Comic Book Movies Davis, Blair
2018, 20180416, 2018-03-30, 2018-06-25
eBook
Comic Book Moviesexplores how this genre serves as a source for modern-day myths, sometimes even incorporating ancient mythic figures like Thor and Wonder Woman's Amazons, while engaging with the ...questions that haunt a post-9/11 world: How do we define heroism and morality today? How far are we willing to go when fighting terror? How can we resist a dystopian state?Film scholar Blair Davis also considers how the genre's visual style is equally important as its weighty themes, and he details how advances in digital effects have allowed filmmakers to incorporate elements of comic book art in innovative ways. As he reveals, comic book movies have inspired just as many innovations to Hollywood's business model, with film franchises and transmedia storytelling helping to ensure that the genre will continue its reign over popular culture for years to come.
When they first appeared during the 'Golden Age of Comics' (1938 to 1954), 'supervillains' were little more than eccentric gangsters. Criminals with clear motives, they were distinguished from the ...norm by their use of technological gimmicks or weird costumes rather than special powers. Genuinely 'monstrous' supervillains such as the Joker, Two-Face and the undead Solomon Grundy were in the minority. As Mark Edward DiPaolo says, the 'Golden Age' Joker was a 'sane, Moriarty figure' (DiPaolo 2009: 205). However, the self-regulation of the American comics industry from 1954, under the auspices of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), created conditions that caused characters such as these to evolve into motiveless psychopaths, often mutated or deformed.
Mangaka (manga artists) are limited to portraying the personalities of characters through static images and limited changes in facial expression. It is imperative that the personality and appearance ...of a character complement each other. In this study, we found that participants rely heavily on facial features to identify the personalities of characters. However, we also found that their first impressions are inclined towards two out of a total of sixteen specific personality types. This preference for specific personality types may be a unique feature of manga. Perhaps because readers are entirely reliant on the visual presentation of manga, facial features provide a relatively rich source of information when determining the personality of a character. The physical appearance of characters is somewhat limited by the stylization typical of manga. Possibly the facial features of characters have become restricted to a few select types, enforcing stereotypical images in the minds of readers. This encapsulation of personalities is important to the development of manga. Simplifying personality types helps readers to identify with characters and understand the plot. However, over-simplification can make characters dull or indistinguishable from each other. Keywords: Manga, personality, facial feature, primacy effect, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
When they first appeared during the 'Golden Age of Comics' (1938 to 1954), 'supervillains' were little more than eccentric gangsters. Criminals with clear motives, they were distinguished from the ...norm by their use of technological gimmicks or weird costumes rather than special powers. Genuinely 'monstrous' supervillains such as the Joker, Two-Face and the undead Solomon Grundy were in the minority. As Mark Edward DiPaolo says, the 'Golden Age' Joker was a 'sane, Moriarty figure' (DiPaolo 2009: 205). However, the self-regulation of the American comics industry from 1954, under the auspices of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), created conditions that caused characters such as these to evolve into motiveless psychopaths, often mutated or deformed.
Comics have a long history of engagement with concepts of justice. Mainstream comics in English have commonly focused on crime, crime prevention, and punishment as part of their broader preoccupation ...with themes of power, abuse of power, and responsibility. This engagement is perhaps most obvious in the traditional superhero genre, in which ostensibly 'good' heroes are charged to protect the innocent and right wrongs perpetrated by 'bad' villains. Analysing the stories of the two iconic heroes Superman and Batman, Reyns and Henson identify a 'crime control' model of justice focused on preventing and repressing crime (2010). In this model, the formal legal system is inadequate and due process is failing, thus indicating the need for vigilantism. Yet despite the failures of the legal system, the overall social order and obedience to the law is nevertheless the accepted morality. Phillips and Strobl similarly conclude that the underlying message in mainstream comics is a conservative one: the goal is always to reinforce or restore an ideal of social order (2006). Thus, the concept of justice can be utilised as a broad model for understanding inequality, abuse and recompense in human relations. As such it should be brought into the discussion of many other forms of comics - in English and other languages. Sacco's comics journalism or testimonial and memoir comics like Satrapi's Persepolis (2000) and N aud's Journal series commencing with F vrier 1992 - septembre 1993 (1996) portray structural injustice and its ramifications in individual lives. A critical engagement with real issues of justice and power is also demonstrably present in unambiguously fictional works. From Hell (Moore and Campbell 1999) and The Homeland Directive (Venditti and Huddleston 2011) both feature a central conspiracy that addresses the problem of power in a particular era and setting, yet their examination of power is quite different: the former employs metatextual subtlety and expansive plotting, and the latter utilises a high impact visual style.
When they first appeared during the 'Golden Age of Comics' (1938 to 1954), 'supervillains' were little more than eccentric gangsters. Criminals with clear motives, they were distinguished from the ...norm by their use of technological gimmicks or weird costumes rather than special powers. Genuinely 'monstrous' supervillains such as the Joker, Two-Face and the undead Solomon Grundy were in the minority. As Mark Edward DiPaolo says, the 'Golden Age' Joker was a 'sane, Moriarty figure' (DiPaolo 2009: 205). However, the self-regulation of the American comics industry from 1954, under the auspices of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), created conditions that caused characters such as these to evolve into motiveless psychopaths, often mutated or deformed.
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