The graphic novel that I was given to read was Black Hole by Charles Burns. The story takes place in the 1970’s and it is set in a small town. The novel depicts a sexually transmitted disease that only infects teenagers. A person with the disease will then exhibit some mutation that horribly alters their appearance and dons them as a social outcast. But more specifically the story starts with a young lady, Chris, who appears to follow the life of a “Goodie goodie.” But At a party she becomes aroused by a guy named Rob and she gets him away from the party where they have sex. Rob is infected with the bug but hides it well; he has a second mouth on his chest. so of course Chris becomes infected, and eventually the whole school finds out when they see her skin shedding off her back as she skinny dips at another party. On the verge of her mother finding out that she has the disease she and Rob run away into the forest. They live happily for a while until Rob goes missing and is actually murdered. Meanwhile Keith a young man on the verge of obsessing over Chris goes to pick up some drugs with his friends from a college house where he discovers a woman with a tail. He even through his obsession with Chris falls in love with this woman. He and the woman with the tail have sex and now he is infected. His mutations are finger like projections on his chest, so it’s easily hid. The woman with the tail disappears from the story line for a while, and Keith goes into the forest to give these social outcast mutants some food. While doing this he sees Chris among them. His obsession sparks again. At this point Keith happens to be house sitting for a family friend and so he first offers the house to Chris so she can clean up and get something to eat. And I believe he tries to seduce her but after losing Rob she is emotionally dead and does not notice this, and he fails. She never leaves the house and later she invites the rest of the mutants in. Then one day Keith bring is some food goes out to the garage to smoke a joint, when he goes back to the house most of the mutants have been murdered. Two lived and Chris was missing. The woman with a tail now enters the story when she helps him with the remaining two mutants. Then they run away and live a great life on the road. At the end of the graphic novel you find out that one of the mutants had obsessed over Chris as well and he had another mutant murder Rob. Then it is revealed that he had raped Chris and afterward murdered the remaining mutants in the house. Lastly killing himself. This particular graphic novel had a very interesting plot to it. And at times it was very difficult to follow. This particular documentary does not do a very good job documenting reality because the idea of a disease is purely fiction. But the documentary does affectively depict the life of a teenager of that time period. It other shows the repercussions that a disease can cause in the life of a person. The people with the disease were immediately stamped as an outcast. And the public wanted nothing to do with them. This has been seen many times throughout history with various diseases. A good example is the AIDS epidemicThere are several advantages of a graphic novel. The first and foremost is the inclusion of pictures. This lets you see exactly what the author was trying to describe and it eliminates the need of a thousand words to describe a single panel. Also a graphic novel has a great ability to show the passing in time and no words are needed. This is used in often especially in the scenes after the characters have ran away.

I watch too many movies so I don’t really have a favorite, or even a top five. So I will just write briefly about 5 movies that I really enjoy!

V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta is an amazing movie. The plot of this movie has a heavy meaning. If the government begins to oppress its governed then the governed have the responsibility to rise up and over throw the tyrant. This is stated in the US Constitution. Natalie Portman, my favorite actress, did a superb job in this film. And the voice of Hugo Weaving was great for the character V because it has; I’m not sure how to put this but, a tone of justice to it. It is probably the best graphic novel/comic book turned movie. Even the score for this movie had an intensity about it that helped portray and add to the plot.

Gladiator

Roman history I find extremely interesting, which is one of the reasons I love this Movie. I find that this movie, even though having a fictitious plot, stays true to the Roman culture. Aside from that the acting from Russel Crowe and the rest of the cast was phenomenal. Even the direction and editing was great.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

This movie is a classic. It has that classic British humor which I find hilarious. And I love how the movie integrates some historic events into the plot. In example the Salem witch trials. I can’t really say much more about it.

300

300 has great special effects. Some of the cinematography was a bit unusual, but I believe it added to the story and the experience of the movie. I liked that even though it wasn’t historically accurate the point of the film was to put you in the sandals, so to speak, of a Spartan soldier, or even the Greeks that had witnessed the power of the Spartans. What you saw on the big screen in this movie was probably what neighboring Greeks perceived of the Spartans. The cast of the production wasn’t a vastly known cast. The only well known, famous, actor in the movie was Gerard Butler. I bring this up because even though the cast consisted of many unknowns the acting was still top notch. The movie appeals to one of my favorite genres Action. And it could be considered the “manliest” movie of all time.  

TransformersThe special effects are absolutely phenomenal! The fight scenes are amazing. The plot of the movie wasn’t lacking in anything. And I thought that the acting was great as well. I think that this was Shia LaBeouf best movie to date. Also the movie had a little bit to satisfy every genr…(read more)e whore; there was quite a bit of humor, tons of action, a nice romance plot in the background, and of course science fiction.

In high school I was an avid member of both choir and theatre. I would get both aspects of theatre, technical and the performing, so in general the auditorium was a very common place. But more specifically the stage was my home away from home. I would have rehearsals or performances every day of my high school career. There were even times when I’d hide in the auditorium with a few of my friends to escape going to class. So when I was on the stage I felt at home

My high school stage was nothing to special in specifications or design but in contrast to most high school theatres it was a great deal larger. The stage its self was rather large; a good eighty feet by eighty feet with the edge of the stage jutted into the auditorium in the shape of an arch. The best feature of the stage would have been the depth of the wings. No stage in the city of Fort Wayne had larger wings. But the equipment of the stage wasn’t so great. The light and sound system had been there since the school had been built back in the late fifty’s.

There had been speculations that the entire theatre would get an overhaul during my Junior and Senior years, but last I knew no action had been taken. These “plans of the over haul included brand new seats. A new sound and lighting system, which are both crucial in the theatre, were included in the talk of renovation. Even a new stage floor was going to be laid. Unfortunately, I was unable to see this occur during my high school career.

