What is the significance of ragtime influence in Jimmy Courigan

When I first read Courigan I was very confused about how to read the panels correctly. It was not your typical symmetrical panels with the perfectly lined gutters. Not only did the panels not line up but it seemed to me that the content jumped around alot. This was not a comic I found to be a "quick read" by any means. However, once we introduced the idea of ragtime music to the comic it seemed to flow alot better. I found that the way ragtime music jumped around with its high and low pitched sequences was the same way I found my brain taking in the comics information and closures.

Is it possible that music can give a personality to a comic? I found that to be very true since the more I listened to the ragtime clips, the more I found the panels following to the beat of the music in my mind. It seemed to make the panels flow more like a film strip. It also gave it the quirky kind of music that you would assume an old time cartoon would have.

Is it possible that there may be a reason behind the random placement of comic panels? This thought did not occur to me until our group disscussions in class today. One could imagine the gutters of the strip to be the lines of a music scale and the random horizontal and vertical panels to represent musical notes. It takes a little imagination but I think the flow is there. Once I considered this idea it seemed to give alot more movement and noise to the busy streets and buldings of Chicago.

The Significance of the Vendetta Symbol

As we were reading "V for Vendetta" I did some research on anarchy since I was not very informed about the matter. It seemed to be a very popular theme through out the comic. I found it very interesting that the Vendetta symbol is very similar to the universal anarchy symbol. If you turn V's symbol upside down, it looks like an "A" with a circle around it. Is this a coinsidence or V's stamp of approval?

I do believe that it is not a coincidence that V's signature resembles the anarchy symbol. I do think its a symbol of the movement he was trying to push England towards.

Everyone who has read V for Vendetta is well aware of his views on how society and government should work. After reading this text I can see that even though V's actions could be seen as ruthless and terroistic, he was in his own way giving "every man" the voice they deserved. He was showing the people of England that the government shouldn't always have the last say and that "every mans" liberty should be celebrated, even if that meant a little chaos. Isn't that the concept of anarchy?

The concept of anarchy is stressed through out the comic in a variety of ways. I think V would only see it appropriate to link his throughts and actions through this symbol. Isn't that the significance of symbols?. Anyone who sees it would know the whole story and concept behind it. This symbol was a quick and easy way for V to promote his movement around England.

----> this is the GREAT "V" domino trick in the movie!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPfI9oxZuEo ..and maybe one could say the action of the dominos falling could be considered a metaphor for the chaos in England.

The Significance of Cartoons

What is the significance of cartoon illustrations in Maus on a serious and sensitive historical topic?

Spiegelman's approach to drawing the faces of his charachters is very iconic. Throughout the book all of the mice look the same, as do all the pigs and cats. The only way you have a chance of telling them apart is if you pay close attention to wardrobe or flow of dialouge. I think that he did it this way because the story of the Holocaust relates and touches so many different groups of people. He didn’t want it to be about just one person or just another "survival story" of the Holocaust. He also wants to show that all Jews were targeted with no exception by the Germans. I don’t think Spiegelmen drew the Jews as vermin off of his own persnoal opinion, but as the opinion of the Germans during that time period. Germans saw the Jews as dirty vermin so portraying them as mice was the easiest animal to dervie those characteristics from. The Germans were drawn as cats because of cats animalistic nature to hunt mice. The poles were drawn as pigs to show that they were higher rank then the Jews but not as powerful as the Germans. Could someone even go as far to say that the concentration camps could have been seen as the "mouse traps" for the Jews plotted by the Germans?

Spieglman's narration tactic was to allow his readers to hear the same Holocaust story, but from a different perspective. It allows us to let go of our natural senses and see the Holocaust represented differently through the use of animals as main charachters. With the way the dialouge is set up you almost hear the retold story of the Holocaust as a story within a story as Artie talked to his father.

The whole structure and dialouge set up of Maus really relates to Hayden White's essay. White's essay questions why human beings have the need to tell stories. The whole book of Maus is set up for the reader to see a story unfold in front of them. White makes it clear in his essay that the reason humans love to tell stories is because we can all relate to stories in some way. The way Maus is structured it allows the reader to see and feel the story from a different perspective. Just as the mice were victims, someone who reads Maus might be able to relate to the victimized and suppression by a preditor bond.