Manga - Yaoi Too Close for Love Ch. 1 

This is the first time I have read a Manga comic. I have never read one before until now because this type of comic just never really appealed to me. The covers are interesting, but they do not capture my attention. A lot of the Manga comics mainly have just characters and not full illustrations, which captures more of my attention. While I think the illustrations are fun and exciting I find this comic as hard to get through, chaotic and unorganized. It was confusing to try to follow the script and as well as the illustrations. There seems to be a lot more character development than characters and environments together in a panel. There are very suggestive environments in some of the panels that are interesting, but just do not bring me into the story. I am also not a huge fan of the very pointed chins to me it just makes me think of villains from comics and animated films. The characters seem very similar too each other. They do have different eyes and body shapes. However, from my perspective all the characters seem very similar to me.

This comic Too Close for Love was a story about Fumi and Eiji and their love for each other. They seemed to be very happy when they were together. There was also a lot of kissing, which i thought was overplayed a lot in this comic. Overall, manga just isn't appealing to me so i was not able to read the entire thing because of all the confusion and chaotic presentation of this comic.

The one thing I do like about Manga is the environments. The environments are beautifully drawn and detailed and very representational of everyday life. I just wished they put that much effort into the characters, which to me just do not seem complete and consistent enough with the environments.

March: Book One 
By: John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell



The first volume of March is a very powerful story about the Civil Rights Movement and blacks marching the streets to protest for equal rights. The story developed around Congressman John Lewis  his extraordinary life's history, accomplishments and the movement he lead. During the beginning of the story they write about the events of the very christian praying protestors getting arrested for being in a bar or refusing to move sitting in the back of the bus. Eventually there were so many people in jail the policeman decided to let them go. "Bloody Sunday," was a very aggressive time when they were fighting for equal rights, marching and where police were blocking their path. They were then attacked after John Lewis's orders with many getting injured. It then jumps straight to Obama's inauguration. We notice Lewis is telling his story to people who visited him in his office in congress.

Lewis, Aydin and Powell create a comic book with a strong vision, message and storyboard like illustrations using a lot of graphic lines to communicate the emotion. They use very dramatic compositions and simple character designs, which communicate the story very well. Powell uses a very interesting technique using black, gray and white washes and markers to create some really good storytelling. They succeed in describing Lewis's life story and his becoming of a true and very prayful christian and civil rights leader. His life was very extraordinary. He held funerals for chicken that died instead of eating them or throwing them away. He also spoke of Ghandi, talked about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, War Resistance and Nonviolence. They reference racism and how evil it was, how evil poverty was and how evil war was. They just do such a great job with capturing us in the moment and to me it felt like I was part of the civil rights movement and experienced a time of such hardships for the blacks.