Well, in this issue of Flick’s Scratch Pad I am supposed to write about the “Urban Nomads” and compare and contrast the movie Streetwise to the essay. So let’s get started. In the documentary “Streetwise” the information is presented in what I think is a very raw manner. The film captures what could be seen as a more stereotypical Urban nomad. What I mean by this is simply that the kids in the movie have succumbed to illegal actions. The 2 girls in the film are prostitutes at the age of 14. The kids smoke (tobacco and weed) and drink. One of the kids even said that he dealt for time to time. And in a portion of the film, one of the kids explains that they steal from time to time when food is scarce. The documentary is a very hands on approach I’d say, because the director is following them around with hidden cameras, filming everything that goes on in the day in the life of these children. Now I’d suspect that some playing to the camera would be involved to make the boys of the documentary “tougher” and so on. Whereas the essay is more of an interview; so the reader is hearing the what the homeless told the person interviewing, so the information being relayed could be false, although in this particular case I don’t think it is. The kids in the essay have left home and most say they could go back; one even has a good relationship with his mother. But, the kids in the movies never say why they are on the street or if they could go home, except the one girl who lives with her mother and still sells “tricks or dates” each night. The kids in the essay admitted that they were past drug addicts and the some of the kids in the documentary are pot smokers. Also the kids in the essay have animal companions, which is one of the reasons they haven’t gone to the homeless shelters. I found that the video being as raw as it was the more effective relay of information. It really displayed some of the horrors of being an urban nomad whereas the essay didn’t really cover a lot on the topic of difficulties. The essay had more of a happy ended. Now both the documentary and the essay were depressing but the film was more so then the essay. In both cases it’s sad that the kids have had to leave home, whatever the case, and live on their own. Although, the essay and the documentary covered both aspects of the homeless, I don’t see the documentary completely fair. The documentary illustrated what the media would expect of the homeless, a harsh, illegal life. And though this may be the majority of the homeless cases those, like the homeless in the essay seemed to kick the habit and lead a clean life. So the documentary could be seen  as a bit unfair to that class of Urban Nomads.

Well the assignment for the weekend was to read an article on how photographs and television are changing the way people age, or changing the way people feel they need to look. Now it is time to comment on said article. First the article was from a feminist prospective so it may be difficult for me to comment accurately, so I’ll just throw out a few thoughts.

The article commented on the fact that more and more women are resorting to plastic surgery to improve their appearance, and that many women, young and old, look at pictures that have been graphically altered and they think that they to should look like that. Now my opinion on the fact is simply this, if your not happy with your appearance and you ”have” to change it then you should go about doing so in a natural matter. In example if your unhappy with your weight then eat a balanced diet and exercise, dont have surgery to pump the fat out of you. It might make you look a little slimmer but in the long run you aren’t any healthier and odds are you’ll put on those pounds again. I also think that it is ethically wrong to resort to plastic surgery to change your nose or make your lips bigger. This is just unatural and makes the person look artificial. Also if you wish to improve your appearance do it for yourself, not because you think people will like you better if your good looking. In this world being “good looking” is a social status, and it may appear that the better looking people have more friends but in reality, if that person were to put on a few pounds or have a bad acne attack. Many of those so called friends will turn away.

School had ended just a few weeks earlier, and I was outside playing with my brother and sister. The swing set had gotten boring, as we had been playing all morning. So we decided to ride our bikes. My brother’s bike was the only one that didn’t have the training wheels. Eventually the bikes began to bore us as well, since we were confined to a small area. I solved this problem with what I thought at the time would be a brilliant idea; let’s destroy things. My sister’s bike was missing the chain guard so it became the machine of destruction. My brother and I propped the bike up so that one training wheel was on the side walk and the other was in the grass, this allowed the back wheel to spin freely. Then my brother hopped on the bike and began to pedal as I proceeded to toss things into the junction of the chain and the sprocket. Twig, pine cones and anything else I could find would be instantly obliterated as they met the chain and the sprocket. The fun ended when I found a plastic rod, because as I was it placing it near the “destruction site” I flinched, causing the plastic rod to meet its doom before I wanted it to. Then something caught and caused my finger to be brought into the junction of the chain and sprocket. Unfortunately my finger met the same fate as the twigs and pine cones; it was crushed from my right hand and was never reattached.

This amputation of the tip of my right index finger, as anyone would come to expect, caused me an immense amount of pain. Once school had began the next year, it was completely healed and my peers saw the finger as “cool” but there were some that found the finger revolting. Those that found it gross did what any child does when they something different that they don’t understand, they made fun of it. I was never anything to severe, but it would get annoying. Though mine was a minor deformity, it taught me that people that appear different due to physical deformities or other various reasons are just as human as all the rest of the world.

Howdy! My name is Christopher Flick, but my peers tend to call me “Flick.” I hail for the northern city of Indiana, Fort Wayne. In high school I was involed in the theatre and music depatments. I love music, all types, minus the really twangy country and the really vulgar rap. I’m a big Indianapolis Colts fan! I’m also a bit of a computer nerd. Random Fact: I’m am missing the very tip off my right index finger do to a misforunate bike accident which I’m sure I’ll get to later in the series of blogs. But anyway getting back on topic, I’m now attending Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. I’m majoring in Biology and I hope to enter the medical field when I graduate. A common misconception that I had, coming into Purdue, about college was the fact that I would get lost on campus often. Luckily, I was wrong as this large campus doesn’t seem so large once you’ve wandered aimlessy around it a few times. Although, the other things that I thought about college are seemingly true at this point. Those being the amount of homework, reading, and studying.

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