. (From Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Faith_(Blind_Faith_album)

This is a statue of the biblical Lillith, often tied to the serpent, though she's by herself here.

Her mother mad an emphasis on how she would look "more girly" with long hair by showing her what it would look like if it was long. This kind of showed that her mom thinks she is different from other girls

There is definitely a lot of penis imagery on this page just with how they talk about the size of the snake and her saying it was huge with her arms out and then this highlighted part "its obviously a phallus"

Look at him tryna' hide all his problems with alcohol.

Snake-like, but also thought it may be a nod to femininity. In contrast to masculinity and all the phallic symbols (I think the snake is a phallic-like thing).

This always strikes me as super itchy looking.

That's also how her mother wears her hair. Maybe she wants Alison to be more like her?

The ouroboros symbol typically represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and infinity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism)

"Historically, serpents and snakes represent fertility or a creative life force. As snakes shed their skin through sloughing, they are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing.[7] The ouroboros is a symbol of eternity and continual renewal of life."

Ponytail looks like a snake? Still trying to make her more feminine.

Serpent is also a biblical archetype; the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The Worm Ouroboros is apparently the fantasy precursor to Lord of the Rings. It was the benchmark pre-Tolkien, which is pretty cool. I always liked this symbol of the snake swallowing its own tail. Pretty nail on the head as far as the cycle of life and death goes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worm_Ouroboros

Ouroboros is a symbol of wholeness or infinity

There's a second car next to the truck that kind of looks like a cop car

A Happy Death, is a novel following a man who gets bored of this boring life and goes around Europe. Wikipedia says that the people the main character is affiliated with have only one goal: "The pursuit of happiness by abandoning the world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Happy_Death

Playboy, pornographic magazine brought up in the military since he is reading a lot the other men must wonder what he is reading.

Possibly referencing Frank Marshall, "an American film producer and director, often working in collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Kennedy. With Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, he was one of the founders of Amblin Entertainment." (Wikipedia)... more likely a reference to Franklin Marshall College

The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101128.The_Nude

Don Quixote, fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. The story follows the adventures of a hidalgo named Mr. Alonso Quixano who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to set out to revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and bring justice to the world, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Bechdel Funeral Home. Bruce Bechdel was struck and killed by a truck and this is to serve as a memorial and positive tribute to his life.

In "It's a Wonderful Life," Jimmy Stewart's character contemplates committing suicide but is convinced not to by his guardian angel. This reference again foreshadows the suicide of Bechdel's father due to his unhappiness.

daedalus again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina

"Passion" + crucifixion imagery = a comparison of Bechdel's father to Christ. The word "martyred" foreshadows his death as a sacrificial figure. Whenever a sacrificial figure arises in literature, one must ask- sacrificed for what or whom? In this case, the sacrifice could serve Bechdel's own exploration of her father's complicated inner life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

A reverse grim reaper in white, like an angel?

Sunbeam Bread, like the truck that kills him.

Like Icarus's wings fell off?

An excellent craftsman. Murdered his nephew in a fit of professional jealousy

http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/daedalus.html

The TIN DRUM?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum

Gifted with a piercing shriek that can shatter glass or be used as a weapon, Oskar declares himself to be one of those "clairaudient infants", whose "spiritual development is complete at birth and only needs to affirm itself"

It seems this character has a pathological relationship with growing up, so is the appearance of this book in the context of Bruce's maturation into a father significant?

buggy

"In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is Proust’s spectacular dissection of male and female adolescence, charged with the narrator’s memories of Paris and the Normandy seaside. At the heart of the story lie his relationships with his grandmother and with the Swann family. As a meditation on different forms of love, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower has no equal. Here, Proust introduces some of his greatest comic inventions, from the magnificently dull M. de Norpois to the enchanting Robert de Saint-Loup. It is memorable as well for the first appearance of the two figures who for better or worse are to dominate the narrator’s life—the Baron de Charlus and the mysterious Albertine."

