Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Comic Life
I choose to make a comic depicting the scene where Marcus is sent to the office for debating with the new teacher about the Constitution. I liked the way that the author wrote the scene, and I could definitely relate to how Marcus felt and how the principal felt too. However, if Marcus was going to choose to be suspended, I felt he should have gone down really swinging. I liked how he quoted the declaration, but I think he should have just gone all out. That’s why I have Marcus cussing at the teacher. I think it is a little more defiant than what is told in the book.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
I decided to focus my comic on the conversation that Marcus has with his father, where in my opinion, his father sounds like quite the hypocrite (although we find out later that he is just trying to protect his son like any decent father would). We were supposed to make a comic on redefining normal. I focused on how normal has changed over time, specifically from our parents generation to ours. I found using Comic life to be extremely limiting and difficult to use. Maybe I am using it incorrectly but I had a lot of trouble with it. It seems to be no more than just a picture formatting program with text bubbles and not so much a comic generator.
This is my description for my last comic that I wasn't able to figure out how to post:
In my comic, I drew Marcus, Vanessa and Jolu all grown up. I tried to imitate the illustration on the front of the book with Marcus in the center with his laptop, Vanessa on the right, and Jolu on the left. One of the main things I’ve noticed while reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is Marcus’s ability to stay true to himself and express his individuality. My comic shows that even though he is an adult, he still does what he wants to do. The original illustration on the cover of the book shows the toughness the three friends are willing to face in order to find their friend Darryl. My illustration shows their persistence and how they aren’t giving up even after years and years have passed. This is not to say that Darryl isn’t found at the end of the book (I don’t know because I haven’t finished reading the book), but it is to say that these three individuals are loyal to each other and aren’t going to give up even after years have gone by. I dressed Marcus, Vanessa and Jolu in business attire to emphasize their adulthood and to imply that these three still have a lot of common sense in that they pursue their careers even though their real work is to find their friend.
ComicLife First Draft
I got my idea from the part of the book where Marcus and Jolu gather their closest friends and have a secret meeting to form the web of trust. Except in my interpretation, Marcus's plan is a little different. Since the DHS tracks abnormality and uses that as a base to interrogate people, I made Marcus think up a wildly dumb idea to stop them from doing that. By changing everyone into an animal, the DHS wouldn't be able to tell apart normal from abnormal and thus wouldn't be able to continue their searches/interrogations (in theory). Kind of a dumb idea, but I thought it was a funny interpretation of that scene in the book.
Bitstrip
My bitstrip is on the scene in chapter 7 where Marcus is being followed by two undercover cops, and so he stops at a mexican food place to eat, just in case if he got arrested he didnt wanna be jailed in an empty stomach. I used some of the dialogue used in the book, but i added an alternate ending to it because i thought it would be funny if MARCUS didnt always get it his way and maybe learn a lesson from being such an arrogant character.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Themes of the Book
http://bitstrips.com/r/TJLGL
Little Brother is a story with central themes of propaganda and paranoia. In the interrogation scene, it is obvious that the attitude of the government toward Winston is to benefit oneself and therefore treats Winston as a terrorist despite the fact that he is only a teenager. When Winston refuses to unlock his cellphone, he is immediately labeled a terrorist and punished as a result. We the audience know that Winston is a computer expert and has nothing to do with the terrorist attack, however the government thinks they know everything and abuse their power. The government is also paranoid that terrorists are in hiding and may make an attack while at the same time, the citizens are feeling as if they are constantly watched. My bitstrip is an example of the interaction between a government official and an innocent person.
Little Brother is a story with central themes of propaganda and paranoia. In the interrogation scene, it is obvious that the attitude of the government toward Winston is to benefit oneself and therefore treats Winston as a terrorist despite the fact that he is only a teenager. When Winston refuses to unlock his cellphone, he is immediately labeled a terrorist and punished as a result. We the audience know that Winston is a computer expert and has nothing to do with the terrorist attack, however the government thinks they know everything and abuse their power. The government is also paranoid that terrorists are in hiding and may make an attack while at the same time, the citizens are feeling as if they are constantly watched. My bitstrip is an example of the interaction between a government official and an innocent person.
http://bitstrips.com/r/C3LGL
I designed my comic strip about the fact that everyone was being questioned after he and his followers jammed up the system with the arphid cloners. I compared the waiting to be questioned by the police in little brother to going through airport security, and how airport security still takes longer.
