Chew Volume 2: International Flavor...

This is the second installment of the soon to be cult graphic novel / comic series "Chew". I have never been a huge fan of comics. I have always loved good cartoons though and I am a fan, still, of "Thunderbirds". However, I am a fan of the work of John Layman and Rob Guillory.

I am not sure that the second installment was quite as good as the first. But, after a while and having digested it a little more, it certainly is one that grows on you. I guess the biggest challenge that Layman and Guillory face in the second go round is keeping it fresh. Once you get your head around the idea of cibopaths then the story runs the risk of just being a run around on the gratuitous violence front with some cannibalism thrown in for effect. Yet, to Layman's credit and Guillory's mastery of the art, this story is anything but a boring and bland cop story.

International Flavor takes Tony Chu to a small island in the middle of nowhere, Yamapalu (Western Pacific, if I recall correctly) whose claim to fame is a fruit that tastes like chicken, the gallsberry. The second installment introduces a few new characters and kills some of them off as quickly as they arrived. International Flavor leaves several of the previous story plot lines unattended and introduces a few new ones as well. The reality, much like a soap opera, is that the first two installments have introduced a lot of plot lines and subplots that can provide myriad of material for several installments to come. Interstingly the most obvious arch-rival to Tony Chu in the series plays an insignificant role in International Flavor as Mason Savoy has seemingly fallen off the face of the post apocalyptic bird flu world.

The other character in this story that has a really interesting back story is Amelia Mintz. Mintz is a saboscrivner. A saboscrivner, you ask? A saboscrivner is a person that writes so accurately about food that those people reading the review actually get the taste sensations associated with that food. Amelia Mintz is a Ciboscrivner which means she combines the talents of both a cibopath and saboscrivner.

All-in-all the second installment was worth the money to buy it and was well worth the read.

It is kind of hard to write a review without spoilers. Maybe the next one needs to have a spoiler alert.

Graphic Novels...

I am thinking of teaching a graphic novel unit sometime this year, perhaps even next term, but it is finding one that the students are really going to get into and enjoy. I am currently reading "Chew, Volume 1: Taster's Choice" by John Layman and Rob Guillory. I am enjoying it much more than I thought I would.

I am not resistant or reluctant to new methods of getting the students to learn the knowledge that they need to be successful in their post-school endeavours. However, I do envisage that there may be some interesting discussions about the value of using "comics" to teach English and literacy.

I used a graphic novel version of Macbeth once to teach a Year 9 English class where there was a variety of literacy skills presented. The key to teaching a graphic novel is very much ensuring that everyone is involved and providing extension activities for those who find the graphic novel format an easy alternative to the classic "here's a novel, now read it" method. Yet, my experience tells me to date that no matter what one chooses there is always going to be myriad of learning styles. Thus some are going to love the graphic novel and others are going to hate it.

Any suggestions on how to teach the graphic novel as a unit of work for years 9 or 10 will be gladly received. I will be sure to post updates on how the unit unravels (in both the positive and negative senses or the word).

Anonymous Blogging, Wordpress, and the Prophet

This story is a couple of days old and I have been too lazy to write about it before. However, I figured I should as I have recently made a presentation relating to the recently enacted Information and Electronic Transactions Law (ITE Law).

The story is that there is an anonymous blogger in town and they are posting a comic strip of the Prophet Muhammad which has riled the sensibilities of many Muslims. What caught my attention was the headline in the Jakarta Post which reads "Govt to pressurize Wordpress into disclosing blogger's ID". I am not sure that pressurize is the right word for this sentence. I am guessing that it is like terrorizing using pressure to get a pressurize situation.

The language choices aside, there are just a couple of points that are worth making here.

If you think that you are anonymous then make sure that you are smart enough to know how to use the technology to make it so. The government is demanding that Wordpress reveal the identity of the blogger because the content of the offending blog is deemed to be a cyber crime. The threat is that if Wordpress does not disclose the blogger's identity then the National Police Force's Digital Forensic Lab is going to get involved and uncover the blogger's identity themselves.

It seems that there is still a fair amount of road to be travelled in terms of what constitutes free speech and freedom of expression, particularly in light of Article 27 of the new ITE Law.