Comics, Comics, and More Comics!

Hi everyone! I was feeling like I needed to branch out to a different (more fun) type of Jazzy Journal this week! I wanted to do something with the drawings in this novel because I feel they play such a huge role in bringing the story to life. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to share some comics from the first half of the novel and talk a little bit about how I felt about them and why I liked or disliked each one. 

1.

This is the first comic that I want to talk about and I absolutely loved it. It was on page three so this was right at the beginning of the story. One aspect of this drawing that I found so engaging was that it incorporated history (because it was right after a comic explaining the Veil had become mandatory to wear at school) and humor. I thought this was such a funny drawing because as you can see the children didn't really want to wear their Veils. I also thought this was one of the first visuals that demonstrated rebellion. 

2.

Unlike the comic I talked about earlier, this was one of the parts of the book that I found more disturbing. As you can see, I included a group of comics in this picture to further explain the comic on the bottom. The bottom comic is a drawing of the police beating the people that were outside of the building that was on fire. This beating took place after the police told the people outside that they were forbidden to help rescue people from inside the building on fire. At times like this when I was reading the book, I found myself forgetting that this is a memoir and this is something that ACTUALLY happened. It definitely made me sad to read that and I felt that it was almost told in a very casual way which made me as a reader think that things like this were not unusual. 

3. 

One thing that I really liked about this comic was that I felt like it represented Marji's character well. This drawing shows the mind of a child in such perfect resemblance. When Marji heard that her grandpa was a prince her mind immediately painted this picture of wealth and glory. I think that is true to what a lot of young children might picture when they picture a prince. All in all, I thought this comic did a great job of reinforcing the child's perspective that the beginning of the book is written though. 

4.

 

The reason why I picked these last comics to show was because I thought they were so touching. They really show the strong family theme in this novel. As you can see, the dad that was in prison let his daughter ride on his back even when he was in pain because it made her happy. This part of the book, along with the drawing, really touched my heart and made me feel something as a reader which I think is an important quality of a good book.