Cordelia the Corrupted

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In my reading of the excerpt of “FIRE!!”, Wallace Thurman’s “Cordelia the Crude” stood out to me particularly. I found this piece to be very striking in the way it portrays the lives of many young African American women in 1920’s Harlem. Thurman uses humor and light diction in constructing his story of Cordelia, a sixteen-year-old girl who became involved in prostitution. One example of this that I found to be particularly insightful into Thurman’s beliefs on this was his use of the terms “game” to describe the relationship between the prostitutes and the men who were with them. After doing a close reading, I focused in on where this term occurs during the text in order to reach a conclusion about the meaning behind it.

When Thurman describes the situation of how the men in Harlem were approaching prostitutes – the particular location he uses in the story is the “Roosevelt Theatre” – he makes it seem playful, describing it as a game. The narrator makes it seem as though Cordelia is teasing him, walking in a way that seemed to be a “sway of invitation” to “play the game”. This specific diction was specifically chosen by Thurman, possibly to remark on Cordelia’s youth, and how the actions in which she is partaking are corrupting her, stealing her childhood, since “playing games” is often associated with youth. Similar to this, along with his allusion of prostitution to a “game”, Thurman also explains how the prostitutes “grow wise” when they have become aware that a man is pursuing them. When the narrator explains his experience with Cordelia, he states that she “let [him] know that she was wise”, meaning that she knew what his intentions were. But, Thurman’s choice of the word “wise”, seems odd for this scenario. This could be because this word has an underlying irony. The fact that Cordelia is “wise” about what the narrator wants from her is indicative of a loss of the naivety and ignorance that are associated with childhood innocence. Thus, Cordelia is an embodiment of the corruption of many young women who crossed paths with prostitution in Thurman’s Harlem.

What Really Matters?

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This comic tells a story about how the No-Face (a.k.a. Kaonashi) transforms himself from a socially isolated person into a popular star by effectively marketing himself on social medias but he still feels desolate. No-Face is a spirit in the famous Japanese animated film Spirited Away. He is a lonely spirit who begins to show emotions and compassion to other people after receiving a genuine care from Chihiro. Without too much knowledge about the society, No-Face learns by examples and adapts to his surroundings.

At the very beginning of this story, No-Face was still that lonely spirit, isolated by society, nobody cared. He was used to the life hiding behind the crowd and learned to be quite. He has always been needing attention and craves for someone who can truly understand him, however, facing people walking on the street with masks on and being indifferent to each other, he felt lost. No-Face wished to find love and care from the crowd, so he started to make the moves to blend in. No-Face learned by examples so he begins from becoming a smartphone user. He downloaded all the apps that are ranked the highest around his neighborhood and set up on all social media channels. He completed case studies about all the self-made YouTube star, people receives the most likes and followers on different channels. Then No-Face duplicated the model and started marketing himself on social medias. He gained more than enough exposures to the public and eventually became a self-made superstar. Regardless how famous and viral he becomes, he remains lonely and unhappy.

Resemble the underground man’s social isolation feature, No-Face is not accepted by the mainstream. In opposite to what the underground man’s reaction towards his self-isolation, NO-Face wants to step out of his comfort zones and seeks for the true love he is yearning for. Even though he was smart and tried hard on marketing himself and creating his self-image and finally he gained the attention that he was craving for, still he felt empty deep inside, because no one really knows who he is. So here lies some messages that I am trying to communicate with my readers through the slides: the quality of your social network is more important than the quantity. To start investing in the depth of your social life, people need to drag themselves away from the distracting screens that some of them are gluing onto day and night, peel off the filters the social apps make you comfortable using and seriously make the process of socialization personal and genuine.

Through the Dark Wood and Open Door…

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In the first panel, a man is struggling to climb out from the underground. This is represented by the many lines of the wooden panels inserted around his arm. We will know the man by his green shirt. Then, in the second panel, the man has emerged from the underground and into the house, which is pitch dark. He sees light streaming out from the doorway, so he decides to be brave and venture outside, since he is craving freedom. Outside, in the third panel, the biggest and most significant panel, it is revealed that there is only more wood on the ground. The lofty dreams and ideals he has are only in his mind. There is even a hideous cockroach laying near him, paying homage to Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.”

