#out there! thats as compelling if not more compelling!!

[threewolfmoons]

oh! i actually know about this lol. i'm a comic artist. i also did my master's thesis on queer YA comics & my dissertation is about trans comics & zines, my program is The Comic Studies Program (English at University of Florida, where Donald Ault started ImageTexT, which iirc was the first or one of the first journals solely dedicated to comic studies in the United States-- Ault was a seminal figure in the field). unfortunately comic studies is one of few things i know very very well, specifically, to caveat, in a USamerican context, but thats also the context where I'd say McCloud is considered "oversaturated."

the thing about mccloud is like. ok. it's more that he's an incredibly visible figure because his work is actually accessible to the general public. And I think because he has a really approachable way of doing analysis, he's a really easy touchpoint. This isn't a criticism! There's a reason Understanding Comics remains a seminal text. because he was one of the first guys to even try to define the formal structures of a comic, as opposed to awkwardly grafting it onto literary analysis or visual analysis that didnt take into consideration the actual interplay between image & text & panel & page. People are gonna continue to build on his definitions, thats the nature of the thing.

but I personally disagree with many things McCloud writes! For example, he tries to contend that hieroglyphics among other things are an early prototype of comics (I am slightly oversimplifying). That's an ahistorical argument designed to make comics seem more historically important than they are, frankly. This is a trap a lot of comics studies falls into: we are still, even in 2024, so desperate to make comics seem ""legitimate"" as a form academics get really caught up on trying to bend back and imbue comics with some sort of long history that simply doesnt exist and ignores the material conditions that gave rise to comics as a specific art form that does a specific kind of work.

I have other qualms but I realize this post is about who else has offered anything to the convo, which is a fair thing- part of the reason McCloud's work is oversaturated is because he's very accessible, he writes for a general audience. That said if folks are interested I do recommend:

Thierry Groensteen, who like McCloud is interested in the sequence of images in his analysis - I don't fully endorse everything he writes either but he's an interesting figure who is also pretty often cited

Bart Beaty - particularly Comics vs Art and Frederic Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture. He's a bit cynical and again, I dont fully agree with everything he says but I do think he gives some of the most cogent critiques of comic studies as an academic discipline!

If you're looking only for discussion of comics Form, Ramzi Fawaz and Darieck Scott do some interesting work with comics & queer theory; Elisabeth El Refaie has a wonderful book on autobiographical comics and their conventions; Harriet Earle does great work on how comics can be used depict trauma through their form (her essay "Comics and the Chronotope" is an all time fave of mine); "How To Read Nancy" is a more approachable, general audience text that pulls apart a single strip of Nancy in more ways than you'd think possible.

tumblr mobile wont let me end this bullet point list but finally I'd add ImageTexT is open access, meaning the articles are all up for free, so that's twenty odd years of available comic studies from a very wide range of writers including non-academic writers!

The Comics Grid: Journal of Comic Scholarship is also open access online!

Non-open access journals that are comics-specific you can probably get through a library or. Other means: Image & Narrative, International Journal of Comic Art, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics, Sequential Art Narrative in Education

There's also like one million Comic Studies Reader books. Like throw a rock and you'll hit one. They're usually nice cross sections of what sorts of ideas people are working with in the field, and again, fairly easy to obtain through a library or "library"

couple replies/tags on that scott mccloud post about his essays being trite or oversaturated in comics education (being at this point over 30 years old) and while I get where that's coming from I also can't help but wonder; has anyone done it better since?

[mc-tummy-blur]

I’ve been so busy with other stuff but I really want to get back to drawing WHF art so I went and cleaned up a wip. Not sure how I feel with some of the angles but I just needed to get this out of my system

Based off of this clip

Click for better quality

Check my pinned post to see links on how you can help the people in Palestine

[bacchuschucklefuck]

caps from comic Im doing

[oh-no-its-bird]

Adjusting my glasses to take a peek into the umbrella academy tag like Hmmmm. Maybe I don't want to watch the new season after all.

[mythalism]

what if we have no choice but to bring down the veil ourselves to free solas from his fade prison + freeing solas from his prison is the only way to defeat the evanuris

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

3l!grian is frequently depicted as a tragic figure and sometimes i wonder if we even watched the same series

[ultimateinferno]

Yknow. I do forsee a potential plot point for Netflix-levania to somehow have Dracula as a villain back, even with the end of the previous series. Obligation. He's no longer the weary widower, and with Lisa's return there's closure. He's lived as a man. He understands man. He may not even hate man. Maybe.

And yet he's back because the other Vampires are fucking it up and now daddy's home to bring back order. He's no longer gunning for genocide, but honestly, the politicking of the vampires who are so far up their own asses, they need to be reminded who's really in charge. His death left a power vacuum, a particularly annoying vacuum. Maybe the little things of humanity irk him, but vampires are everything they have but turned up to 11.

