A few weeks ago, a friend and colleague of mine (Mr. Joseph Telegen) asked if he could interview me, along with a few of his other composition-teaching buddies, about my anxieties concerning teaching when I first started. As a grad. student himself, he's preparing to teach his first semester in the fall, and is currently working on a paper about amateur instructors and the early issues they face. Personally, I got a lot out of the interview, as it had me analyze both my early and current methods. He has graciously allowed me to reprint the transcription of our interview here, that it might offer some insight for other instructors (new and current). (For ease of transcription, the interview was conducted in an online chat. Names of specific students have been removed.)
First of all…these questions are very open-ended, I know. Just say as much as you want for each. Talk to me a bit about your initial anxieties when preparing for your first composition course. Did you consider yourself to suffer from “stage fright?”
"Stage fright" was never an issue; I've always been pretty comfortable in front of a group of people. I was, however, a little nervous about my syllabus. My mentor at the time didn't really help me prepare for the semester in terms of when to schedule due dates and such. It was more "fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants" in terms of what I would teach one week to the next. That made me nervous, as I was never really sure if I was spending an appropriate amount of time on a given subject.
Were you concerned with student’s perceptions of you?
Haha! Not really, but I'd come straight from training lifeguards, where I pretty much had a "zero tolerance" policy anyway. If a student had a problem with me or the class, I tried to encourage them to approach me about it. And a couple did.
Did you worry that, because you were a graduate student when you got started, that you would teach the class at too high a level? Alternately, were you worried that freshmen would think you were “talking down to them?”
Yeah, it took me some time to gauge the overall "intelligence" of the group. But I got really lucky that first semester in that the majority of my students were not only very bright but also motivated. By midterm I think the "lecture" tone of the class became very conversational, the direction in which I try to gear all of my classes.
What other issues made you nervous heading into the class?
I remember being slightly nervous when I discovered I had an ESL student in my class. I'd worked with [others] in the Writing Center, of course, but only ever one on one. So I was nervous I might be pacing the classes too quickly at first. But she proved to be quite adept in the long run.
What helped to lessen your anxieties (assuming they have been lessened)? What steps did you take to deal with the issues you mentioned in #1?
As far as lessening my anxieties, I suppose only getting used to it. I still worry about my syllabus all the time, but I adapt to whatever scheduling problems arise. Finding ESL students in my class is still a little tough, but I think we get used to each other pretty quickly.
What would you recommend a composition teacher have under her/his belt before beginning?
A. Courses: What should prospective comp. teachers learn
B. Readings
C. Skills (technological, organizational)
I'd have to go with the third option. Having some/any experience instructional experience is a huge help. I knew long ago I wanted to teach, so I threw myself into teaching opportunities, however small.
I now want to ask some questions regarding your feelings about composition classes, addressing current debates going on in composition communities (and my own anxieties about teaching comp): They’re framed as “agree/disagree” statements. You can either just say “Agree” or “Disagree” or offer me more.
I find the increased pervasiveness of computer-based technologies to be an asset in my comp. classes. I say this without reservation.
I most definitely agree. The addition of SmartBoards into all of my classrooms this semester is a huge asset with near infinite potential. We do, however, run the risk of becoming too dependent on them.
Is a Smartboard relatively comparable to Blackboard?
No, a SmartBoard is a kind of projection surface. The technology allows me to project the image from my computer screen onto the touch-sensitive Board. I can then manipulate it on the Board for the class. For example, after passing out an assignment sheet, I can put the assignment up on the SmartBoard and highlight parts that are important, etc.
Composition classes are, on the whole, not doing enough to get students ready for the real world.
I'd have to agree on the basis that I don't think colleges are doing enough to prepare students for life after graduation (I don't like that phrase "real world"--college is PART of the real world: a really cushy part).
Would you say that comp. classes should play a part in improving that, though?
All classes should. Teachers in general need to hold students to a higher level of accountability.
That's not to say that some classes (Composition of otherwise) don't already do that, but it isn't widespread enough. That's why I asked to teach First Year Experience next Fall.
Composition teachers need a solid set of guidelines from their program directors. It is a bad idea to give comp. teachers too much autonomy.
It is absolutely a bad idea to give instructor's too much freedom (particular less experienced instructors). Last semester, we began redesigning Reading and Writing for College and were more or less given permission to run the class how we saw fit within a few, very loose, guidelines (I think the idea was for each of us to experiment and report back on what worked). Suffice it to say, with little to go and little experience, I had a very tough time with my sections of that course. Conversely, Freshman Comp. 1 and 2 are both on much more specific guidelines in terms of "these are the concepts you have to teach, and these are the essays we want you to use to teach them." It's much less stressful that way, but still gives me plenty of room to play around.
Grammar/mechanics should be addressed consistently in a composition class.
Ah...Well, I think it should, but I'm terrible at it and definitely don't do it consistently.
I think that may be the first time anyone came right out and said they didn't do something they should.
