For this week, I read two manga: Ghost in the Shell and My Lesbian Experience. I was surprised about how truthful and open the author was with the work. There were a lot of emotions and feelings that were put into the manga that made it feel very real and open. I went into the manga somewhat expecting some unrealistic version of love between women, but it was actually a really realistic experience of someone that dealt a lot with mental health issues. Additionally, the simple style with the simple color scheme is very effective for the subject matter for this comic. If any more simple, it might not have been taken seriously, and if it were any more complex, I feel I would get to caught up in the art style. The addition of the color pink, rather than just doing a traditional black and white, kept a soft theme to the comic, even though the comic was not especially gentle. Finally, I think that it was an interesting story. Although the story is based on real life, I expected some sort of resolution by the end, which we somewhat got in the manner of how the author changed how she thought. However, the author went through the trouble of including an epilogue that showed that she has not really changed since her first sexual encounter. I think this made the story feel even more real, as it makes it feel more like life in that it does not necessarily have a happy ending.
For the week that we read these, we were asked to discuss whether the comics we read should be considered literary or not. My first reaction was to break down what made something 'literary'. I was inclined to say that as long as something had words and was telling a story with some amount of depth, then that was what I considered literary. However, I realized while talking with team members about this question that I had a new consideration of literary comics. I like to think of comics the same way I think about art, and that is that anything can be art. I do not think that we have to tie down the constraints of what is and is not literary because that can put writers who just want to create into a bubble. Whether I used my old definition or my new definition, I think My Favorite Thing is Monsters is definitely a literary comic. It masterfully uses its media to tell a fantastic and relatable story. Everything about the comic felt real and was very engaging, the art felt in sync...
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