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28385.In_the_Shadow_of_Young_Girls_in_Flower

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/owl-eyed-man-symbol.html

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/gatsby-books-symbol.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_Is_Out:_Stories_of_Some_of_Our_Lives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHMYSuUr_f8

Sunday Morning Related Poem Content Details BY WALLACE STEVENS

  I 

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

   II 

Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.

   III 

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

   IV 

She says, “I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

   V 

She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

   VI 

Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

   VII 

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

   VIII 

She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

How narrow is the focus? We dont get much to Rose and can kind of apply her to "our lives." Kind of like shes a transparent character we can see ourselves through.

The story doesn't really give us an 'ending' or a conclusion to most of the situations we read about in the story. Leaving this open ended does extend the conversation beyond the pages of this novel

I agree with this; I loved the variety of body types and faces in this story. This really makes a difference to young girls.

I like this portion of the article because I can personally relate to it. As much a feminism is coherent in what it stands for, there are people who misinterpret it. For Rose and even in my own experience I can see how their perception of feminism has to change and develop simply because they thought the wrong thing originally, depending on whatever reason.

Shout-out to Windy for speaking up at this point, rather than reeling back with 'just kidding' or agreeing with Rose.

I've been thinking about this "summer" as an eternal, recurring, single Summer that these characters get to go visit every year. The title "This One" initially focalizes a time and place for this particular story, but for Alice, the "one summer" that she is fixed on is last Summer, when she had the miscarriage.

Yes! This is what I was reminded of but I couldn't put my finger on it.

A good point. We of course identify with Rose but (in our discussion Monday, at least) came to dislike her in some ways. So this is a good point about the limits of her position in this world.

I saw this pretty clearly in my reading, as well. I really identified with Windy; her sexuality is spot on with mine in terms of social interactions and self-identification (although I definitely wasn't as aware as she is when I was younger).

usually girls go through this stage (as Freud calls it, the Electra Complex)

perhaps Windy is the "Queen Bee?"

Amazing how text can convey such a powerful relationship

Being an artist myself, I really appreciated how the illustrations were modeled after what happens in real life, when only snippets of conversations can be hears at a time

OH MY GOODNESS YES. This makes complete sense! Just set in the modern world...brilliant

This One Summer definitely relates to the average preteen girl

It's sad that toxic relationships don't stop existing when we graduate high school, but it would be naive to think they don't. Are toxic friendships considered a YA only trope?

It's interesting how, as a preteen, there's this kind of ambivalence towards sexuality and sex where you're both repulsed and attracted to it. But it's hard to express those feelings because at that age, you don't know enough about it to talk about it.

I think most YA authors try to avoid using lots of slang so they don't date their work. This One Summer pretty much sticks to non-age graded slang like "cool" and it kind of adds to the timelessness.

Teenager defined by being more than a child and less than an adult, being on the cusp of maturity. Girls especially set ourselves apart during this time with the whole "not like other girls" ideology.

I assumed that there was going to be a relationship between Rose and Windy and when it didn't happen I was a little disappointed.

I do agree that Duncan's friend made some less than classy style choices, but I think he was ultimately a better person than he portrayed himself to be. Personal faults aside (including some pretty disrespectful comments about women), I liked that he tried to get Duncan to talk to Jenny and take some responsibility for his actions.

I got this sense from Rose a lot; she seemed to struggle between feeling like she had to act like an adult and wanting to let loose and act like Windy once in a while.

I think this perspective of how children see adults is pretty accurate; they are often outsiders to the conversation and drama. As I get older, it's sometimes funny to find out just how much stuff went completely over my head when I was little!

This is a good point; I think we see a lot of Rose being so wrapped up (understandably) in her own thoughts or problems that she's only half-paying attention to Windy.