Haha!
Writing should be taught as a process.
Agree. Not sure if I have much more to say than that.
That's fine. The original thing said you can just say agree/disagree. Teachers' classes should include plenty of student interaction.
With each other or with the teacher?
Good question. While I'm interested in your response to either, the question was meant to mean with each other.
Well then I agree on both counts.
Students should be allowed to choose the reading materials for a comp. class.
Agree, within bounds.
Care to elaborate?
Sure. In Freshman Comp. II, our topic is comics. They do the readings I assign in class, but get to read whatever they want when doing research for their final paper. Similarly, in Reading and Writing for College, they read a novel I assign them for the first half of the semester, from an anthology when I assign them to it, and a novel they choose from a list of relevant selections from the second half of the semester.
I find grading to be a source of anxiety for me as a comp. teacher.
I agree only when I let it pile it up; which tends to happen around mid-term and finals, haha.
Finally, can I use your name and a brief profile in the paper? Just like age, sex, and education level? I might also include what I’m sure you’ll find to be a complimentary personality description.
Absolutely, go right ahead.
Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
"What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy: Revised and Updated Edition"
Sociolinguist James Paul gee loves playing video games. He didn't always, and perhaps because of his sudden interest, he decided to study them very, very closely. This book is the result.Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy--first published in 2003 and Revised and Updated in 2007--looks at video games ("good" video games, at least) and their ability to teach. Now, at first glance, his purpose might seem to be promoting "edutainment" like "Leap Frog" learning games. But what he's really interested in is how good video games teach us to play them. And he's interest in how teachers can learn from that kind of learning.
Unfortunately, there's a few more disclaimers that aren't brought up at all or until late in the book. For example, a better title might have been "What Good Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Teaching" or even "What Teachers Can Learn from Good Video Games." These are important distinctions as Gee concentrates on specific games that best teach the player how to play them. Also, Gee's use of "literacy" in his title is meant in the broadest sense of the word (in the way we might say someone who can make sense of baseball statistics is "literate" in baseball) as opposed to meaning "the ability to read and write." And in an interesting, but funny, move, Gee admits at the end of his conclusion that, really, he just likes playing video games and wanted to justify his countless hours of "research" by writing a book combining his knowledge of learning from sociolinguistics with his new found passion.
Now don't get me wrong. I love this book. Gee breaks down learning into thirty-six principles which he uses to demonstrate the kind of learning that exists in good video games that should exist in classrooms.
Of course, this isn't a new idea. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a parent wishing their child would pay as much attention in class, during lessons, at practice etc., I'd be rich! But Gee enlightens us to the fact that we have to continually learn how to play good video games. And if the game isn't teaching us well, we get bored, frustrated, call it a "bad" game, and give up on it. Similarly, if a teacher can't manage to teach well, then the students get bored, frustrated, call it a "bad" subject, and give up on it.
For example, one of Gee's favorite games (one of mine, as well) is Pikmin. Gee begins with a quick explanation of the game. (As Capt. Olimar, your rocket ship crash lands on a strange, deadly planet, leaving you to enlist the help of small, plant like creatures capable of helping you navigate the planet's perils and collect the parts of your stranded spaceship before your life-support systems fail.) Gee likes a lot about this games, and it's one of his first examples because it encompasses most of the learning principles he later discusses.
Bye Mom! We're off to go learn!
First, he likes that the game encourages Active/Critical Learning: rather than having the player read a bunch of instructions out of context (i.e. before playing the game), the game teaches the player how to play as the player explores the game world. This seems pretty common sensical, however Gee points out that still too many teachers try to teach skills out of context (like assigning a chapter from a history text and expected students to just remember everything they read; this isn't learning, it's memorization). Similarly, he likes the use of what he calls, the Practise Principle, whereby the player/student is taught through practise that is not boring and encourages the player/student to spend a lot of time on the task.
Again, these are basic examples from Gee's first point concerning one of the least complex of all the games he brings up as examples (other's include Arcanum, Deus Ex, the Tomb Raider series, the new Sonic the Hedgehog series, and of course, World of Warcraft; he's also able to relate the same principles he applies to these games to the countless others in similar genres). And as the games he discusses get more complex, so are the learning principles to which he relates them.
For these reasons, I view Gee's Revised and Updated Edition as a work in progress, and I look forward to the next edition, should he choose to write one in another four years.
Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The Book Survey
I don't normally do these twenty questions surveys, but I haven't done any real blogging lately (too busy) and have started to feel guilty. Plus, some of these questions actually made me think. So here goes:
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Cormac McCarthy
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Heart of Darkness--it's one of those books you have to read a lot as an English Major.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
I didn't notice.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Alejandra from All the Pretty Horses
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
I refuse to answer this question on the basis that it is bias against picture books.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I had a lot--probably the Hardy Boys series or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
The Death of Superman by Dan Jurgens: this is why superhero comics get a bad rap!