These three panels are a reinterpretation of Dostoevsky’s philosophy mentioned in the text. While he wrote of a man hiding underground to express his free will, I re-imagined it to be a man escaping the underground, whether figuratively or literally, in hopes of finding something more beautiful outside. Both the novel and this comic panel end in disappointment.

This scene is a derivation, a riff, off of the original text. By making these three panels, I’ve given readers a small taste of the novel without them actually having to slog through the 136 pages of philosophy and whimsy. I’ve taken the core idea of the novel and found the easiest simplified example to convey it.

Become more Afraid of Living

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I am in the group 6 project, therefore in this graphic narrative assignment I chose the beloved by stretching this graphic from the story I will  do my own interpretation. in the first panel, 124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years, each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. In the second panel the grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard). Neither boy waited to see more; another kettleful of chickpeas smoking in a heap on the floor; soda crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to the door sill. Or did they wait for one of the relief periods:

the weeks, months even, when nothing was disturbed. No. Each one fled at once the moment the house committed what was for him the one insult not to be borne or witnessed a second time. Within two months, in the dead of winter, leaving their grandmother, Baby Suggs; Sethe, their mother; and their little sister, Denver, all by themselves in the gray and white house on Bluestone Road. It didn’t have a number then, because Cincinnati didn’t stretch that far. In fact, Ohio had been calling itself a state only seventy years when first one brother and then the next stuffed quilt packing into his hat, snatched up his shoes, and crept away from the lively spite the house felt for them.

Baby Suggs didn’t even raise her head. From her sickbed, she heard them go but that wasn’t the reason she lay still. It was a wonder to her that her grandsons had taken so long to realize that every house wasn’t like the one on Bluestone Road. Suspended between the dozes of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn’t get interested in leaving life or living it, let alone the fright of two creeping-off boys. Her past had been like her present intolerable since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color. “Bring a little lavender in, if you got any. Pink, if you don’t.” And Sethe would oblige her with anything from fabric to her own tongue.

 

The Herbalists’ Impact

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(Click on image for higher resolution)

I decided on adding a new scene just because I felt as though there could’ve been more about the herbalist in the story. I personally believe that she played a crucial role in subconsciously influencing Jin and it was a pity that she was only seen again during Jin’s dream as he was experiencing his transformation into Danny.

The scene in which I have roughly drawn above was inspired by page 204 when Danny was dragging Chin-Kee away from school ready to fight. I had the idea of Danny passing by the herbalist again and being recognized as Jin but was unaware of the herbalist actually seeing him. It is a simple scene but I feel as though it personally adds a little more on the foreshadowing of being able to see through someone for who they really are despite wearing a facade. After the fight as Danny transforms back into Jin and Chin-Kee into the Monkey King, Jin has the shocking realization that he had passed by what he thought was the herbalists’ shop again. This triggers him into remembering what the herbalist had told him all those years ago and it’s taken him the entire back and forth transformation to realize that he had actually forfeited his soul and was lucky enough to get it back.

Although I was not satisfied with the ending of the graphic novel, I chose to add a trivial part into the story instead of creating a new ending because I was unsure of my storytelling ability to create a new ending.

Jin and Suzy’s Hidden Secret

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I chose to illustrate an instance in which Jin and Suzy become friends outside the school despite rumors about their arranged marriage. One day, Suzy stops by 490 Bakery Cafe, the bakery where Jin and Wei-Chen reunites at the end of the story, since she was hungry after school. As Jin is a regular customer at the cafe, he offers a recommendation. From then on, they became close and the cafe was their usual place to hangout together after school. In the second panel, however, Suzy is paranoid by the constant rumors in class and thus, decides to stop seeing each other. Finally, in the last panel, they’re both seen during lunch time at school. Although they want to hang out together like old times, they sadly continue avoiding each other.

I decided to make the last panel the largest among the rest to bring the main focus to how these two children suffer as a consequence of others being stereotypical about their race. I kept the background blend in contrast with some objects such as the tree, grass, school, and so on sketched or colored in order to convey that while they are surrounded by such a bright and happy environment, it feels empty for them inside. It was the same feeling portrayed when they didn’t know each other yet in the first panel. The second panel, however, is filled with a dark blue and black background to indicate the sadness and gloomy dark day had arrived.