Thinking about the bedroom culture thing, Rose is much more comfortable claiming agency in private spaces than Windy is. Windy is much less self-conscious and more willing to express herself in public spaces, while Rose seems to restrict her internalized misogyny to private spaces, where she assumes Windy won't confront her (and is shocked when she is accidentally confronted by the mothers, and later by Windy in public). Her conflict with feminism might make her seek out the private space that "bedroom culture" denounces, as she sees it as a more appropriate space for women.

I'd agree that this is possible. If we assume that Windy is potentially developing a queer identity, then the novel's timeline forced her to do so in a very heteronormative environment. I think Rose also forces a heteronormative perspective on Windy's apparent disgust towards heterosexuality, which she seems to perceive as immaturity, but could just be her sexuality.

ba dum tss

He could have just...not signed off the rights to make a movie? I looked it up and it seems like he did it thinking nothing would ever come of it. That's just irresponsible to maintaining his underground image.

I'm not sure I'm reading this right. It sounds to me like the author is saying Moore is somehow both a part of the mainstream yet also subverts it? Which could make sense in that he uses nontraditional characters (RORSHACH) in the comic that he seems to have wanted to be more indie than it now is. But again, not suuuper sure.

This guy...he uh, he really liked Watchmen I guess...Cause wow

A key point here.

As indeed happened when I displayed this structure to the class.

I don't know. In many versions, yeah, he's pretty meek looking. But a handful of the copies are pretty intense, even for Blake. Of course, the lack of a singular resolution to the question of the Tyger's ferocity is resonant with the other aspects of a/symmetry in the poem.

"I like this one poet, William Blake. He's pretty obscure; you probably haven't heard of him."

For me, the hard part here is following the move from the structure of the transcendental self into the material dialectic of capitalism.

Apparently this isn't exactly true: http://www.themillions.com/2016/06/blake-trump-road-excess-urban-legend.html

Like that commercial.

Another instance of human nature being to seek patterns, repetition, and familiarity where it may not exist?

So much planning that I didn't even notice went into the creation of this novel. It seems that literally nothing happens by chance. Honestly, it sounds exhausting.

The search for meaning in patterns is paralleled by the reappearance of images from the Rorschach test, a projective psychological test wherein the participant is meant to project meaning onto ambiguous stimuli. Is there a powerful human impulse to search for meaning where there is none?

Must keep the beard apparently

Watchmen is literally nostalgia in paper form.

Insinuating that the characters are breaking the fourth wall because they are written/drawn by the specific artist?

That's a lot of work for the reader. If this was the case, then Rorschach is both the Tyger and the Lamb, but we don't get this until his back story is told, AND at the very end.

"Annihilation of the diegetic" seems a little dramatic. Once we looked at this in class it made sense, but since I was oblivious to this it wasn't as impactful.

Could we then associate symmetry, like Rorschach's mask, with being ferocious??

An interesting thought. Kind of goes with the fact that we read more into the blank spaces between the panels.

Flashbacks to the girl who convinced a bunch of people who took pictures of herself with faeries.

I was wondering if something like this would happen toward the end of the novel when Adrian vaporizes his pet with Dr Manhattan.

"childish innocence" isn't what I'd use to describe the face he's making? Or any face he makes, but I agree that he's much less intimidating without his mask, like viewing the tiger illustration that The Tyger describes

Kind of reminds me of the hipster stereotype and the whole "things are cool when their underground/indie" mindset.

So by shunning the mainstream and fame, Moore appears cooler to the consumers who turn around and give him the fame he doesn't want? It's like a weird cycle.

This sounds incredibly edgy, but also must be incredibly frustrating, especially given the subject matter of his comics.

True for me. When first reading through any graphic novel I don't really notice much detail in regards to the layout.

So the identities of celebrities are most defined by their identity's commodification than by anything else? Or their identity changes with its commodification, and keeps changing as a result of more capitalist influence?

