Non Sequitur

Blankets Chapters 8-9, and as a Whole

Non sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow," and is usually interpreted in a way that would make its meaning closer to "it does not fit." I feel that this phrase adequately describes some portions of the book, as well as its ending.

After finishing Blankets, I feel that there was a lack of closure in its ending. There are so many things left hanging, such as his relationship with Raina, his religious issues with his parents, his career, etc. The last Christmas scene at his house is very unfulfilling and I feel that it does not reveal enough of the story; it seems like a superfluous scene to me. However, overall I think that I liked the book due to the story, the great visuals, and surprisingly, the empathability (yay for making up words) of the characters.



Craig, for me, was a frustrating character. I seemed to like him less and less as he grew older, though I still sympathized with him and wanted him to be successful in his endeavors. As a child, in his interactions with his brother, he's certainly not nice to his sibling all of the time but he is likable simply because he seems to have a childish innocence and joy in life. Of course, he starts to develop personality traits that are visible in his teen years, including a painful sense of self-consciousness and neuroticism (see panel on pg. 450 contrasting his reaction and his brother's to the "surprise"). In his teen years, I get the sense that he is simply lost--and desperately trying to cling to anything that will anchor him to reality. You could say that he is emo, as his haircut perhaps indicates. As a result, there is an increasing sense of self-absorption in his narrative that becomes particularly frustrating when it comes to his treatment of Raina. His hanging up on her and his subsequent isolation from her indicates his weakness and inability to take responsibility and handle a long term relationship; no, not even--his inability to be there for one that he supposedly loves.



The adult Craig is no better. He seems to have developed an attitude of nonchalance in the city. Although he displays increasing attitudes of secularism, he does not have the strength to tie up loose ends at home. The city is merely another place for him to escape too without facing up to his past and the memories that keep bubbling up.

In particular, the final scene of Craig walking in the snow and contemplating (with a motif of jumping across snow) the satisfaction of him leaving an impact in the world is unsatisfactory for me. Where does his sense of satisfaction come from? From leaving everything behind? I think he puts too much emphasis on the mere fact that he left footprints in the snow, without judging the quality of those footprints, to continue his analogy.



Another scene that felt discordant was on pgs. 504-505, which showed another example of supposed-to-be-poetic descriptions of the melting scenery that I think would have been better without the redundant text. However, the following panels include two more notable things that don't fit, including a panel with melting snow on pg. 508 in which the water is melting from the white space surrounding the panels. It looks extremely peculiar and even reminds me of dripping blood (maybe I've watched too much Sin City). Another peculiarity is the dictionary definition of thaw on pg. 510, which includes "to become less reserved." If the thawing of nature is supposed to correlate with the thawing of Craig's personality, I don't think the analogy works because I think he becomes more reserved, not less.

The most glaring non sequitur sequence to me, however, was the inclusion of the allegory of the cave. I feel that it was juxtaposed very poorly with scenes of Craig's life and the development of the ending of his relationship with Raina. The point of Socrates telling Glaucon about the cave was to make him realize the boundaries of human knowledge, to knock down our hubris a bit, to show us how much more there is still to learn (at least, that's what I remember from reading the Republic last year in AP English, but I'll have to reread the passage to make sure). Craig hangs up on Raina right after he finishes describing the ultimate achievement the imprisoned humans are supposed to have accomplished--looking directly into the sun (pg. 503). The humans are supposed to be enlightened. Craig hanging up on Raina because he is "enlightened" to her true feelings for him is a complete perversion of the analogy.

Loneliness

Blankets Chapter VI, Teen Spirit
At first I found the introduction of this chapter rather disturbing/disgusting...I asked myself, what is the point of including a pee fight? Of course, it was tied in to religion and Craig's concept of sin and shame. I admire Thompson's smooth transitions; in the next scene, Craig and Raina are distinguished from the crowd by their innocence. Craig's behavior, hugging himself, clearly shows that he is uncomfortable in this crowd of sinners who are smoking, drinking, doing drugs, etc.



