Saturday, March 2, 2013

The walking dead gamer

Gamer_5 just woke up from his slumber of 2 hours before he needed to go to work. Initially he hears the alarm clock but, he is so tired he turns it off and goes back to bed. He dreams of killing zombies with his 3 teammates, fighting for their very survival. When he gets bitten by a glowing walker, he doesn't feel pain. Maybe its the pain pills but, in actuality its because he has disconnected from his dream and is being woken up a frantic mother telling him to get up or he'll be late. Finally, he drags himself out of bed and like a walker groans as he showers and dresses. He goes too work and notices how irritating everything is. He just wants to bite everyone. Throughout the day he feels an inhuman urge rise from inside until finally, his boss is yelling at him and he jumps on her and bites her, eats her whole like Gollum with a fish. The walker is born in our world with the hunger for human flesh. He increases hi numbers slowly and evolves until he becomes something else, a zombie in a dream jumping on a player and biting him, bringing him into another world.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Imagining words and pictures


Many people like myself feel traditional literature is the above all, end all of literature. We like words and the infinite worlds that they create not limited or hindered by a picture made of the authors interpretation. Graphic novels combine the elements of traditional literature and pictures to better do something for the reader. What exactly I don’t understand. I considered them limiting and unnecessary. There is a book that made me question my outlook. Shaun tan’s “The Arrival” is a book without words. It tells a story without a word spoken. Yet, when you read it and analyze the pictures of interactions between characters you can hear words spoken by them. It could be argued that this book requires just as much imagination as a traditional book. This is of course a weird comparison because each is missing an element from what is called a graphic novel. I wonder why the separation is appealing to me and not the combination. I think it is the thought I’m forced to put into it when they are separate. I enjoyed creating my own environments or imagining the conversations between people. Graphic novels take that imagination out of it. I like reading them because they are quick, easy to read, and they put all the readers of the books on an equal level. The readers don’t have to interpret the scene or setting and so are more able to focus on meaning and content. In “American Born Chinese” we find that the moral is be true to what you are. Would we be hindered if the story were just pictures or words? Would the story still make sense or are the words and pictures in combination necessary to keep the reader on track? The answer is all dependent on the author’s proficiency of writing or illustrating. I find some scenes from “American Born Chinese” need words to explain what’s going on, while others especially the scenes with the monkey king I find I could make most of it out without words.