Might like to talk about this concept in class a bit (I also haven't gotten past the 6th paragraph yet, so maybe it's better explained later). My understanding is that this is about the distance between creating and experiencing one's own identity, or how their identity is interpreted by others.

What about the dozen other characters? Obviously this one article can touch on only so much, but Jon gets discussed in length and the Newsvendor gets a small section, but others like Laurie and Rorshach only get passing mentions. Laurie in particular has some very complicated traumas that would be interesting to examine in depth.

Makes me think of the convo on Mars. Jon's so separated that Laurie has to convince him that the human experience is worthwhile.

Film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas suggests that rape revenge films and, more broadly, media that contains rape as a plot device are most ethical when rape or sexual assault is a central theme, or what the media is "about." Not sure that I agree that Watchmen wasn't in some ways speaking about sexual violence, but I do certainly see Dr. Manhattan's trauma, a fictional storyline with no real-world examples, represented more often in the graphic novel than Sally's sexual assault, an experience which is statistically likely to personally resonate with one out of every five women who have to read this book for a college class.

I wonder what this would look like if written today. In the post-Cold War era, we face different, complicated issues. It would be cool to see how the Watchmen would understand and respond to things like the refugee crisis, climate change, or other current political issues.

The image of two lovers embracing is a significant one in Rorschach's own trauma, or "nuclear disaster." It follows him, appearing again on page 405 in the face of his own iconic mask moments before his death.

Amazing parallels. Nothing in this novel is a coincidence or happens by chance.

Both appear in the actual moment of Jon's disintegration/trauma on page 118, where he pictures his first encounter with Janey, including her handing him "a glass of very cold beer." The image is a repeated one.

Facial expressions are a crucial tool we use to connect to other humans. While the normal people look terrified in the above panel, with twisted, heavily lined faces, Jon's face is entirely smooth and blank. He has even lost key components of his eyes, a feature long associated with humanity and the concept of "souls."

The panel-by-panel collapse of the tower on page 305 is one example. It does a particularly good job of illustrating Laurie's trauma and the eventual emotional breakdown she experiences.

Less realistic -- farther right on McCloud's big triangle.

So this is his breakdown, essentially. He appears emotionless, but in seeing so many things at once, we see his equivalent of an emotional collapse. I hadn't looked at this scene in this way.

interesting to note how there shadows seem to morph into one person. Perhaps a commentary about how shared trauma can bring people together even if they have no other grounds for a relationship?

Just realized if Jon experiences time in a nonlinear way, then he is probably maybe abel to experience/relive that accident in the chamber and be complete helpless to stop it.... that's rough. :(

We wait for this, where Bernard tries to reach out at last

I can believe this is still a fear and issue we have today

Interesting to note that most of his story is anchored around his destruction in the chamber. If time is fractured around the trauma for a trauma victim then it makes sense that that moment would be an anchor for all of Jon's story to revolve around.

This is a really interesting approach to Jon. We see how he treats Laurie but really he is more isolated than she is. We see this more at the end of the book

I know it's been said before. But I really do think it is interesting the way Jon's destruction and following isolation from humanity parallels that of a trauma victim. I kind of feel bad that I didn't pick up on it. After having it pointed out it seems like it was so obvious, but I guess that is hindsight. Someone mentioned in slack that feeling oblivious to Jon's trauma symbolism made them feel like they contributed to his isolation. I agree with that. And I feel like it might have been in someways the intent of Moore. I mean, I remember mentioning in class that Jon was isolated due to his lack of morality. With this context though it really puts his lack of morality into perspective. If after traumatic experiences people feel cut off, shut down, and withdrawn and the Jon's amorality isn't because he's a god like super human, but because he is a very real human who can't process the emotion and reality of what happen to him.

Not to mention, no one in the story tries to help him. They just weaponize him. Meanwhile we don't even try to help him, we just pegged him as a super human god.

I saw his robotic personality as a product of his super human "enlightenment" not his traumatic experience of being ripped apart on a molecular level... but this context changes that. And the fact that I feel like I helped keep him isolated from the rest of us by pegging him that way only strengthens Moore's commentary.

