I find it highly amusing that my Musings WORLD has gotten over 350 hits and my little Book of Leaves WORLD has less than 100. At least people are actually seeing what I put out there. I was talking to my cousin the other day (thinkanti) and she said she stopped putting things online because no one read them nor particularly cared. I think that's true to some degree but I just keep putting stuff up, even when no one reads.
So I went to this lecture last night about comics. Mostly it was about women and "graphic literature." The woman giving the speech made good points about how pages are laid out and what kind of meaning they have and how authors' decisions about how they present thier work (whether in monochrome, color, or greyscale) brings out certain emotions. It turns out that these "graphic literaries" are popping up all over the place and tend to be mostly about true traumatic events. There was a whole discussion about this as well. Although the lecture wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was good and I learned a lot.
There was a Q and A session afterwards and, in a panel like this, one can expect there to be a question about manga at some point. Personally, I was dreading it. But it happened, which sparked a three or four person debate in the room, and mostly from people who knew what manga was. Though the speaker was supportive (of course she was, her whole work is hinged on comics), I think she made a general stab at it. She said that what was coming out right now from young people that takes them only a few months to do is basically slush. I'm simplifying and aplifiying here but that's basically what she was saying, in a nicer way. These "graphic literaries" were taking years to make. Now, I don't think she's studied enough about manga if she's making statements like that. I read a series once. By the fourth volume, it was already 10 years from when the author started the series. It was only half way through the entire thing.
I did get to thinking about why I do comics the way I do. Why anime? I boiled it down to the idea that people who read manga have an understanding of how things work inside a page. I appreciate that.
Anyway, I'm sorry I went all "musings" in my life page. Just wanted to share.
In other things, I got told the other day that I was "too wordy." I sort of blinked at reading that. That's interesting. I've never been called wordy before. I guess I can be. School has sort of conditioned me to go all essay-like when I talk about something serious. Darn you school! Ah well. I thought it was kind of funny.
I'm going to see if I can get anything up (as far as fanart) today, so keep an eye out!