Craig's isolation in the crowd demonstrates a key aspect of his characterization: loneliness and as a result, an obsessive need to be loved and accepted. His attitude towards Raina is getting a bit scary; he seems to both idolize her and to become increasingly obsessed with her (pg. 337). No matter his physical proximity to her, he is still able to feel lonely, which I find amazing. Craig always seems to find the grass greener on the other side and is unable to appreciate the present.

Perhaps he has a valid reason to feel lonely, however...because even though he's with Raina, he knows that his time with her will end, and he isn't sure that she reciprocates his feelings equally. I found the font changes interesting on pgs. 346-347, especially considering Craig's earlier discussion of typing poems as depersonalizing them. When he tells Raina that he loves her, the font becomes fancier, but her reply scared me, as it was in the same font as the typed poems. And it's the unsaid words that are more powerful to me in that panel, though she does say them later on. However, the context in which she finally returns Craig's feelings for her is rather depressing, as it seems like they have no future together. I wish Craig had a better response than "I don't know" to Raina's question of "So why bother getting started in the first place?" on pg. 371. With that type of logic, I feel like there's a slippery slope leading to the absurd concept where there's no point in living because you end up dying anyways. This is a question too many of my friends have grappled with, and it's difficult to be the one attempting to answer it, so I can see why Craig doesn't. But I still think it's one's perspective that matters, to make the most out of living in the present. One shouldn't always look to a better future in a place like heaven, which Craig does, because then the present escapes too quickly.



Blankets Chapter VII, Just Like Heaven
Loneliness again, and this time it's not just Craig's, but Raina's and her father's as well. Raina's whisper in the very first page, surrounded by all that white space, demonstrates their isolation from the world, which Craig reflects on in the next few panels. Raina's father's isolation in the cold is juxtaposed with a vision of him and his wife in Hawaii, their love rekindled (which I hope is more than just wishful thinking, their divorce is causing visible stresses) and also with Raina and Craig's lust.

On another note, I feel like this chapter is full of symbols--the apple, the zits, the boat metaphor, the monkey, the sounds...having read McCloud's chapter on closure, I think symbols are usually non-sequitors that require the most effort to complete closure. Some may be simple to deduce, such as Raina's mother reaching for the pills...but what about the positioning of the apple in between Raina's parents? (pg. 394) Craig and Raina are above and below the panels with Raina's parents, sandwiching them, and making the layout of the page odd indeed. Though the positioning of the hands of Raina's dad in a wanting gesture indicates that there is lust, but no temptation in his relationship with Raina's mom:(



Another Apple symbol.

Anomalies and Raina

It is heartening to follow the development of Raina and Craig’s burgeoning relationship. It seems very much like love at first sight (even though I don’t believe in ‘love’ at first sight, maybe ‘like’ at first sight). Their mirroring behavior when they first meet in Chapter 2, aptly named Stirring Furnace to reflect Craig’s increasing liking for Raina, foreshadows not only amicability but amiability. However, I fear that Craig’s escapist tendencies have transferred over to Raina. Religion seems to fail him when it becomes a “mass mentality” (Thompson 107) and he is no longer able to connect to faithful around him who form their own group through singing, something Craig is incapable of. He does not lose his faith, though, but looks for another safety net. Raina is the perfect combination of vulnerability and strength, as demonstrated by her foil with her sister’s character (her sister is rebellious and selfishly shuns responsibility, going so far as to de-personalize her own baby, while Raina holds a crushing amount of responsibility in the family).

I have decided to focus on several anomalies to attempt to draw out a deeper understanding of Blankets. The most glaring anomaly in Chapter 2 is the frame shift. It seems like a time shift, since one would have to read the pages backwards, but the panels are still in chronological sequence. Thus the flow of time has not been altered, but Craig’s world has literally been turned upside down—an effect of his newfound infatuation with Raina. The upside-down section is also where Craig becomes disillusioned with the church and he skips chapel to spend time with Raina alone in their own universe hidden in the Rec Room. Their isolation is further empathized by the use of a large area of white space around them with only some black illuminating their hideout.