I dunno, I know the story tells this as an accident, but I feel like Dr Manhattan would agree that all this had to happen for a reason

we put more of our feelings into the narrative by using the blank space between the panels. Also, the story being broken up gives the reader a chance to stop reading if they need a moment to compose themselves.

All of which we see in Watchmen

the coloring in the quoted image seems different from the book. Is it just from bing scanned?

this idea is very unamerican-- the idealistic american society absolutely champions the self-made man and the idea that if you dream something, you can achieve it. the repetition of the motif of fate and inevitability challenges this notion... since the novel critiques America and American life anyway, it makes sense. (we've been talking about the idea of fate v. destiny in my Moby Dick class with Captain Ahab and I can't help but see that same tension in this narrative)

This was what I found most frustrating about Ozymandias's plan. We see people can learn to connect with each other, that they can go beyond themselves, but the attack ends up erasing that. Instead of untangling the Gordian knot, Ozymandias goes the Alexander route and cuts through it. Smart, yes, but the lazy way out.

This! Like I said in an earlier annotation, he's expected by his close peers to be human, but he has been transformed by his trauma and there's a barrier there that he can't overcome. I wish that we could get into his head more to see if he really is as physically, emotionally and mentally distant or if there are moments of humanity that linger in himself still.

one of my favorite quotes from understanding comics

I find this interpretation to be very interesting and I wouldn't have read it that way tying it to trauma

Jon had it pretty bad. I didn't realize just how traumatic his situation was. His quiet, somber state kind of made me pass over his character.

The comparison of the "detachment from society" to Jon's "literal removal of humanity" is what really made me stop and think. Jon is really completely alone.

I missed the importance of this scene the first time around. I may have simply read over it too quickly, as I was aware the two Bernies died. It was their last moment that I missed. The scene is extremely powerful with the attempted connection and the way Older Bernie attempts to protect the child.

It really stands out because throughout the book there seems to be many instances where characters aren't exactly seeing eye to eye with their fathers. In this moment, Bernard could almost be seen as being a father to Bernie, doing his best to protect his son as the explosion happens.

I personally didn't see this before... a really valid point. Jon is glorified as this superhero, yet his superhero-ness was derived from a traumatic accident, so in a way his powers could be interpreted for what he feels are his weaknesses.

This kind of irony makes you question how 'super' these superheros were in the novel... they're trying to save the world, but can't really get their own personal lives/scandals in check. It makes me wonder if Moore wrote the superheros as a metaphor for modern-day politicians or just authority figures in general, since scandal tends to be associated with people in power

Ah, a good explanation of the value of repetition in Jon's story. Instead of just letting us look through time like we've talked about in class, it also makes us experience them all at once. It makes them more simultaneous than sequential.

Yes awesome, exactly what I was thinking earlier. He does literally embody chronological collapse.

This analysis is so, so good. Jon can't even realistically get help for the trauma he experiences because he's one of a kind.

Ah, this is so cool!! I immediately thought of Dr. Manhattan, who I had never viewed as a character who experienced much trauma because he felt so distant from the events after his accident, but his view of time is almost a literal interpretation of this explanation.

Once you've gone through a traumatic event, you can suffer anxiety that it will happen again. Then there are triggers, anything that reminds a person of their trauma, which can pop up without warning, so you have little pockets of fear and maybe even practice avoidance so you don't have to come in contact with them

For some of the pages when Dr. Manhattan is on Mars, I took in the whole page first, then went panel by panel. So it was kind of like seeing all of time at once. You can really only do that with images, not with pure text.

Dr. Manhattan always stood out the most on Mars, not just with the pink sand but the black background. It definitely showed that loneliness.

Watchmen is very intertextual with all its references to poetry and songs, as well as history. Also uses comics within comics. It repeats symbols over and over