Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Bad Sketch By Me

Seeing Oneself In Others

I was clueless on what was happening with this northwest comics thing for a long time. The first I would have heard about it was a long time (a year as as a young college student) ago in one of my fine arts classes. And I was like huh comics cool expecting things like Spiderman, and Japanese manga stuff. When I arrived to see my first lecture it was my first time seeing the museum as well. It was weird to see comics of varying scales and colors all over the wall when I was used to seeing them on the relatively small size and screen of my computer monitor which usually keeps things the same sizes I’ve been used to seeing them, but upon entering I was met with a G-Pen, which is a comic pen, that was taller than I was. I sat down to hear the most interesting story put together by an interesting artist. Someone who I didn’t realize was so influential in the art community until writing this paper up. When I used to think about comics I simply thought of them as pixels on the screen and I never thought about them as something I could hold in my hands and flip through the pages, or look at on a wall. I think when you are there in person it really changes the way you think about the visual design principals. Stuck in this digital world I have only been accustomed to the screen with the intense cool blue light that most modern monitors emit now a days. But when you interact with and artist and the work in physical form it becomes so much different. You have to take into account the scale of the piece compared to yourself and the mood changes depending on the quality and type of lighting you stand in. The mood and state we are in will change the way we perceive things. Blues may look bluer on a sad gray day and reds may look brighter when the sun is shining. And With things like black and white comics it is a collection of black and white points, lines, and planes which create a new window into reality. Where these drawn characters come to life.

Comics became more alive than ever for me on this day and it’s only now writing about it where I see why. When I am used to comics that show nothing but the ideal in way of Super Heroes and the Japanese Slice of Life and Romance comics. I often see nothing but the good in life, and when these comics come in color they are often really bright surreal colors. Today I saw the comic of a human being which includes the faults and real life situations I’m used to seeing out of myself every day. I actually thought more about this comic because I had met the author and learned about all the uncertainties harbored in her own life and reading that almost makes you see their comics very differently. You see that all these experiences are colored with both the warms and the colds in different concentrations at different times. I liked going to this because I learned to see the other side of comic book characters, because the characters are an alive part of the author who created them. And when you learn to look into and read into things you realize that even your favorite characters that you’ve idealized from different colors are dynamic complex as well.

Black Lives Matter Round Table Discussion Talk- I really liked listening as they discussed ways to get the community to have conversations about race (the American culture and now sport culture) and how narrative is structured in society. Take for instance the current national anthem controversy that started as a black lives matter protest and was flipped to not caring about the military. Through the lens of sports culture or larger spears of society. And each of the panelists discussed/brought up the question of pure humanities value on lives. Why are we saying black lives matter? Because it is historically an issue. From history books black lives once did not matter and are still treated harshly today. Having to constantly work to change the system. How do we incorporate it if we lack a consciousness and education on the matter we aren’t learning? We are taught repeatedly to forget the horrors enacted on African Americans. And are finding less and less books from the narrative of people of color and the LGBT community as well as, a decrease in majors. As a society we have let the university decide what we recognize and consider worth reading or acceptable. Now having realized what the library collection is people have struggled to get the university to change the system. They also discussed how police video footage of officers killing people has been stashed away and that the police department wanted to not show the public these videos that are now by court approval being issued to be made public. And now that people can see them they are repulsed by what society let happen. Some universities and the states in California and Arizona are trying to make changes that going beyond just admitting their is a problem in American society. However, another issue rises in the form of police union contracts that play a significant roll in protecting police that brutalize civilians. And to top it off we also have to deal with the media and films surrounding our culture that work against us and give society the notion the people of color are bad (Disney). But also we need to talk about that white people have a hard time discussing white supremacy and privilege. In order to break the discomfort we need to get uncomfortable and face these challenges in mandatory classes from a young age.