I designed my comic strip about the fact that everyone was being questioned after he and his followers jammed up the system with the arphid cloners. I compared the waiting to be questioned by the police in little brother to going through airport security, and how airport security still takes longer.
Bitstrips Comic
Here is the link to the comic. For me, the most important theme of Little Brother so far, and especially in chapters 6-10, was surveillance and the fear of being watched. When planning his revenge against the DHS, Marcus is constantly thinking about ways that the government could be spying on him and catching him, and he tries to counteract them. I wanted to make a comic that echoed that same sort of fear of being watched. However, in brainstorming for ideas, I thought about the fact that when we create a comic strip, we are in a sense creating a universe and then watching that universe. So, when the "nuts" person in my comic feels like he is being watched, it's because he is being watched, by us, the reader.
Bitstrips
http://www.bitstrips.com/user/XHXF/read.php?comic_id=PKLGL&subsection=1
My comic strip is about the scene where Marcus tries to buy coffee from his usual coffee stand with his debit card, only to find out that the Turkish man no longer accepts debit cards. Now that they are being tracked, simply buying coffee with a card can help the government keep tabs on its citizens and their activity. The Turkish man does not want to aid the government in taking away the rights of citizens which is why he no longer accepts cards. Marcus sees this logic and agrees with it, respecting the coffee vendor in his decision to not accept debit cards anymore. It also pokes fun at the fact that Marcus is addicted to coffee and has been since a young age, but there are worse things for people to be addicted to, such as a country addicted to spying on its innocent citizens.
Bitstrips
http://bitstrips.com/r/HSLGL
This comic is about the interrogation scene where Marcus eventually gives in and tells his password to Severe Haircut Lady. I focus on how Marcus resists and does not tell his password to Severe Haircut Lady the first time she asks even if he has nothing in his phone that would lead them to believe that he was his terrorist. This goes to show how much he values his privacy and how much he wanted to keep it, despite the risks involved. However, he ended up telling her his password. To Severe Haircut Lady's dismay, she only found trivial things such as friend lists, forum posts, Google searches and chat transcripts in his phone.
This comic is about the interrogation scene where Marcus eventually gives in and tells his password to Severe Haircut Lady. I focus on how Marcus resists and does not tell his password to Severe Haircut Lady the first time she asks even if he has nothing in his phone that would lead them to believe that he was his terrorist. This goes to show how much he values his privacy and how much he wanted to keep it, despite the risks involved. However, he ended up telling her his password. To Severe Haircut Lady's dismay, she only found trivial things such as friend lists, forum posts, Google searches and chat transcripts in his phone.
BitStrip
http://www.bitstrips.com/user/260634/read.php?comic_id=1293401&sc=1
I got this idea from when Winston uses a code name to hack into the school firewalls. Through this he was able to do things such as join his friends in the ARG gaming world during school. The principal was unable to figure out that the code was in fact Winston's name spelt out in code. In my bitstrip I took the place of Winston and I am in the work world and use my hacking skills to make my job easier and more enjoyable.
Bitstrips
http://bitstrips.com/r/DM2GL
The book itself is very unordinary and abnormal. When the author actually identifies the concept of what is abnormal and how the abnormality of everyday life transitions into the common world and how it draws a connection that the world is essentially a weird place. Basically, the world has become used to so many weird things that society considers it the norm. In the bitstrip comic, I used the main character who feels so comfortable with society's strange nature that he makes a statement that says that weird is very common but he meets something that makes him bite his tongue.
The book itself is very unordinary and abnormal. When the author actually identifies the concept of what is abnormal and how the abnormality of everyday life transitions into the common world and how it draws a connection that the world is essentially a weird place. Basically, the world has become used to so many weird things that society considers it the norm. In the bitstrip comic, I used the main character who feels so comfortable with society's strange nature that he makes a statement that says that weird is very common but he meets something that makes him bite his tongue.
