Ao’s week 1

Q: How and why are comics becoming more accepted as an art form? Can/should they be regarded as a literary genre?

According to Varnum and Gibbons (2004), comics is “one of the most popular and pervasive media forms of our increasingly visual age.” The way that comics became popular is with the increasing media. The two factors of comics are texts and images. The relation of them becomes more acceptable from the opposite position. Pictures and words have common features and when they combine together, they become as a one—comics and it gets own benefits never happened before. This main reason makes it popular. In short, it is attractive and interesting. Surprisingly, it becomes an art form. It is unique and creative. However, it still differ from the literary genre, because the language and images. It is believed that images are the first in comics.

Well, it can’t be regarded as a literary genre. I agree this point. It is different between the illustration of novels and comics. Maybe it can be defined as new genre of words and graphics.

Reference

Varnum, R. & Gibbons, C. (Eds.). (2001). In The Language of Comics: word and image. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Qunhua's week1

According to the second Farr extract (p50-59), how did Herge research China for The Blue Lotus?

According to the reading materials, Herge’s research about China for The Blue Lotus, the most significantly start is the meeting with a Chinese art student in Brussels in 1934. This happy encounter with Cheng Chongqing is under the introduction of a priest, Father Gosset who was chaplain to the Chinese student at the University of Louvain. He wrote to Herge and advise him should look closely at Chinese and doing research properly.

As the in-depth exchanges and understanding with Chen Chongqing, Herge completely changed the prejudice and misunderstanding, meanwhile, he start to love and like Chinese culture. There are evidences, e.g “the meeting with Chang and the sweeping away of prejudices was so important …he transposed it into the narrative…”. He looked pictures of the real china to do his research, this is mentioned at the beginning of his “documentalist” period.

He also did research the real historical events at that time. Quite fair and surprising opinions appeared. “a radical view later justified by historical events. For such a view to appear in the children’s supplement of a Catholic newspaper in the 1930s is, to say the least, surprising…”

TinTin

Do you think comics are a children's or adult's genre/media?

I think comics, like literature, are age-appropriate according to their content. For example, in 'TinTin and the Blue Lotus' (Herge, 1936), there are many references used in it that only adults would most likely understand. An example of this is by some of the dialogue used by a few of the antagonists in reference to Western superiority over the East. More specifically, there are references to how the West have apparently "civilise[d] the savages", a very derogatory use of language. This is what is known as ethnocentrism, when you evaluate other cultures according to the traditions of your own (Oxford Dictionary, 2011). There are also many references to the the colour 'yellow', a reference to the colour of the Chinese and Japanese in the comments. By the number of times the colour yellow is mentioned, it would be easy to suggest that racism and Western superiority are ideologies that have a lot of emphasis placed on them in this text.

In 1955, Bill Pearson wrote that, "If we ban the comics, we are...preventing the further perversion of the world's children." From the negative ideologies I have taken from the TinTin book, I can understand why Pearson views comics the way he does. However, Herge shows an understanding between Western and Eastern culture through a dialogue between TinTin and his new friend Chang Chong-Chen, who compare misconceptions about each other's cultures. I thought this was an excellent way to show that both cultures still have a lot to learn about each other.

All in all, I still believe that comics are just like novels; its' content is the deciding factor in whether it makes it more appropriate for adults or children or both.

Hergé. (2005; 1935). The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus. London: Methuen., Oxford Dictionary, (2011). , Pearson, B. (March, 1955) Landfall.