Showing posts with label 9/29/2014. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9/29/2014. Show all posts
9/29/2014
Y: The Last Man
Y: The Last Man was very interesting yet quite funny at the same time. The humorous component of it provided a nice twist for a serious topic. I found the storyline really compelling and the general pictures/graphics very cool as well. It was also a good read because it presented the idea of what could possibly happen if there was a world without men. The perspective that this comic provided regarding gender roles and government organization made Y: The Last Man one of the most intriguing comics I have ever read.
Ian Crowley 9/29/2014
I was pleasantly surprised by Y: The Last Man. Usually I don't enjoy reading comic books because they seem to have little depth to them. That was not the case with this graphic novel however. I was never bored while reading this comic book; I was always on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next. As I was reading Y: The Last Man I was also able to make connections between it and other reading that we have discussed in class. The story plot of some sort of disease wiping out all of the men reminds me of William S. Burroughs piece The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Burroughs discusses our potential to create viruses and use them as weapons to wipe out specific races or genders. To me the plot line of Y: The Last Man seemed very similar to what Burroughs was talking about. Although this is just a graphic novel, the idea of an epidemic like this still worries me because creating a virus that could do something like this is within our scientific capabilities.
The Last Man
I greatly enjoy graphic novels because I think they can be extremely provocative and entertaining. This was an interesting insight into a post-apocalyptic society where there is only one man left on earth. I thought there were good representations of the different ways that people would react to such a society and what the main concerns would be.
I like that this world was the United States as we know it changed because you could see what happened to different parts, like how people centered around a monument to mourn the dead men. It also allowed for certain social commentaries, such as when everyone in the US government died except for the women and there really weren't that many people left to run the government.
There was also the gang of women that believed that men are the source of all evil and were meant to die. Those people were crazy radicals and honestly reminded me of some of the claims that people have today. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for women's rights and am somewhat of a feminist myself, but people that make claims like that give the people that actually have claims that deserve to be heard.
I like that this world was the United States as we know it changed because you could see what happened to different parts, like how people centered around a monument to mourn the dead men. It also allowed for certain social commentaries, such as when everyone in the US government died except for the women and there really weren't that many people left to run the government.
There was also the gang of women that believed that men are the source of all evil and were meant to die. Those people were crazy radicals and honestly reminded me of some of the claims that people have today. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for women's rights and am somewhat of a feminist myself, but people that make claims like that give the people that actually have claims that deserve to be heard.
Y: The Last Man
Although I said this about the last reading we did, this was absolutely my favorite reading of the year so far. It was not only an entertaining and fast-paced read, but also a very poignant and unique storyline.
From page one I was totally hooked. The dialogue was quick, the art was beautiful, and the way it kept jumping between minutes was very intriguing. In fact, the whole chronology of the story was very interesting to me. I have never read something that, in between pages, jumps anywhere from a second, to a minute, to a day, to a month. That was something that took some getting used to.
As for the characters, each one was so unique and interesting. Yorick's quirkiness and incessant optimism (or mockery of the situation) made him incredibly likable. Dr. Mann and Agent 355 were both incredibly mysterious in their own ways.
The authors do a great job of keeping the reader guessing all the way until the end. When Hero revealed she was an Amazonian I verbally said "oh shit!" while reading. When it ended I was almost upset and I googled Y: the Last Man to see if the other volumes were available online...they were not.
I also loved all of the references thrown in all over the place. First of all, I am huge shakespeare fan and the addition of Yorick and Hero made me laugh. My favorite reference was when Yorick says to 355 "if you'll be my bodyguard, you can call me Al" referring to the Paul Simon song.
The part that really got me was at the Washington Monument (phallically the memorial for men) and Yorick bonds with the woman over all of the dead musicians. That hit me deep and it all felt very real at that point. It was something I would never have thought of in a million years. It was such a simple thing, but it was so sad at the same time.
In general this was an incredibly fast paced read and it kept me guessing until the very end. I have never in my life considered myself a comic book person, but I just might go out and find the rest of the volumes to this amazing story.
From page one I was totally hooked. The dialogue was quick, the art was beautiful, and the way it kept jumping between minutes was very intriguing. In fact, the whole chronology of the story was very interesting to me. I have never read something that, in between pages, jumps anywhere from a second, to a minute, to a day, to a month. That was something that took some getting used to.
As for the characters, each one was so unique and interesting. Yorick's quirkiness and incessant optimism (or mockery of the situation) made him incredibly likable. Dr. Mann and Agent 355 were both incredibly mysterious in their own ways.
The authors do a great job of keeping the reader guessing all the way until the end. When Hero revealed she was an Amazonian I verbally said "oh shit!" while reading. When it ended I was almost upset and I googled Y: the Last Man to see if the other volumes were available online...they were not.
I also loved all of the references thrown in all over the place. First of all, I am huge shakespeare fan and the addition of Yorick and Hero made me laugh. My favorite reference was when Yorick says to 355 "if you'll be my bodyguard, you can call me Al" referring to the Paul Simon song.
The part that really got me was at the Washington Monument (phallically the memorial for men) and Yorick bonds with the woman over all of the dead musicians. That hit me deep and it all felt very real at that point. It was something I would never have thought of in a million years. It was such a simple thing, but it was so sad at the same time.
In general this was an incredibly fast paced read and it kept me guessing until the very end. I have never in my life considered myself a comic book person, but I just might go out and find the rest of the volumes to this amazing story.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)