Bitstrips
http://www.bitstrips.com/user/8HXF/read.php?comic_id=9X2GL&subsection=1
There's a part in Little Brother that was reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984 novel for me. Both Marcus and Winston keep their most private thoughts in what they feel is the privacy and safety of either technology or a diary. But both characters learn there is not such things as privacy - at least any type of privacy that is in some case public.
Bitstrips
http://www.bitstrips.com/news/read.php?comic_id=SV2GL&subsection=5
I got the idea from my strip after reading the section of Little Brother when Marcus’s dad is stopped by the police twice on his way to work. An important theme I inferred from the reading was that the government abandoned the idea of innocent until proven guilty. When I was reading I thought about how many people must have been stopped, and how many of them must have been subjected to the same circular logic that Marcus’s dad was subjected to. Additionally, I also found that the police in the book questioned everyone for seemingly no reason. I wanted to convey these themes of guilty until proven innocent and the hyper aggression used by the police force in the book in my cartoon.
I got the idea from my strip after reading the section of Little Brother when Marcus’s dad is stopped by the police twice on his way to work. An important theme I inferred from the reading was that the government abandoned the idea of innocent until proven guilty. When I was reading I thought about how many people must have been stopped, and how many of them must have been subjected to the same circular logic that Marcus’s dad was subjected to. Additionally, I also found that the police in the book questioned everyone for seemingly no reason. I wanted to convey these themes of guilty until proven innocent and the hyper aggression used by the police force in the book in my cartoon.
www.bitstrips.com/user/260635/read.php?comic_id=1291118&sc=1 How Marcus really got the idea to create XNET and start a revolt against the DHS.
Bitstrips
http://www.bitstrips.com/user/260629/read.php?comic_id=1291047&subsection=1
I decided to put the main character of Little Brother, Marcus at Santa Clara and see how he likes it. Know that I did not make this comic because I am unhappy with how the internet is monitored or anything, (although wireless can be a little spotty at times). I believe this comic is accurate to how Marcus would react at the Library on campus. He's kind of a shit head so he'd probably end up hacking it.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Bitstrip Cartoon
http://bitstrips.com/r/CQNML
My cartoon doesn't contain specific characters or scenes from Little Brother. Instead, I took the premise and concept of the paranoia theme from the book. Much like how Marcus is now always alert and paranoid about the DHS catching him, I made a comic about someone being paranoid that people are watching him. The DHS can find anyone and are very secretive about spying on the people. Most people don't even know how they're being watched in Little Brother. That's why I made the comic so that the main character feels like he's being watched, but doesn't know how or why. The humor in it is supposed to be that the person watching him isn't secretive about it at all; he's standing mere inches away from the main character.
My cartoon doesn't contain specific characters or scenes from Little Brother. Instead, I took the premise and concept of the paranoia theme from the book. Much like how Marcus is now always alert and paranoid about the DHS catching him, I made a comic about someone being paranoid that people are watching him. The DHS can find anyone and are very secretive about spying on the people. Most people don't even know how they're being watched in Little Brother. That's why I made the comic so that the main character feels like he's being watched, but doesn't know how or why. The humor in it is supposed to be that the person watching him isn't secretive about it at all; he's standing mere inches away from the main character.
Bitstrips
http://bitstrips.com/r/WCGML
This is my bitstrips interpretation of the interactions between Marcus and the 'severe haircut lady' from Little Brother. The dialogue is simple. It is meant to be read by someone who has read the book. It refers to the blatant disregard for justice, where the severe haircut lady’s personal qualms with Marcus’s become the reasons for continually detaining him and treating him as a “terrorist”. Marcus, in the bitstrip points out the ridiculousness of her claims that their poor treatment of him is in effect of a quest for the safety of him and other American citizens.
This is my bitstrips interpretation of the interactions between Marcus and the 'severe haircut lady' from Little Brother. The dialogue is simple. It is meant to be read by someone who has read the book. It refers to the blatant disregard for justice, where the severe haircut lady’s personal qualms with Marcus’s become the reasons for continually detaining him and treating him as a “terrorist”. Marcus, in the bitstrip points out the ridiculousness of her claims that their poor treatment of him is in effect of a quest for the safety of him and other American citizens.
Monday, December 13, 2010
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