The reason why I decided to add this scene is because I was really interested in how their friendship would be like if they were to unexpectedly meet elsewhere. As an elementary child, they are both confused as to whether they should ignore or try to fit in with the rest. In the end, they decide to part since they are unable to stand up for themselves among the majority.

Jin’s Transformation

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In this graphic narrative assignment, I chose to add on to the ending of American Born Chinese. After Jin reconciles with Wei-Chen, Jin unexpectedly bumps into Amelia on the streets. In the first panel of my illustrations, Amelia was surprise to see Jin because it has been so long since they last saw each other. Jin is blushing because he was also surprised to see his first love. In the second panel, Amelia tells Jin that they should catch up with everything. Jin was brave enough to ask she was free to catch up right now instead. In the last panel, it shows Amelia and Jin talking in the bubble tea shop.

I decided to have the first panel the largest because I think that’s the most important scene in my illustration. That’s when Jin and Amelia first encounter, after everything that had happened in their past. Instead of having a blue sky, I made it pink. I want to display the heart thumping atmosphere when Jin sees his first love. And in the last panel, I used the color red because I want it to convey that a love interested is going to spark.

The reason why I decided to add this scene to the ending is because I wanted to show how much Jin has changed. He is now able to finally accept who he is. Jin comes to terms with his Chinese heritage and no longer feels the need to assimilate within the majority. He missed out on his opportunity with for Amelia back then, and he won’t do it again. He will pursue those feelings for her and will not back down because someone told him to. Jin is making the most out of his encounter with Amelia.

Learning to See through the Little Prince

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In this graphic, I chose to illustrate the separate lives of the Little Prince and the pilot after the events of the story took place, based on my own interpretation. In this first panel, the Little Prince is looking back on Earth from his planet, alongside his one rose. In the second panel, the pilot is looking at the night sky and seeing the Little Prince embodied in one of the stars, with his singular important rose. Finally, in the third panel the pilot has returned to drawing the elephant inside of the snake, having learned to see “regular” things from a different perspective.

Graphic Narrative Assignment Due 4/12 (Plus Examples from Past Students)

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Hey Everyone.

Remember your graphic narratives are due, Wednesday April 12th by 5 pm.  Your narrative should add or revise some aspect of your final project book. Think about it like fan fiction.  You can add a deleted scene, or a piece of back story, or a memory, or add a minor character, or change an ending, etc.  Just make sure you have some reason for your choice and some main objective that you hope to accomplish by way of the choices you make for this revision.

Please upload your picture as a compressed, jpeg file to the site.  Remember to check all appropriate category boxes.  If you feel extremely shy about your graphic narrative, you may email it directly to me.  Please know that being a perfect or super-skilled artist isn’t necessary.   What I’m looking for is thoughtfulness about all your choices from  panel size and layout, to color, to inking, and dialogue.  I am also looking to see that the product looks complete and finished.  While it’s not required that you ink, inking does help give the graphic a sense of completion, so you should consider inking, or at least inking the panel frames.

Don’t be afraid to do more than one draft!

Click Here: We Monsters to see examples of students’ finished graphic narratives.   Please note in the past the graphic narrative workshop was part of my Young Adult Literature course (ENG 3045) and not Great Works, so their assignment was different.  Instead of creating a graphic related to their final project book, their assignment was to make a graphic that engaged the ideas of adolescence and monstrosity.    All the same, I hope these examples  give you a sense of the range of possibilities.

 

Am I a Demon?

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One Hundred Demon by Lynda Barry  demonstrate to the reader all the demons that the author is created by, meaning these demons put together is what makes her persona. I believe that the “demons” are a representation of her memories and her life experience; since we are who we are because of the experience that we have lived in our life, and Barry is telling us that she is created by these demons, can we come to the conclusion of making a statement that the author is a demon her self?

Barry explains to us every demon by giving us a little story of how she created them. The fist demons that we get to have a look at is the “head lice”. As we go more into the story we can see that for every demon she has a special name for each one. Most of the demons are “bad” demons as she categorized them as bad or good, but we only have the opportunity to see only one good demon (memory of her playing with her friend as a kid). So since we get to see more bad demon from her can we automatically say that she is also a bad demon herself she had more bad memories than good?