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
A Contract with God by Will Eisner
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
A comics writer is overdue.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
The Catcher in the Rye, just to piss off Salinger.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Catcher in the Rye: there's no way that would be a good movie. Just look at Igby Goes Down or Ghost World.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I once dreamed I was in a kind of temple (like in The Legend of Zelda or something), and I had to solve a puzzle to move on. The puzzle had these two platforms. Above one was a swirling mess of strips of paper with parts of lines from great literature written on them. If I took a piece of paper out of the swirling mess, I could "place" it above the second platform where is would float like it had been pasted to a giant, slowly spinning globe. The puzzle was to take the strips of paper and place them in the correct spot on the invisible globe, completing the individual lines but also matching all the edges together.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Lowbrow?
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
The Catcher in the Rye: I was trying so hard to be a good student that I forced myself to finish it.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I don't think I've seen any obscure plays by Shakespeare...
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I actually like French literature.
18) Roth or Updike?
Don't know the first guy, haven't read the second.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Who?
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
If I had to choose one to read for the rest of my life...Shakespeare, I guess.
21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen--I'm especially excited to read her new, collaborative work, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art--I've only perused it!
23) What is your favorite novel?
The best novel I've read recently was S. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.
24) Play?
Hamlet
25) Poem?
"Unconquerable" by William Earnest Henley
26) Essay?
Dave Barry's "Red, White, and Beer" maybe...
27) Short story?
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
28) Work of nonfiction?
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
29) Who is your favorite writer?
Right now, Mike Mignola
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Is Salinger still alive ;-)
31) What is your desert island book?
The Worst Case Scenario Guide to Survival, duh!
32) And... what are you reading right now?
What it Is by Lynda Barry, What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee, and She by H. Rider Haggard
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Cormac McCarthy
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Heart of Darkness--it's one of those books you have to read a lot as an English Major.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
I didn't notice.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Alejandra from All the Pretty Horses
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
I refuse to answer this question on the basis that it is bias against picture books.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I had a lot--probably the Hardy Boys series or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
The Death of Superman by Dan Jurgens: this is why superhero comics get a bad rap!
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
A Contract with God by Will Eisner
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
A comics writer is overdue.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
The Catcher in the Rye, just to piss off Salinger.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Catcher in the Rye: there's no way that would be a good movie. Just look at Igby Goes Down or Ghost World.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I once dreamed I was in a kind of temple (like in The Legend of Zelda or something), and I had to solve a puzzle to move on. The puzzle had these two platforms. Above one was a swirling mess of strips of paper with parts of lines from great literature written on them. If I took a piece of paper out of the swirling mess, I could "place" it above the second platform where is would float like it had been pasted to a giant, slowly spinning globe. The puzzle was to take the strips of paper and place them in the correct spot on the invisible globe, completing the individual lines but also matching all the edges together.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Lowbrow?
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
The Catcher in the Rye: I was trying so hard to be a good student that I forced myself to finish it.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I don't think I've seen any obscure plays by Shakespeare...
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I actually like French literature.
18) Roth or Updike?
Don't know the first guy, haven't read the second.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Who?
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
If I had to choose one to read for the rest of my life...Shakespeare, I guess.
21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen--I'm especially excited to read her new, collaborative work, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art--I've only perused it!
23) What is your favorite novel?
The best novel I've read recently was S. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.
24) Play?
Hamlet
25) Poem?
"Unconquerable" by William Earnest Henley
26) Essay?
Dave Barry's "Red, White, and Beer" maybe...
27) Short story?
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
28) Work of nonfiction?
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
29) Who is your favorite writer?
Right now, Mike Mignola
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Is Salinger still alive ;-)
31) What is your desert island book?
The Worst Case Scenario Guide to Survival, duh!
32) And... what are you reading right now?
What it Is by Lynda Barry, What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee, and She by H. Rider Haggard
Saturday, April 11, 2009
"Can’t Argue with That: Why No One’s Talking to the SPSC"--"La Mecha" Apr. 8, 2009
Note: This is the original version of this article.
At the beginning of the month, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee held their third open forum of the semester to generate feedback from the community concerning their plans for where NMHU is headed in the future. The problem is no one is going. Granted, the first two were held on Fridays during regular class and business hours, so perhaps it’s not too surprising that faculty, students, and members of the Las Vegas community had other things going on. The third one was held at 5pm on a Wednesday evening, the time around which most people are finally winding down their work day. So perhaps it’s understandable why members of the community didn’t go to that one either.
But let’s look at some of the other people who are expected to attend these forums and why they might not be. For starters, there’s the easy one: students. I can barely get my students to regularly come to class, so I don’t think it’s such a shocker they’re not attending. Plus, I think we can all agree it’s difficult to get students to care about something that probably won’t go into effect until after they’ve already graduated. Case in point—the illusive “new student center.” I’m pretty sure it’s common for most American colleges to have the oft-repeated rumor, “Did you hear we’re getting a new student center his year?” I first heard that rumor when I arrived at the University of Memphis in 2002, and I heard it again when I came to grad. school here in 2006. And guess what? No new student centers. I think the lesson to learn here is that students don’t expect big changes to happen until after they’ve graduated because the really big changes they’re hoping for never happen.
