I haven’t published a blog since I was about 17 or 18. In that time it seems I’ve forgotten what the purpose of a blog was. However I will try to pick back up the basics as I go along.
The last time I wrote about video games was on gamespot.com (I’m not counting my Xenga, myspace, or facebook occasion comments or messages as they mostly only deal with video games during E3 or a release I’m anticipating), my favorite website and trusted source of reviews. The last entry on it was about my PS3 and how happy I was to have it and how that Christmas had lost its magic. Before that I had posted my personal reviews for games like Dead Rising 1, Final Fantasy 11, and like half-life 2. Back than my views were quite different and my ideas on how to breakdown and judge a game were a bit juvenile as mostly I reviewed games I loved and gave them all 10’s despite some major flaws, I was, and still am, a fanboy of certain series and franchises. But to give this blog a focus I’m going to concentrate on the class I am starting this blog for.
To start I will examine Blankets and as I go on I will try to start to review games again as I enjoyed it when I used to blog and I really enjoy reviewing movies when I was on the high-school and last College’s paper. I’ll probably dedicate my next blog to a review of Bastion as I just bought it and am almost finished with it. Coming after that will be anything from Darkness 2, Reckoning, FFXIII-2, Asura’s Wrath (I want this game so damn bad!), and Syndicate. And if I’m lucky the PS Vita maybe.
Blankets:
To me Blankets is quite an interesting choice for this class to start off with. I was suspecting that the class would start off with a more traditional comic franchise like DC or Marvel, but to my surprise we have read Mcloud and Blankets and will go on to Muse and Persepolis before we ever touch such stereotyped universes. As for my perception of the Graphic Novel in question it is quite varied depending upon the aspect in question. While I don’t care for American views on drawing in Graphic Novels I found myself keen to the changes between the kid and adult versions in the GN. It gives that sense that the worlds really are different. (I would like to see a sequel to Blankets just to see how the art style may have changed in the 10 years after release.) It is something that novelist always try for in a Bildungsroman novel and is so difficult to actually accomplish. But in Blankets Craig just differentiates them through the drawing medium and honestly it works much better than I would have expected. I was never confused unlike Craig is at several points in the GN because when he was referring to something in his past it was obvious as he was a kid again. This is nice because in a novel it can be hard to differentiate a flashback in certain novels. Thanks to the animation styles and variations on the gutter it is quite easy to interpret.
I also liked that the size of the graphic novel as it made me feel as if the 4 hours I spent reading it actually made me feel as if I had just read Huckleberry Finn, it was such a complete coming of age story and it, at times, was heartfelt. Plus the amount of symbols found in the GN is on par to a normal novel but they are much easier to spot (Halos everywhere!) thought they are just as hard to define. In fact that is what I enjoyed most about the class last Wednesday. Sarah, Bethany, and Duncan’s (I hope they are spelled right) presentations helped to define what some of the symbols were and why they meant something.
Unfortunately, there was also quite a bit I did not care for in Blankets. For example, the angst between Craig and Raina felt unnatural. To me, Craig was in love with the idea of love more so than the relationship with Raina. Also the adolescence and sexual tension felt juvenile and any excuse for relief would have sounded as convincing as the religion that was imposed upon them at birth. While both first love and sexual encounter are a valuable part to a Bildungsroman story Blankets felt fake. However this to me is probably due to the religious aspects. I deal with more than enough in my own life that any more is just a nuisance unless it is a different religion of a different group of people as it is at least new to me. And as much as I hate to admit it, religion, or lack of, is a big part of any society. I think what bothers me most is how the story breaks the narrative into two categories, the religious aspect and the love aspect which wouldn’t exist without one another. But it takes so long for Craig to realize this and I found myself bored with various sections of the GN in-between. It also bothered me that Religion brought Craig and Raina together but through the interactions at Raina’s house I felt that she was never religious to start with. However if this is based on a true story I can’t really tell for sure why any of this was placed in the GN but I can say I got tired of the Religious overtones, Craig himself, and I especially hated Raina. The only moment I really felt like there was true emotion in the GN was when Raina and Craig were driving back to her house and she said she wanted destination music to play and Craig dropped the tape. The hurt he must have felt from the fact she just wanted to be away from it all despite he was happy where he was honestly sucks. I can relate to Raina’s side but I never really stopped to think of everyone else’s feelings when I just wanted to be anywhere than where I was/am. If I took anything away from the GN it would be that.
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