The beginning of Chapter 3 starts out with some Transcendentalist musings by Craig, reflecting once again his desire to belong to a larger entity, to have a greater purpose in life. The anomalous panels, however, include the same motif of large swathes of white space surrounding the black outline of a character, indicating loneliness or isolation. When Raina and Craig reunite, for instance, their happiness blocks out the rest of the world as they focus on their affection for each other. Also, Raina’s announcement of her parents’ divorce in the loneliness of a phone booth serves to emphasize the gravity of her situation and the weight of her responsibility. The frame itself shifts when she tells Craig on the phone that she misses him—her world is out of whack because she admits to needing him. Focusing on more stylistic elements, the antagonistic characters in Craig’s childhood, such as his bus driver and his Sunday school teacher, seem to have the same creepy, clawed hands. The strangest panels, however, are psychosexual in nature, and involve Craig’s struggle to cope with his increasing sexuality in the face of fundamentalist religious beliefs in chastity.

There are unusual panels in Chapter 4 with a pattern of static in them, reflecting the chapter’s title and Craig’s memory. The static of the television Laura was watching becomes the static pattern on Craig’s face that he shaves off. Is this symbolic of Craig’s intrusion into the lives of Raina and his family, erasing the monotony? The same pattern occurs again at the end of the chapter, when Craig is watching the snowflakes falling. Apparently the snowflakes begin to blend together in the static pattern so they lose all sense of space and depth. But what does it mean? There is another denotation to static aside from its electrical one, and it is stillness. Perhaps the static indicates Craig’s restful escapist state and his desire to never have things change from the current situation.

A persistent symbol is the importance of a bed as a comforting and sacred shelter. In Chapter 3 Craig feels unwelcome in the guest bed as an intruder, but the importance of the bed is most evident when he jumps off of Raina’s bed after realizing that he was intruding on her personal space. In Chapter 5 Raina invites him to sleep with her, to share her bed, symbolizing her increased feeling of trust and connectedness with him. I am glad that despite the panicked lines from the Bible running through Craig’s head, he comes to terms with his decision and does not feel guilty for violating any norms of chastity because his love for Raina is pure.



On another note, however, there is an anomalous panel reflecting Craig’s fear of growing up into a teenager. Again, he seems to be a kid in heaven falling down as time passes into the hell of adolescence. The drawing style used for his imagined adolescent body reflects the body of his babysitter, perversely. The face of the adolescent body is even covered up by a demonic hand as the babysitter’s face is always covered up.

Too Pugnacious?

I got carried away with answering an ill-thought out post by a die-hard conservative on a thread titled "Liberalism is a mental disorder." To which I took offense, though in retrospect the authors of both thread and post are probably too juvenile to merit much antagonism.

Conservative guy:

"Conservatives, like I, do not claim our current President, he is socially liberal. He does nothing but to try and appease the Democrats, which blows my mind because no matter what he is going to do they will hate him. All he has done with his current policies is push both conservatives and liberals both away. Why do you think his ratings are so low? If CNN were to call and ask me today if I like President Bush, I would of course say no, but that would be because I feel like he deserted his conservative principles a long time ago, unlike the common Liberal who would say some miss-informed statement like "He lied" or "He is stupid". Also cursing? If you want someone to take your political opinions seriously do not end your statement in profanity, nothing is less classy.



I would not view Liberalism as a mental disorder, rather a marker for how wrongfully informed that person (a Liberal) is. I have observed that Liberals tend lack knowledge of history, workings of US government, and how a Democracy functions. Often they don’t understand tax systems, and the checks and balances systems. Liberals only do what feels good, but is often wrong, Conservatives do what is right but it often is not the easiest."

My reply:

"President Bush is socially liberal? I'd like to see you justify that statement. He is opposed to abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc. and he denied global warming until his 2007 State of the Union Address. Granted, he leans towards the Democrats on health care and immigration policies, but those are only two issues out of many.