What about faculty? Surely, tenured professors and full-time employees who have a long-term stake in this university would not only be interested in putting forth their two cents but, as academics, would have brilliant points to make. It would seem, however, that is not the case. By now, you might be wondering if I’ve attended these forums. No, I have not, for scheduling reasons, but also because I wouldn’t know what to say. I’ve been reading the globals the SPSC sends out, I’ve read the Draft Strategic Plan on NMHU’s website, and I read the front-page article of the last issue of La Mecha about how annoyed the SPSC is that no one comes to their forums. And I can honestly say, I have no idea what kind of feedback they’re looking for. But that’s not a criticism.
For instance, they’re first goal is, “To advance knowledge and promote student success.” Can’t argue with that. As a university, that’s a good goal to have, and I’m not going to say, “Well, maybe student success isn’t all that important.” Even looking at the specifics of this goal, I haven’t much to say. Under that goal is the first Objective, “advancing knowledge in the liberal arts, sciences, and professions.” Again, sounds good to me! Surely however, I can find something to say about their first Action Step to complete that Objective: “Continue regularly scheduled academic outcomes assessment and undergraduate/graduate program review.” Keep doing what we’ve been doing? Well, I that’s a good idea too.
The problem here, perhaps, isn’t that no one is interested in this plan. The problem is the way the plan is presented. It’s exactly what I teach my students in Freshman Comp. II. If your thesis statement is “Superheroes are good people,” no one’s going to care because, in general, superheroes are in fact good people. However, if your thesis is “Superheroes are better teachers of moral principle than religious heroes,” well then you have a controversial subject you have to defend and explain.
The point is, yeah, once I get to the forum, I’m sure we’ll start discussing exactly how the SPSC wants to continue outcomes assessments, but to get me there, you have to state something controversial—like making students retake the SATs after their freshman year as their outcomes assessment. Then, as an English teacher who’s not interested in teaching his students how to take a standardized test, I’m there, and I have an opinion.
At the beginning of the month, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee held their third open forum of the semester to generate feedback from the community concerning their plans for where NMHU is headed in the future. The problem is no one is going. Granted, the first two were held on Fridays during regular class and business hours, so perhaps it’s not too surprising that faculty, students, and members of the Las Vegas community had other things going on. The third one was held at 5pm on a Wednesday evening, the time around which most people are finally winding down their work day. So perhaps it’s understandable why members of the community didn’t go to that one either.
But let’s look at some of the other people who are expected to attend these forums and why they might not be. For starters, there’s the easy one: students. I can barely get my students to regularly come to class, so I don’t think it’s such a shocker they’re not attending. Plus, I think we can all agree it’s difficult to get students to care about something that probably won’t go into effect until after they’ve already graduated. Case in point—the illusive “new student center.” I’m pretty sure it’s common for most American colleges to have the oft-repeated rumor, “Did you hear we’re getting a new student center his year?” I first heard that rumor when I arrived at the University of Memphis in 2002, and I heard it again when I came to grad. school here in 2006. And guess what? No new student centers. I think the lesson to learn here is that students don’t expect big changes to happen until after they’ve graduated because the really big changes they’re hoping for never happen.
What about faculty? Surely, tenured professors and full-time employees who have a long-term stake in this university would not only be interested in putting forth their two cents but, as academics, would have brilliant points to make. It would seem, however, that is not the case. By now, you might be wondering if I’ve attended these forums. No, I have not, for scheduling reasons, but also because I wouldn’t know what to say. I’ve been reading the globals the SPSC sends out, I’ve read the Draft Strategic Plan on NMHU’s website, and I read the front-page article of the last issue of La Mecha about how annoyed the SPSC is that no one comes to their forums. And I can honestly say, I have no idea what kind of feedback they’re looking for. But that’s not a criticism.
For instance, they’re first goal is, “To advance knowledge and promote student success.” Can’t argue with that. As a university, that’s a good goal to have, and I’m not going to say, “Well, maybe student success isn’t all that important.” Even looking at the specifics of this goal, I haven’t much to say. Under that goal is the first Objective, “advancing knowledge in the liberal arts, sciences, and professions.” Again, sounds good to me! Surely however, I can find something to say about their first Action Step to complete that Objective: “Continue regularly scheduled academic outcomes assessment and undergraduate/graduate program review.” Keep doing what we’ve been doing? Well, I that’s a good idea too.
The problem here, perhaps, isn’t that no one is interested in this plan. The problem is the way the plan is presented. It’s exactly what I teach my students in Freshman Comp. II. If your thesis statement is “Superheroes are good people,” no one’s going to care because, in general, superheroes are in fact good people. However, if your thesis is “Superheroes are better teachers of moral principle than religious heroes,” well then you have a controversial subject you have to defend and explain.
