Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Cartoon Movement: There is more than One Truth

Hey Everyone

Calling all comic fans!

I stumbled upon this really cool comics website called Cartoon Movement that allows individuals to privately publish comics, free of publisher bias and media control...and the articles have been of a very high quality. They also maintain a blog that covers "behind the scenes" for the various comics published on the website.

Front page of Cartoonmovement.com (illustration by Richard and Slavomir Svitalsky).
The comics and cartoons that are produced for this website touch on very political issues and offer a much more intimate viewpoint as compared to news stories. Freedom of expression is highly evident with vivid depictions of current issues in the world, from the Euro debt crisis to the highly contested Egyptian election.

From "Inside the Favelas", art by Maumau.
A good example of this would be a series titled "Inside the Favelas", script by Augusto Paim and illustrated by Maumau (text reviewed by Roberto Frizero), it documents an inside view of Brazil's favelas that goes beyond popular depictions of these slums in popular media (read: Call of Duty MW2 or Fast Five). Part 1 and Part 2 can be accessed through the links.

Rather than a colorful and vibrant environment that is troubled by drugs, "Inside the Favelas" paints a very grey picture of favela life, where drug gangs provide a form of governance and the effects of government crackdowns. For me at least, "City of God" comes to mind...and you can contrast these comics with a BBC report on a police crackdown in a favela.

From "BOOM!", art by Ryan Alexander-Tanner.
Another notable comic is "BOOM!", written by David Axe and illustrated by Ryan Alexander-Tanner, which illustrates Axe's experience as a reporter attached to a U.S. Army artillery unit in Afghanistan. It explores the hidden cost that soldiers pay with concussions, which often go undiagnosed and can lead to drastic life changes.

If you have time to read some comics, I highly recommend you to visit this site! A lot of great work has been published on the website.


5 comments:

  1. BOOM is pretty cool comic illustration. But yeah, there is truth to what you say Josh. Sometimes Comics does bring out the truths of the world in an imaginative way.

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  2. I must add that it is also great to see it is free from the bias of our current American Media today.

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  3. Wow, great article and comic strips I have seen.

    I like how Toyconstruct really give me lots of references to places that are awesome and great!

    Thank you Josh!

    BOOM was really telling on an interesting aspect of the War in Afghanistan.

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  4. This is an interesting Illustration on the Various Conflicts troubling our world today.

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  5. Very interesting Comics. I like how they paint a different picture on the various conflict zones.

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