Please do not assume that you are some psychic who can predict what liberals will say in response to the question of why his ratings are so low. Undoubtedly there are a variety of reasons for that, but in response to your suppositions, I will contend that "He lied" is not a misinformed statement. His efforts to convince not only the people of the US, but also the international community that the primary reason for starting a preemptive war with Iraq was the presence of WMDs certainly construes misinformation to me. A lack of transparency, withholding knowledge from the public, also equals lying in my view. And Bush has kept certain unsavory matters secret, including secret -domestic- prisons, unauthorized surveillance, and the use of torture.

Additionally, though you have "observed" that liberals tend to lack the sort of knowledge you have listed, your general stereotypical statement reveals your own ignorance. Obviously there are intelligent as well as wrongfully informed individuals of both political alignments. As a political science major, I am quite familiar with the topics you have listed.

Furthermore, I would say that conservatives have even less knowledge of the way our democracy functions as they are constantly trying to turn it into a theocracy. Where is your support that conservatives do "what is right"? Some of the policies conservatives support directly oppose the principles of our Constitution. Take gay marriage. Conservatives want to ban it, but the First Amendment explicitly states that our government shall "make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Gay marriage is mainly wrong in the eyes of the religious (excluding some sects, of course) so to ban it would be violating the separation of state and church."

In short, I respect intellectual, well-reasoned arguments, but I dislike mindless mudslinging, ad hominem antagonism on both sides of the political spectrum and I wish there was less of it among our public discourse. Which brings to mind Al Gore's compelling argument in his Assault on Reason, which I shall blog about when I am done reading it.



Shameless advertising, but it's a worthy book. Deplores the lack of rational, respectful discourse in the public sphere. Identifies the sources of this intellectual depreciation, including the uncanny influence of television. Also identifies a solution, for not all hope is lost.

Beginnings

Understanding Comics, Chapter 1: Setting the Record Straight

The first question that comes to mind when considering the title of this chapter is: what record? Using a personal anecdote, McCloud cleverly sets out the stereotypes and stigmas concerning comic as the first obstacle to tackle (McCloud 2-3). Dispelling these myths requires, most importantly (in McCloud’s view, 3), creating an adequate definition to express the true potential of comics—so that comics, as a medium, can escape from the narrowly drawn box most of us have trapped it in inside of our minds. Establishing comics as an artform or medium for artists to work with is a crucial first step towards defining “comics” itself.

Here I must pause to admire McCloud’s presentation and persuasive technique. It is only apt to use comics itself as the medium to help readers understand comics. I can only imagine the exponentially decreased effectiveness of the book if its explanations were portrayed in some dryer manner. In convincing his audience that comics is a versatile medium capable of “hold[ing] any number of ideas and images,” (McCloud 6) the graphic analogy McCloud employs is far more compelling than merely the textual analogy. Depicting comics as a beaker capable of being filled with any combination of liquid content and placing the beaker of comics alongside the containers of music, theatre, the written word, etc. increases the validity, and indeed, the power, of comics as an art form on the level of any other art form.

Anyways, back to defining comics. McCloud starts with Eisner’s term, “sequential art,” and with the increasingly specific input of an audience of cartoon characters (again, very apt), ends up with the dictionary definition “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence” (McCloud 7-9). At first I thought McCloud’s definition was a bit contrived, and the descriptor “other” was too vague. After reading the first chapter and the second, however, I began to understand the true potential of his definition.

Now back to the task of dispelling myths about comics. Since McCloud has established the value of comics as art, he turns to correcting our assumption that comics is a recent art form. He starts with a depiction of a manuscript from 1519 and an interpretation that I admittedly found quite difficult to follow (McCloud 10-11). I honestly don’t see how anyone is supposed to interpret the meaning of the story that specifically from the tapestry without the necessary background knowledge. Even when the story was presented to me, I had difficulty matching the text with the pictures. The Bayeux tapestry (McCloud 12-13) was a little easier to understand, but I found the Egyptian scene (McCloud 14-15) the easiest to interpret. So I suppose in general ease of interpretation increases with chronological closeness to present times, but the ancient Egyptians are an exception. McCloud also names other sources of ancient comics such as Trajan’s column, Greek painting, and Japanese scrolls (McCloud 15) which I admit intrigued me. I hope that McCloud will make another book concerning the origins of comics.