The point is, yeah, once I get to the forum, I’m sure we’ll start discussing exactly how the SPSC wants to continue outcomes assessments, but to get me there, you have to state something controversial—like making students retake the SATs after their freshman year as their outcomes assessment. Then, as an English teacher who’s not interested in teaching his students how to take a standardized test, I’m there, and I have an opinion.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Daily Pugle--IGN Edition Named Blog of the Day!
For those unaware, I run a sister blog over at IGN.com where I double-post whatever is relevant to that community (movies, video games, and of course, comics) from The Daily Pugle. I started it mainly as a way to reach a broader audience and hopefully get more feedback. Well, imagine my surprise when browsing the website that my blog was being recognized as Blog of the Day on IGN Comics!
Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
Blog of the Day
From TexMex07
Over Spring Break, I finally got around to reading Will Eisner's groundbreaking work A Contract with... [read blog]
Of course, in all likelihood, the Blog of the Day is chosen at random by each of IGN's pages based on the tag types in each bloggers' posts (in my case, a lot of my posts are tagged "comics"). But hey, this made my morning, and I'm taking my fifteen minutes!Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
What's in the Little Blue Bag?--Week of Mar. 18, 2009
Well, it's been almost four months since my last entry into this series, but in my defense, I've been too busy to travel to Santa Fe to buy comics, too busy to read them, and too busy to write about them. In my defense, however, on my last trip to True Believer's Comics and Gallery I pretty much just bought the last few issues of X-Men: Magneto Testament, which I did review! But I finally bought a bunch of comics a couple of weeks ago and am finally getting around the reading them! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the tumult.
Zorro #10:
I've mentioned in the past how much I love this series' opening arc of eight issues (what will probably be collected into a book titled "Zorro: Year One"). It was just an excellent origin story. But writer Matt Wagner has moved on from the early success of an original take on a tried and true hero. Now Wagner's taking this comic back to the "tried and true formula," and it's depressing. Few stories are as capable of being as cliché as Zorro, if only because he's existed for so long, in so many mediums, simultaneously influencing so many others. And what I liked with those first eight issues was that Wagner was staying away from those clichés and telling a new story (even if he was borrowing heavily from different sources, he was still doing original things with the mythos). But now it seems as if Wagner's just getting (dare I say it) lazy! We're being set up in this new run to see Zorro's love interest being wooed by the enemy so that Zorro will have to rescue her. And really, is that something that needs to be lead up to? One of two things is going to happen here: a) the strong willed Lolita will rescue herself, proving herself a capable heroine, or b) she really will need to be rescued and Wagner could have just saved time and ink doing it in one issue (à la Lois Lane). I'm also starting to take offense to Wagner's depiction of Spanish. He's definitely prescribing to the "arbitrary "si"'s and "Dios!"'s placed at the beginnings and ends of sentences to make the otherwise English speaking characters sound Spanish" school of comic book dialogue. And I'd really hoped we were past that.
Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #3 and 4:
Returning readers of my blog are aware of my deep respect and admiration for Mike Mignola (for the rest of you, let me sum up: MIGNOLA IS AWESOME!). But the first few issues of this series had me dubious about the direction of his work. Suddenly, I was reading little footnotes saying things like"See Hellboy: The Corpse" every time the story brought up an old plot point of the series. And I couldn't help but feel like I was being treated like a new Action Comics reader who picks up an issue and by the end has to go out and buy six more just to figure out what's going on in the first issue he bought. Mignola used to tell brilliant, short, self-contained stories (one of the reasons I love his work so much), and if he needed to refer to something old, he'd have the good decency to put in an awesome, stylized flashback panel or two. However, seeing this woke me up to a fact I'd yet to let myself realize: Hellboy isn't new. He's been around for awhile, he's built up a huge mythos in that time, he's generated spin-off series (good in their own right), and he's only moving forward. It's only natural that Mignola try tying up loose ends before everything gets really out of control. And if he plans on continuing the series, he'll eventually have to write some "Crisis" gimmick with multiple Hellboys from varying dimensions. And as much fun as it would be to read about the good Hellboy from our world fighting an evil Hellboy from a parallel dimension who destroyed his world, superhero comics have done enough of that. And I want Mignola to continue doing new things with the medium. It's not all fire and brimstone here, however. By the fourth issue, there weren't any more "See-This-Issue"'s, and it became clear Mignola was just trying to set us up for something bigger. Indeed, when I got to the end and read the editor's note, I saw that the series was taking a break promising to come back with something they were taking the time to make awesome. So thanks, Mike, for not treating me like all the other comics publishers do. Please don't let my faith in you go misplaced.
