Invention Activity

This was originally done in a notebook, and I forgot to post it here. As my research has piled higher and deeper and I have re-read the work I am analyzing, I have switched focus from gendered storytellers to queered (marginalized) storytellers. I am focusing specifically on how space/time are used in the narrative, because comics are narratives arranged spatially to produce diegetic time. Because of these changes in focus, not everything generated by this invention activity is completely relevant to my research.

I already know what I want to write about; sort of...

1. What research ideas come to me while listening to music or riding in the car? 
Comics comics comics! & how they tell stories. Hybridity between pictures and text. 
How do comics work with gender?

Graphic narratives and the female/male form.

Step #2: Compile a list of all your research ideas and possible paper topics.

Books that would be fun to analyze and why:
Black Hole -- 1970s coming of age tale, sexual awakenings, teenagers, embodiment and body horror
Watchmen -- construction of gender, deconstruction of masculinity and femininity through superhero comics
The Sandman -- storytelling, metafiction, gender, oppressed people.
Fun Home -- "coming out" narratives, recursive narrative
Y: The Last Man -- dystopic narrative, constructions of feminity and masculinity, serial fiction

4. Previous paper topics
Gender in Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

5. Five Minutes on Watchmen
Watchmen was a limited series by Alan Moore. This comic is important because it demonstrated how comics could be taken seriously as commentary on culture. It deconstructed the most popular form of comics when it was published, the superhero genre. This comic does not portray ultra he-men that fight crime, a la Superman or Batman. Instead, it portrays somewhat to very psychotic men that put on ridiculous and garish costumes to fight crime. As for women, there is not a paragon of virtue and truth, a la Wonder Woman. Instead, there is the Silk Spectre I and II, mother and daughter respectively. She is a sex symbol and a tragic symbol. These constructions act as commentary on the way men and women are portrayed in comics as a whole

6. Five Minutes on a Tossed Idea: Y: The Last Man
Y: The Last Man is the story of Yorick, the last man on earth. All of his fellow bearers of the Y chromosome simultaneously died halfway through the first issue. The story that follows this event is a beautiful one that allows for a careful examination on how masculinity and feminity are socially constructed.

8:
Journal of Popular Culture
Comics Art Conference
International Journal of Comic Art
UCF Journal of Undergraduate Research
The National Conference of Undergraduate Research

9. After debating and talking with my roommate and friends, I narrowed it down to
Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.
I will focus on the narrative of the story, and how the story becomes a story about storytelling.