The examples from later periods further emphasize the limitless boundaries of the comics medium, especially those that have not traditionally been considered comics (such as Ward’s “Woodcut Novels”). I find it sad that masterpieces such as Ernst’s “A Week of Kindness” do not give due credit to comics because of the stigma associated with it. The difference between comics and cartoons laid out in pages 20-21 surprised me at first, since I had considered them the same thing as they were always grouped together in newspapers. McCloud’s definition certainly changed my perspective by including many works of art that I had not perceived as comics previously and omitting something I had believed to be comics.

At the end of the chapter, McCloud uses an astronomical analogy to portray the staggering avenues of exploration open to comics in the future. His allusion to the Great Debate in the last panel piqued my interest, so I looked it up on trusty www.wikipedia.org. Apparently the Great Debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_debate) was a debate between astronomers about the size of the universe. The allusion nicely brings together his analogy, demonstrating that the perceived depth of comics is much deeper than just the surface.

Now that I’ve done a more formal analysis of chapter one, I’ll attempt to change my style for chapter two and Blankets.

Understanding Comics, Chapter 2: The Vocabulary of Comics

McCloud’s expansion of the definition of the painting of the pipe seemed very philosophical to me, since my philosophy professor has recently defined philosophy to be an examination of things in their “generality.” He certainly seemed to be moving back, getting more general, but I disagree that icons aren’t the object that they are meant to represent. They are that and much more. McCloud is very good at explaining the nuances of the level of realism vs. abstraction in pictures and the range of fixed vs. fluid meanings found in icons. His next analysis is very psychological in nature, describing how cartoons focus our attention on an idea, increase the intensity of meaning, and are universal (McCloud 30-31).

At first I disbelieved his experiment that blobs could be made into faces, but I did see faces there…but the idea was certainly already implanted into my mind. And unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried to not see a face, especially in the panel on page 31 where McCloud blatantly states that I can’t, I still saw a face even when I turned the book around or closed an eye. And his observation that humans have covered the world with their own image self-centeredly is very accurate indeed. Basically, people love cartoons (and therefore, comics) because it is very easy to empathize with them and put ourselves into their roles.

Blankets, Chapter 1: Cubby Hole

Speaking of empathy, the main character/the author in Blankets is very easy to empathize with. I not only saw myself in his character, but my little brothers in his interactions with his little brother, Phil. The first chapter is nicely integrated as the beginning and ending form a frame for the flashback. The beginning lays out Phil’s punishment as a consequence of the narrator’s selfishness. (Using my increased understanding of comics, I noticed that the artist used an increase in size of the children’s father to emphasize his intimidating nature on page 13). The transition into the flashback is smoothly done and I can’t help feeling a lot of sympathy for the narrator, who is picked on not only by bullies (notice that he really does love his brother, as he attacks the bullies right after they offend his brother) but the teacher. I am curious to know the content of the paper for which Craig (the narrator and author) got an F for. Craig’s fantasy of the people he hates eating excrement is disturbing, funny in its own way, and completely empathize-able as we have all wished terrible calamities on our enemies before. I’m also curious to know the babysitter’s joke—there are too many things left unknown that intrigue the reader to know more! I could sympathize with Craig’s bus ride too, since my house was the last stop also. His escapism into dreaming and drawing was both saddening and a bit of foreshadowing (him drawing with Phil reminded me of my little brothers). The character of the Sunday school teacher honestly filled me with loathing for corrupting the minds of the youth with her blindly dogmatic and simplistic depiction of heaven and hell. As a result, Craig’s beliefs are pressed upon him by figures of authority, such as the pastor who urges him to go into the ministry. I feel even more saddened by Craig’s denial of his memories and his past, and especially his future potential as a comics artist. When the flashback ends, we see his remorse for having put his little brother into such a tough situation, and the introduction of Craig’s characterization is complete.

I can already tell from the first chapter that this graphic novel is going to be really good, as the story is very engaging and it is easy to empathize with the characters.