B.P.R.D.: The Black Goddess #2 and 3:
I like reading the B.P.R.D. series in the same way I like watching SpongeBob Squarepants. It entertains me for half an hour, but I don't necessarily get anything out of it. And I don't need to. That's fine. I get some light entertainment centred in a comic universe I love. No, the story isn't particularly deep, and I'm still not a big fan of Guy Davis' art. But B.P.R.D. is still fun, and I'll probably continue to read it with the same verve I watch SpongeBob--whenever I happen to be doing nothing and it's available.
The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #1:
I first found out about this new series a little too late to go back and jump in with the premier issue. Pretty soon, the first issues were already collected into hardback. And I didn't have the money to risk on a series I had no experience with. So I waited, and a new arc has started, and I snatched it up. As I believe in self-contained stories (even those that are part of an ongoing series), I figured this issue should pull me in and catch me up without me needing to look twice at it. And it did. I have no questions (except for at the cliffhanger ending, of course), and I can enjoy the story and characters that are unfolding--even if I can only see them as lazy, vain, neurotic, crazy, angry, and superpowered (respectively). But I'm not sure this story is worth a second look. Everything here is very superficial, and I could assume the whole series is like that or just that it's purposefully like that so that I'll read further. The perfect example is that cliffhanger ending. One of our heroes has just avoided capture by killing a whole army of laser gun toting bad guys (actually, for all I know they're the good guys), when suddenly he hears in one of their transmitters that their HQ is sending in what I can only assume are some serious BAMFs. And now our protagonist has a seriously worried look on his face. So am I to assume that since I'm not a continuing reader then I'm just unfamiliar with these super-baddies and I should be so worried about our hero that I rush out and buy issue #2? Or are these completely new characters and I should ao worried that our hero is worried that I rush out and buy issue #2? Regardless, I'm not worried.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz #3 and 4:
I still have really mixed feelings about this series. On the one hand, I absolutely love the art! I've never heard of Skottie Young, but he's definitely made a name for himself for me. On the other hand, I really don't like the storytelling. Now, I've never read the original novels, so I'm not sure this is the fault of the adaptation or the source material. Regardless, I'm blaming the writer Eric Shanower. The pacing is still too fast, and I don't really like any of the characters (except Toto). The snippets of each character we get are sort of like being forced to judge a person based on one incidence we're told about them. And none of these incidences portray them well. For example, Dorothy's compatriots act like a bunch of two-bit henchman in an action movie--if one of them falls behind he gets left behind. Ironically, they all see need to draw attention to their minor acts of heroism. But perhaps what bothers me most about the series is that Marvel doesn't seem so much interested in making a literary classic accessible to a new generation of readers as it does in hooking those new readers to their other titles. Almost every other page has an advertisement for a Marvel comic and/or product. I've also heard similar complaints about their new Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
Scourge of the Gods #2 and 3:
This is the second of Marvel's translated series from French comics publisher Soleil that I've read. And it only solidifies what I've said in the past about French comics creators thinking very highly of themselves. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's enabled them to break out of the mold of the superhero comics with simple narrative aimed at teenage boys we so cling to here in America. But on the other hand, this series is only an action comic with slightly less simple narrative aimed at teenage boys. The three-part series tell the story of Attila the Hun's invasion of the Roman Empire but with a sci-fi perspective. I would put this series about on par with TV shows like HBO's Rome or Showtime's The Tudors and movies like 300--lots of bloody action, sexual intrigue, and some history thrown in for critical validation. And just as all of those are a lot of fun to watch, Scourge of the Gods is a lot of fun to read. However, I again have to point a finger at Marvel here. If in America, our most acclaimed comics are not of the type described above, certainly the same must be true in France. Why is Marvel only flooding our American shelves with more of what he already have?
Zorro #10:
I've mentioned in the past how much I love this series' opening arc of eight issues (what will probably be collected into a book titled "Zorro: Year One"). It was just an excellent origin story. But writer Matt Wagner has moved on from the early success of an original take on a tried and true hero. Now Wagner's taking this comic back to the "tried and true formula," and it's depressing. Few stories are as capable of being as cliché as Zorro, if only because he's existed for so long, in so many mediums, simultaneously influencing so many others. And what I liked with those first eight issues was that Wagner was staying away from those clichés and telling a new story (even if he was borrowing heavily from different sources, he was still doing original things with the mythos). But now it seems as if Wagner's just getting (dare I say it) lazy! We're being set up in this new run to see Zorro's love interest being wooed by the enemy so that Zorro will have to rescue her. And really, is that something that needs to be lead up to? One of two things is going to happen here: a) the strong willed Lolita will rescue herself, proving herself a capable heroine, or b) she really will need to be rescued and Wagner could have just saved time and ink doing it in one issue (à la Lois Lane). I'm also starting to take offense to Wagner's depiction of Spanish. He's definitely prescribing to the "arbitrary "si"'s and "Dios!"'s placed at the beginnings and ends of sentences to make the otherwise English speaking characters sound Spanish" school of comic book dialogue. And I'd really hoped we were past that.
Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #3 and 4:
Returning readers of my blog are aware of my deep respect and admiration for Mike Mignola (for the rest of you, let me sum up: MIGNOLA IS AWESOME!). But the first few issues of this series had me dubious about the direction of his work. Suddenly, I was reading little footnotes saying things like"See Hellboy: The Corpse" every time the story brought up an old plot point of the series. And I couldn't help but feel like I was being treated like a new Action Comics reader who picks up an issue and by the end has to go out and buy six more just to figure out what's going on in the first issue he bought. Mignola used to tell brilliant, short, self-contained stories (one of the reasons I love his work so much), and if he needed to refer to something old, he'd have the good decency to put in an awesome, stylized flashback panel or two. However, seeing this woke me up to a fact I'd yet to let myself realize: Hellboy isn't new. He's been around for awhile, he's built up a huge mythos in that time, he's generated spin-off series (good in their own right), and he's only moving forward. It's only natural that Mignola try tying up loose ends before everything gets really out of control. And if he plans on continuing the series, he'll eventually have to write some "Crisis" gimmick with multiple Hellboys from varying dimensions. And as much fun as it would be to read about the good Hellboy from our world fighting an evil Hellboy from a parallel dimension who destroyed his world, superhero comics have done enough of that. And I want Mignola to continue doing new things with the medium. It's not all fire and brimstone here, however. By the fourth issue, there weren't any more "See-This-Issue"'s, and it became clear Mignola was just trying to set us up for something bigger. Indeed, when I got to the end and read the editor's note, I saw that the series was taking a break promising to come back with something they were taking the time to make awesome. So thanks, Mike, for not treating me like all the other comics publishers do. Please don't let my faith in you go misplaced.
B.P.R.D.: The Black Goddess #2 and 3:
I like reading the B.P.R.D. series in the same way I like watching SpongeBob Squarepants. It entertains me for half an hour, but I don't necessarily get anything out of it. And I don't need to. That's fine. I get some light entertainment centred in a comic universe I love. No, the story isn't particularly deep, and I'm still not a big fan of Guy Davis' art. But B.P.R.D. is still fun, and I'll probably continue to read it with the same verve I watch SpongeBob--whenever I happen to be doing nothing and it's available.
The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #1:
I first found out about this new series a little too late to go back and jump in with the premier issue. Pretty soon, the first issues were already collected into hardback. And I didn't have the money to risk on a series I had no experience with. So I waited, and a new arc has started, and I snatched it up. As I believe in self-contained stories (even those that are part of an ongoing series), I figured this issue should pull me in and catch me up without me needing to look twice at it. And it did. I have no questions (except for at the cliffhanger ending, of course), and I can enjoy the story and characters that are unfolding--even if I can only see them as lazy, vain, neurotic, crazy, angry, and superpowered (respectively). But I'm not sure this story is worth a second look. Everything here is very superficial, and I could assume the whole series is like that or just that it's purposefully like that so that I'll read further. The perfect example is that cliffhanger ending. One of our heroes has just avoided capture by killing a whole army of laser gun toting bad guys (actually, for all I know they're the good guys), when suddenly he hears in one of their transmitters that their HQ is sending in what I can only assume are some serious BAMFs. And now our protagonist has a seriously worried look on his face. So am I to assume that since I'm not a continuing reader then I'm just unfamiliar with these super-baddies and I should be so worried about our hero that I rush out and buy issue #2? Or are these completely new characters and I should ao worried that our hero is worried that I rush out and buy issue #2? Regardless, I'm not worried.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz #3 and 4:
I still have really mixed feelings about this series. On the one hand, I absolutely love the art! I've never heard of Skottie Young, but he's definitely made a name for himself for me. On the other hand, I really don't like the storytelling. Now, I've never read the original novels, so I'm not sure this is the fault of the adaptation or the source material. Regardless, I'm blaming the writer Eric Shanower. The pacing is still too fast, and I don't really like any of the characters (except Toto). The snippets of each character we get are sort of like being forced to judge a person based on one incidence we're told about them. And none of these incidences portray them well. For example, Dorothy's compatriots act like a bunch of two-bit henchman in an action movie--if one of them falls behind he gets left behind. Ironically, they all see need to draw attention to their minor acts of heroism. But perhaps what bothers me most about the series is that Marvel doesn't seem so much interested in making a literary classic accessible to a new generation of readers as it does in hooking those new readers to their other titles. Almost every other page has an advertisement for a Marvel comic and/or product. I've also heard similar complaints about their new Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
Scourge of the Gods #2 and 3:
This is the second of Marvel's translated series from French comics publisher Soleil that I've read. And it only solidifies what I've said in the past about French comics creators thinking very highly of themselves. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's enabled them to break out of the mold of the superhero comics with simple narrative aimed at teenage boys we so cling to here in America. But on the other hand, this series is only an action comic with slightly less simple narrative aimed at teenage boys. The three-part series tell the story of Attila the Hun's invasion of the Roman Empire but with a sci-fi perspective. I would put this series about on par with TV shows like HBO's Rome or Showtime's The Tudors and movies like 300--lots of bloody action, sexual intrigue, and some history thrown in for critical validation. And just as all of those are a lot of fun to watch, Scourge of the Gods is a lot of fun to read. However, I again have to point a finger at Marvel here. If in America, our most acclaimed comics are not of the type described above, certainly the same must be true in France. Why is Marvel only flooding our American shelves with more of what he already have?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
How Do You Review "The First Graphic Novel"? Eisner's "A Contract with God"
Over Spring Break, I finally got around to reading Will Eisner's groundbreaking work A Contract with God. I have to admit, this was a long time coming; it was one of the works I didn't admit to having not read (along with Comics and Sequential Art, which I own and have perused but still have not read closely).