So at the end it's a formality. He'll come back, clean things up among vampire society, make enough of a mess to get a Belmont to kill him, then turn in for another 100 years.

Does this make him too noble? Probably. If you want the grandiose "What is a man" Dracula, you can extrapolate from "It's an obligation" and have him actively resent people pulling him out of the afterlife from Lisa so fucking much, that he leans too hard into the role. The part of him who's evil out of obligation and the part who's evil out of resentment begin to blur the lines. Is he the lord of darkness because that's the role he's been cast and is simply going through the motions or his he just so simply done with the whole process that he refuses to give up an inch of power to any other Vampire (or human) because they're all just children in his eyes?

It could still ultimately culminate in a Soma Cruz plot line where after 1999 he quits so hard that he refuses to even return to the role properly but it doesn't matter because his mere presence fills the vacuum, even when he does nothing (not for the lack of trying from others).

Maybe that's a bit petulant in its own right. YMMV, but I think that's the point. For being such an archetypal lord of all evil villains, how he fills it is shockingly dynamic. He's evil for evils sake, a beacon of arrogance, or a truly tragic villain. Depends on what's needed. If he does come back, I do want to really see a "Castlevania does Bram Stoker's Dracula. Genuinely. It's just an adaptation for the original novel because that's Canon to the original Castlevania timeline, and it'd be funny to properly reveal that Quincy Morris is a Belmont (And his son fights WW1 vampires and grandson WW2)."

[spacedlexi]

Do you think Vi and Minnie were still dating when Minnie and Sophie got captured or do you think things were going awry and they broke up before the twins got captured?

they were definitely still dating i dont think we have any reason to believe they werent? like im p sure all evidence points to dating. but i definitely think their relationship was awry at that point, and they were just in a weird middle zone, at least on minnies side. minnie definitely had her frustrations if her words to vi in the woods are anything to go by, and i think violet also not having a response to it and instead just retreating says something about her/their relationship

i do think violet loved minnie and just wanted to make her happy (even if in doing so gave herself the "short end of the stick" in the relationship), and violet seeing minnie as the fish i think says a lot about how positively she viewed her (and i think her getting so flustered at clem saying shes the fish is because those are secretly traits she aspires to, but has yet to recognize in herself). i think minnies behavior towards a kidnapped violet shows us she still cares about her too even if things werent perfect. so if minnie had never been kidnapped, i dont think they wouldve ever actually split up, even if the relationship was turbulent.

what Really causes them to split is the change in the person minnie has become. violet (grief stricken and blaming herself), does not recognize this person, and doesnt like who she sees. someone who would rather hurt the people they supposedly care about to save themselves. unfortunately a kidnapped violet learns this lesson too late

[kittyloops]

the honest to god worship of kenny in some twdg spaces needs to be studied... are we forgetting the everything about him being a complex and nuanced character or am i just insane. this man is NOT a hero he is literally just on a downward spiral

[thedrotter]

hello gamers i was compelled today to post some rekinder doodles i had around for a while and made today ... I WILL BE POSTING MORE PROPER ART OF IT ONCE IM DONE WITH WORK!! :33

[kohakhearts]

okay, something i’ve been trying to decide, curious about yalls thoughts…

*official as in, these were natures given to various event distribution pikachus with the ot satoshi and/or ash.

some flavour text if you’re unsure:

naughty nature boosts attack and decreases special defence. preferred flavour is spicy; least favourite is bitter

brave nature boosts attack and decreases speed. preferred flavour is spicy; least favourite is sweet

hardy nature is a neutral nature, so it doesn’t change any stats and is neutral to all flavours

[fr00tbats]

posted all these muppets i drew the other day and i FEAR THAT IF I SAY THE COMMONALITY BETWEEN THEM ALL EVERYONE WILL GET THEIR KNIVES OUT ON ME AGAIN LMFAO

[palossssssand]

guys I’m in the trenches. One of these days I have to go make a really long in-depth detailed post about trito and kinoga’s dynamic because it drives me insane and I need to lay it all out. the specifics of it. I have so many thoughts

[jam-packed]

thank god im not a journalist cus the amount of eye contact would kill me

[eddiegettingshot]

i have opinions so unpopular.......

[alphaketoglutaricacid]

Also i find her naive desperation (cant find the right words for it) to see her adventuring crew as sworn friends wholl go thru hell together even tho shes the newest addition soooo telling. Shes had trouble making friends her whole life she was really hoping! And even the ones who left are willing to go to hell for her n the crew so its not like its not true. Its just not like how it is in her mangas. I think theres a good chance she n namari become like closer after the end of the series.