Highschool of the Dead

Highshool of the Dead written by Daisuke Sato and illustrated by Shoji Sato.  Another manga that I read but possibly my most favorite.  I am a huge fan of zombies so this instantly caught my attention.  This manga's audience is mostly towards men for the zombies and the girls (aka fanservice).  I try to get past the fanservice and focus more on the plot of the story which is a group of high school students and a nurse trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.  My favorite character is not any of the female characters which a lot of people would choose, my favorite character is Kohta Hirano who is a overweight nerd who knows his way around firearms.  In all the artwork I think is done very well especially the environments and zombie designs.  I also enjoy the action scenes where they fight zombies and when someone is caught and devoured.  The panel say out for this comic shows that there is not much separation so it kind of looks like the panels  seem to bleed into each other.

This manga has been on hiatus for a couple of years it's been rumored it's still being made just taking a while to be produced, I hope it continues because I love this genre of comics very much.  There is also an anime which I also recommend, it has a lot of humor and a lots of mindless violence.

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) created by Hajime Isayama, is another manga I have grown very fond to.  Pretty much it's a story set in a steam punk renaissance era where humanity is up against these huge creepy looking monsters called Titans, so the human race is protected by these three huge set of walls to keep them out and have set up different security groups to deal with these creatures.  What really got me into this were the monster designs, I'm recently studying anatomy and the monsters anatomy just intrigues me.  Also a lot of line work is put into this manga especially the action scenes.  Also I enjoy all the different tones of grey which adds a lot of detail especially to the Titans.

The comic lay out is pretty standard I really enjoy the one single pannel pages because of how much work is being put into it.  I know I didn't choose many pages with text but just the work just gives off what is going on in that particular scene.

Shingeki no Kyojin has also been turned into an anime which has finished its first season.  The manga is still on going so if you want to go farther into the story I recommend reading it.

Koe no Katachi

Koe no Katachi created by Ooima Yoshitoki, is a very dramatic manga.  What really got me into reading this wasn't really the art but the story and the characters.  The main character who is also in a way the protagonist and classmates bully a girl who is deaf.  Suddenly the teacher calls out the main character (Ishida) on what he has been doing and the whole class just throws him under the bus.  As you can see on the last page Ishida is blacked out when they all gang up on him which I thought was appropriate for this type of scene.  

Ishida is then shunned by everyone and loses all his "friendships" with people, but the deaf girl (Nishimiya) is still giving him attention.  So basically the whole story flip flops and you start to feel bad for the main character.  Another part of this manga I like is how Ishida portrays people in high school with red X over their faces, meaning he hates them, but you can see when he becomes friends with some one the X falls off which I thought was a neat idea. 

The characters look like ordinary cartoons but the backgrounds and objects look quite realistic.  The panels for the manga are set up like any other comic book, square and rectangle panels sometimes with slanted gaps.

The Manga is still on going which I'm excited for because this story can go in many directions and I recommend anyone who wants to read a dramatic story about bullying and how people live with it.

Fox Trot: By Bill Amend

When I use to read the paper I would read the Sunday funnies and if Foxtrot was there that would be the first one I would read.  I like the character design, even though they all look the same but with minor differences.  I like this series mostly because of Jason Fox.  He is that nerdy/geeky who kid of reminds me of myself.  The colors also catch my eye it seems very bright which I think helps draw an audience.  I like all the nerd and geek humor that is put into these comics like the planet of the apes and find "smart pencils" for school I thought was also comical.  I also like how the comic is keeping up with the modern times while some sunday comics seem to use old humor.

The panel layout for this series is usually horizontal read.  Sometimes they have 4 small panels on top of each other then one big panel at the end so it varies.  I think Bill should try different panel layouts maybe panels that bleed into each other.

This is a classic to me and I should go back and read some of these because I've forgotten how good these comics are.

Cyanide and Happiness

Cyanide and Happiness, has been going on since 2005, is created by 4 artists (Kris Wilson, Rob BenBleyker, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick).  As you can see they all have a different style on how they create their characters but you can see the similarities.  The characters look like not much thought was put into it and they have no backgrounds so they look like they are floating.  But what makes this series so good is just the crude/dark humor they put into their strips.  These comics have been booming on the internet and Kris Wilson's and Rob BenBleyker's comics seem to be the well known ones because of the character designs.  Rob BenBleyker has also been making animations for Cyanide and Happiness and are quite hilarious in my opinion I'd say check them out for a laugh.

The comic layout goes both ways vertical and horizontal.  I've also realized that Kris Wilson likes to draw his panels manually while everyone else like their panels to look straight and clean.  They also don't like to use air bubbles and instead use lines leading up to the text.  The only thing I'd wish they put more effort into is the backgrounds, just my opinion.

The series is quite funny with no boundaries. 

Comic Examples

Two Guys and Guy: By Rickard Jonasson

Two Guys and Guy created by Rickard Jonasson is another comedy comic which is a continuing series that updates about two times a week.  What drew me to this comic was the character designs and and the colors, the comedy was a bonus.  I like the shapes that make up the characters such as the heads, they are either rounded or square.  The eyebrows on some characters I also enjoy seeing.  I learned the character's personalities and found out that the girl, Guy, and the guy with glasses, Frank, don't really care about anything or anyone but themselves and that the guy with the green shirt, Wayne, gets the short end of the stick most of the time.  The comic is random each time there is not a plot.  I also like the diversity in talk bubbles if the character is like evil, see last example, Rickard makes the color of the bubble the same colors as the character, makes the bubble look sketchy, and makes the bubble's tale all wavy.

The comic panel lay out as you can see are the same all the time just three panels set up horizontally.

It's a very humorous comic I recommend people to read it if they want to have a laugh.

MCA Visit: Daniel Clowes

When I entered the Daniel Clowes exhibit at MCA Chicago I wasn't expecting the content of his work.  When I some some of his work before I entered the gallery I thought he was an comic artist that drew trippy things, example photo number two.  Clowes seems to have a comical dark side on life.  When I look at his character designs most of them have frowns and look sad or nervous.  The character designs of Clowes are quite creepy like in my third photo, it seems he likes to put a lot of shadows around the face to make certain parts pop out.  The eyes of men characters sometimes are just simple ovals while woman characters seem to have more of a realistic eye style.  I've also noticed a lot of nudity and sexual themes in his work, one of his strips was a ex couple who got back together and had sex and wants to know what the child's gender was because the wife was pregnant before they divorced, which I thought was funny in a mean way.

For some of Clowes work he likes to make up a fantasy world in the beginning where everyone is nice, but then ends the comic by bringing it back to the harsh reality of the world which in a way is the punch line.  Then he just does some comics that are just humorous like the ninth photo two guys playing paper basketball and one of them says penis in hopes he messes up.

Clowes panel lay out varies from 1, 6, to even 24 panels on one page, but depends on what he is working on.  Usually I'm seeing three rows of three panels in his comic set up.

In all the visit was very interesting and humorous for me, I'm starting to look into his work more, and I just recently learned that Clowes' comic Ghost World was turned into a movie which I may think of watching.