Similarly, he used the two common tools of the medium to tell the story (both art and text), rather than relying on one and only using the other to reiterate what the other was conveying--made popular by superhero comics with narration that simply described what the superhero was doing. The perfect example of this appears in the story "A Contract with God" (for which the graphic novel is named). Eisner tells the semi-autobiographical story of a religiously pious man who loses his very young daughter. Angered with God, the man begins an argument in which God's dialogue is expressed in lightning bolts.
We also looked at an excerpt from the last story, "Cookalein," as an example of the kind of complex narrative Eisner used. In the story, several characters leave the summer heat of the city to visit cheap, vacation homes in the country. The characters are unfamiliar to each other, but the reader witnesses the intertwining of their stories as they journey to and arrive at the resorts.
Stories like this weren't told in comics in the '70s, and in general, still aren't told today. But Eisner's work was born out of a desire to break the mold of what a medium "can" or is "supposed" to do. I presented this aspect in terms of what my class could learn from Eisner--never be satisfied with the conventions of your medium. For it is in experimentation that the truly great works are born.
Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
Eisner coined the term "graphic novel" with this work--in this case four short stories that centred around the same tenement building and its tenants.. His primary concern (and where the work departed from comics of its and even our time) was creating complex narrative using the medium of sequential art. And he couldn't do that with the newspapers strips of the 1940s or the serials of the late '70s. But it is difficult to judge this book or even really discuss what works and what doesn't. A Contract with God represents a period of great leaps forward in the medium of comics as literature and as art. In any other medium, we might argue that, as such an early example, it doesn't stand up to the scrutiny by those of us who've seen how the medium has improved since. Unfortunately, this medium doesn't seem to have improved much, as we constantly have to go back twenty or more years to find examples of its great works.
My difficulty in reviewing this book then comes in that I'm reviewing what is one of the model works. Few people disagree that works like Watchmen, Maus, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are some of the most influential and important works of the medium. So how do you judge those? How do you judge the first and most important graphic novel without saying something that hasn't already been said in the last thirty-one years? Well, if you're me, you teach it.
As a full-time faculty member at my university, I'm allowed to take a class per semester for free. This semester, I'm retaking (as an audit) the Experimental Fiction Workshop the chair of my thesis committee teaches (because, honestly, I won't write creatively unless I'm forced). As part of the class, everyone has to present an author and an example of his or her work, explaining how that author was experimental and what we, as students of creative writing, can learn from him or her. What follows is, more or less, a summary of that lesson.
As said above, this work broke away from its contemporary comics in that it helped usher in the idea of complex narrative in comics. To be sure, this wasn't entirely new to the medium, but it had never been done as well as Eisner did it. The simple reason for this was that Eisner not only broke away from the typical content or style of traditional comics but from the method of publication, as well. A Contract with God was not first published as a series of four floppies that came out monthly then were bound together (like the so-called "graphic novels" of this generation). It was sold as a novel--a complete work with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. Eisner here helped shatter the preconceived notions that comics could only appear as strips in the newspaper and cliff-hanger stories sold on magazine racks.
Similarly, he used the two common tools of the medium to tell the story (both art and text), rather than relying on one and only using the other to reiterate what the other was conveying--made popular by superhero comics with narration that simply described what the superhero was doing. The perfect example of this appears in the story "A Contract with God" (for which the graphic novel is named). Eisner tells the semi-autobiographical story of a religiously pious man who loses his very young daughter. Angered with God, the man begins an argument in which God's dialogue is expressed in lightning bolts.
We also looked at an excerpt from the last story, "Cookalein," as an example of the kind of complex narrative Eisner used. In the story, several characters leave the summer heat of the city to visit cheap, vacation homes in the country. The characters are unfamiliar to each other, but the reader witnesses the intertwining of their stories as they journey to and arrive at the resorts.
Stories like this weren't told in comics in the '70s, and in general, still aren't told today. But Eisner's work was born out of a desire to break the mold of what a medium "can" or is "supposed" to do. I presented this aspect in terms of what my class could learn from Eisner--never be satisfied with the conventions of your medium. For it is in experimentation that the truly great works are born.
Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
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