Graphic Memoirs Come of Age

In the beginning of Graphic Memoirs Come of Age by William Bradley, he first gets into the history of the transition of comic books to the more sophisticated term graphic novels. Bradley talks about the classic comics Superman and Batman, but he does not categorize these comics as graphic novels. Even though, they are directed to an older audience and have multiple story lines and volumes in their series. Bradley then shifts his focus to what he proclaims is more of an academia comic and he refers to the term as "graphic memoir". Throughout his essay, he compares the differences and intentions of both of Alison Bechdel's graphic memoirs the Fun Home and Are You My Mother. He tries to refute the label of graphic memoir that was given to both of Alison Bechdel's works. He believes that its more in the direction of an essayistic memoir. He argues that Bechdel doesn't give enough input about her life to make it a memoir. He criticizes the critics for trying to decide which of Bechdel's works were better. The reason for this is because he is claiming that the critics are missing the whole point of what Bechdel is trying to promote. Even though they are labeled as the same type of story (graphic memoir), Bradley is trying to say that they are completely different types of stories. Many critics argued that Fun Home was better than Are You My Mother. He believes that both stories are good, but cannot be compared. Its like comparing apples and oranges. Both of Bechdel works serve for different purposes.

Sandman

 When we were assigned to read the comic book Sandman, I was very surprised. The reason for this is because I always perceived comic books to be directed to little kids. For example, all of the X-men and Superman comics, to my knowledge, are mostly read by young teens. Anyways, when I first started reading Sandman I was very confused. This was the first comic book I have ever read so I didn't have any background on how to read it. When reading The Sand/wo/man: The Unstable Worlds of Gender in Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series, it finally cleared up the smoke that was going on in my head because it helped me understand what Neil Gaiman was trying to present in his comic. What Booth and Brisbane are trying to portray in this essay is the importance of gender roles and how both sexes are supposed to act. They are saying that if you are a man you are expected to act a certain way. In my experience, men are supposed to be aggressive, hot headed, physical, athletic and boorish. Women are expected to be more thoughtful, gentle, loving and emotional. Society puts the label on us on what we are the second we are born. "The idea that reproductive organs should be the basic distinction... Consequently, biological distinctions between male and female become instrumental in the classification and delineation of difference..."(24). This quote, from the critical text, is trying to say that we only define ourselves because of our organs. But can there be a different way to distinguish whether we are male or female? This is one of the most controversial social issues in society today. There is the whole issue with transgender and what label are they. As a society, we love to label things and since its not part of the norm we have problems with the whole transgender issue. In my opinion, its whatever you feel like inside makes you what you are. If you are a male, but inside you feel like you are a female, then you have to go with your feelings and not care about what other people think. Its all about making yourself happy and the only way to accomplish that is to be satisfied with who you are.     

American Indian Legends and Folktales

The first thing that caught my eye about the Native American legends was in the beginning the author started out by explaining the significance of geography for these stories. Meaning, that the myths and folktales could have different meanings depending on the different areas and tribal groups. For example the tribe in the tale When Grizzlies Walked Upright, they never killed grizzlies and were deemed as a symbolic animal in their tribe. While in the tale How The People Got Arrowheads, the tribe telling this story is describing the Obsidian Old Man killing the bear. Thus, showing that bears weren't considered as a symbolic figure in the tribes culture. According to the author, Erodes, the message the Native Americans were trying to send through these stories was to depict the world that humans are living in and to show their concern and thoughts about the present time.

After reading the introduction, it seemed like the Native Americans would tell these stories in order to preserve their identity and not assimilate to the up and coming white European settler society. On page 4, a modern day Sioux tribe representative uses the term "white-manized" about his native language. By saying that, he is describing that his whole culture is slowly starting to assimilate but what is helping to preserve the identity are these American Indian folktales. These myths help preserve the language, cultural belief and daily practices. In todays world, it is really hard to preserve your cultural identity and without these stories, people would be fully assimilated into society with no idea about their history and cultural background.