For my Midterm Reading I decided to read the comic, Hellboy Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola and John Byrne. The story is about a creature named Hellboy who investigates a cursed house called Cavendish Hall alongside his teammates Abe Sapien and Sherman Elizabeth Anne “Liz”. I enjoyed reading this comic because of the action and art style. Reading the story and seeing each action scene gave me a feeling of suspense and anticipation. I also enjoyed the writing, the dialogue made me feel the emotions and tone of the characters. The reading order, story structure great. The rhythm of the comic helped with the dark moments of the story.

But the art style was the best part. Mignola’s use of heavy shadows makes the art unique because of the way they hide the details, it leaves it up to you to figure out what they are. It also enhances the scary parts of the story which I found to be amazing.

Overall, the comic was a good read, and I highly recommend it if you are interested in horror and monsters.

I would say it’s actually the first time a read I full comic book, I used to look at the images at libraries but never actually finished one. The comic book I read is Ms.Marvel NO NORMAL by Wilson and Alphona Herring, it was quite interesting to read. I actually enjoyed reading it that I’m looking forward to get the second book. The comic is about a muslim girl named Kamala that grew up in jersey,  she’s very passionate about marvel superheroes and her dream is to become like captain marvel. One day after sneaking out to a party , a few minutes after the party a chemical invades the city. Kamala on her way home she starts getting dizzy and faints.  She wakes up and sees Iron man, Captain America and Captain Marvel. Kamala tells captain marvel that she wants to be like her. They disappear and Kamala  transforms into this tall blonde girl with powers. Kamala sees her friend falling into a river and Kamala saves her with her huge hand and other people see it.

Next day in the news they talk about the new superhero in town that looks like captain marvel. Kamala seems to have trouble controlling her powers of getting big hands and changing faces and she works on controlling them. She fights with gangsters and live robots and starts saving other peoples life without revealing her identity only to her best friend bruno. Her parents seems to see disappointment on her but she can’t tell them what’s actually happening and why she’s sneaking out.

The authors message in this comic is about friendship, culture and religion. An American girl raised by immigrant parents, who struggles with the parents culture and the cultures she was raised in. The artists uses a variety of panel sizes and different point of view. The comic’s reading was easy to read and consisted of speech bubbles and captions to tell the story.  The craft is very clean and very detailed . I really liked the colors that were used and the drawing style of the artist.

This comic I would totally recommend it , it was very interesting to the point that I want to check the other volumes. It’s the first comic book that I get to read and actually enjoy it. The storyline it was a little bit different and new to other marvel comics. It’s about a new superhero who comes from a religious family and finds her way to be her new self and help others in danger.

The comic book that I chose is called “Black Widow: The Ties That Bind” by Kelly Thompson. This one was incredibly sad, but really enjoyable.

The story is about the Russian spy Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow who has been missing for three months. When her friends Hawkeye and Winter Soldier spot her in the background of a news report from San Francisco, they become suspicious because if Nat is undercover, there is no way she would be so chilled out to be caught on camera. So they hunt her down and find Nat living a happy life with her fiance James and baby boy Stevie. However, the thing is that Nat doesn’t remember anything about her past and who she is. That is because all of her enemies have plotted ways to get her out of their way, they kidnap Natasha and put an implant in her head that brainwashed her into thinking she’s an ordinary person living a lovely life. Despite her perfect life with her fiance, a son, a perfect house and a job, Nat feels like something is wrong, like some huge part of her is missing. One night when Nat comes back home she gets attacked, surprised by her own fighting skills she tries to save James and Stevie. At that moment the implant went off but instead of killing her it brought Natasha’s memories back, and that’s when the villains realized they’re dead meat.  (I also would love to tell where that baby came from and how the story ends but I really don’t want to spoil it lol)

I think  this graphic novel is pretty clear and easy to read as the speech bubbles and overlapping panels guide the reader’s eyes. In terms of the layout, the artist uses tons of different panel shapes and sizes as well as different points of view to convey the story and show the character’s emotions. Depending on the kind of shot the art style changes between being super detailed to very simplified. My favorite part of this comic is the action scenes, the artist uses full-bleed pages for the setting to portray characters in complex fight poses all over the setting to show the sequence of the fight. I also like how the small details are highlighted/zoomed in boxes within the panel, so the reader doesn’t miss out on those little moments. 

So far this was the most interesting Marvel comic that I’ve read and definitely would read the other volumes! I do recommend reading this, it has great action sequences and many unexpected turns in the story, and just because Black Widow is a badass assassin and a spy!