Category: Close Readings

Research Paper- Comic Book Industry Creative Project

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Terence Zhu

Cassidy Picken

Engl 100

Dec-6-2019

Comic Book Industry Research Paper

Creative comic book cover inked

 The comic book industry was the topic I wanted to indulge and educate myself in for this paper. Although, more specifically, I wanted to dive into the reasons for why the comic book industry seemed to be failing. In the research paper, I wanted to reach one conclusion if possible to why the industry seemed to be less successful than their contemporaries, manga and the film industry. However I found that there were many sources rather than one definitive answer to why the industry wasn’t as popular as it once was. Now with this research assignment, I decided that one of the more interesting ways of presenting all of the information that I have gathered, would be to make a comic book cover.

For the cover, I wanted the focus to be how heavy this is for the industry if they don’t succeed in bringing up the sales. In the foreground we have the hero representing the current industry, and inspired by atlas, trying to hold the “comic industry” or “world” up. With the hero, I wanted to show that the industry has tried moving to a more technological media by adding a robotic arm. I also wanted to make it clear it was the physical comic industry by making the head a printer. In the background are the other industries watching as comics struggle as they sit comfortably. The film industry is absorbing parts of the comic world and reusing them in adaptations coming from the book “The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre” by Liam Burke in 2015, this also explains the note taking as well as the roll of film flowing all around. The Japanese clothed man represents the manga industry and is linked with two small bridges coming from the source of “Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood” by Nothrop Davis in 2015. Something I tried to do with Manga man was emulating the shape of the moon to show some sort of similarity with the comic world, however the effects of this is not as adequet as I would have liked it to be. The three industry based characters have costumes more recognizable as a stereotype to their mediums, Comic industry is more classic capes and spandex look, the film industry contains a more technological and iron man-esque suit, and the manga industry keeps a traditional kimono and chibi appearance. As mentioned in these two, the film industry profits off of the most successful stories, the nostalgic factor and the cross influences between the two. The man in the middle represents the higher ups and more industry professionals turning a more or less blind eye at the problem, with trying to make it seem like everything is fine as seen with interviews at panels during Comic-con. With the comic world, there are multiple things happening such as the declining sales arrows hitting the world and creating fractures, on the right there are ships evacuating representing people moving towards a different medium. Underneath the industry figure, we have printed comics piling on and on, the source of this imagery is from the video “Why Collecting Comics RUINED the Industry! | Comic Misconceptions.” on youtube from Scott Nisewander of the channel “Nerdsync”. Behind the comics are people who are currently observing the industry idly, this is representative of all the sources that I have gathered for this paper. The two included names above Cassidy and mine are the heads of the two biggest comic book companies as of December of 2019 with Jim Lee being the more prominent of DC while still being co president, and Kevin Feige being the head director of Marvel entertainment.

The conclusion that I was able to reach with this paper was that the comic book industry is slowly in decline due to poor sales, being very reliant on other mediums as marketing strategies,  past incidents causing some bad reputation, and other media outlets. The reasons that their contemporaries seem to be succeeding in comparison is due to the fact that they have a broader reach with advertising and due to the cheaper prices as seen with graphic novels priced between 15-35 dollars USD and manga priced at 10-15 USD. 

Work Cited

English Research Proposal

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Terence Zhu

Cassidy Picken

Engl 100

Nov-15-2019

The Failings of the Comic Industry

 The comic industry of current day is barely thriving as a source of entertainment. For this topic, there have been many reasons that have been speculated to be the cause of this decline.

However, in my presentation, I will be attempting to answer the question of why the modern age of comics are currently in decline as well as why other similar mediums are much more successful. In particular these would be comic book movies, graphic novels, and Japanese manga. Doing research for this topic will be quite interesting due to the fact that most of the studies and research for this topic are generally not a scholarly article. As well as the fact that my other question is more of a broader and open ended question.

One of the driving forces of why I want to delve into this discussion is because of the fact that I was never able to see this for myself. What I mean by this is that it was brought to my attention by youtube video essays, and people around the community. However the specifics and the cause of it all is never completely accurate from one person to another, and so I felt compelled to research this topic. Furthermore, there is also the fact that this is an industry that I love and respect, and to see its’ success dwindle is very hard for me to wrap my head around, especially because this industry has been around for so long.

Close Reading 1- The Sea Is History

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Terence Zhu

Cassidy Picken

Engl 100

Oct-18-2019

“The Sea is History” close reading

Human history begins with the sea, and will eventually be taken back by the sea. This is the main idea that had formed while I was reading Derek Walcott’s  poem, “The Sea Is History”. The reason I came to this conclusion is because throughout the poem, we see Walcott go back and forth about the things locked up by the sea and the beginnings of things that include a body of water. We can also see that Walcott labels certain times where events occur as a false history, saying that “it was not History”(line 51). Ironically, Walcott decided to put the true beginning of history at the end. Furthermore, he continues to include an aspect of the ends of eras in segments of the poem.

A good example of how Walcott explains the beginning of history is with lines 65-80. However, the lines between 77-80 had the most impact, “and in the salt chuckles of rocks, with their sea pools, there was a sound, like a rumor without any echo, of History, really beginning” (lines 77-80). Within these last lines, there is imagery of everything. The speculated beginning without any echo, shows us that there is no solid evidence of how we came, just speculations as the sea covers it all. As well as “the salt chuckles of rock with their sea pools” (lines 77-78) being what I can only imagine as the sea laughing at how all of us on land caring of what amounts to a pool of nothing. Something that only scratches the surface of what we falsely call ‘history’.

An interesting thing that is found within Walcott’s poem is how he ties everything up in the end leaving it clear that there really is a water wheel that happens in life. Despite what others say on how history starts and ends, Walcott makes sure to clear it up and tie it into his own metaphor on life. That History will eventually be drowned out by other stories, but always know that we return to where we once came from, the sea, our History.