Zine Justification

As far as my own contribution to the group zine, I did the page front and back for a total of four individual pages as well as printing out and helping design the cover and back page and printing out comic strips for inside the front and back covers. I had two main written contributions. One of my written contributions was a piece on how super heroes can be viewed as mainstream because when children grow up, almost every child wants to be a super hero. Children grow up imagining their super hero name and costume and thinking about what powers they would have and how they would help people. I also wrote a piece on how super heroes can be underground because of the comic books they are in not being as popular, but how that gives them the unique ability to make various social criticisms as well as letting the artist be more creative. That is the longer of the two pieces and, because I could not fit it all on one page, it is on two. I also had a page that was more visual. It contained a male and a female super hero as well as the word Pow in typical comic book style and a quote from Martian Manhunter about justice.

The process of creating those was a little difficult at first because I was not entirely sure what I wanted to do, but after that it was easier. Creating my piece about the children wanting to be super heroes came to me when I found cute pictures online of children wanting to be super heroes and realized that what child does not want to be a super hero at some point in their life. I came up with the piece about how super heroes can be underground because I started to think about how there are so many different super heroes out there that no one had ever heard of and how those are just as important to the genre of super heroes as the mainstream ones that popularized it. The visuals were just what I thought that a stereotypical super hero would look like and the word Pow because that is present in just about every super hero comic book that I can think of. It is just one of those visuals that you think of when you think of super heroes.

As for why I created these pieces, each has a different purpose. The one about the children was to show just how much the mainstream super heroes had an impact on popular culture. People today can walk down the street and see people wearing super hero shirts, advertisements for the next best super hero movie, or even people dressed as super heroes. Children are seemingly always pretending like they are a super hero by dressing like one or acting like one. This piece shows that, although super heroes may not have started mainstream, they evolved into one of the biggest pieces of popular culture. In contrast to the piece about how super heroes are somewhat mainstream, I also did one about how there are also many different super heroes out there that are still underground. The underground super heroes are more of a showcase of artistic ability and social criticism than their more popular counterparts but this essential in the forward progress of the super hero genre. Without the underground super heroes, there would be no real way for the mainstream super heroes to evolve, and this evolution is essential in keeping the genre fresh and exciting. As for the visuals, I wanted to give the audience an idea of the stereotypical super hero and what goes along with that. The male and female super heroes looked strong and quick, which is what almost every super hero seems to be portrayed as. As far as the word Pow, it can be seen in almost every super hero comic I can think of and is essential to the whole super hero culture.

My pieces fit in with the group idea because it illustrated how super heroes can be both mainstream and underground. Both the piece about the children and the piece about the underground comics prove how much the super hero genre can be mainstream and underground and that was the goal of our group zine. However, it also fits in with the overall class theme because as I started to do my writings, I realized that although people may view super heroes as underground, they are actually fairly mainstream. This realization should be evident in the different writings.

As far as my performance, I think visually it was good for how much I lack any artistic or creative ability, but my writing was just alright. I have been feeling a little off of my writing game lately and this is evident in my different pieces. I am happy with how the different pages look though and I think, although they could be a little less plain, overall they look rather appealing. If I had to make another zine, I would make sure that I did it on a subject that I was more knowledgeable on and I would probably try not to do the majority of it in study hall, or if I did, remember all of my materials so that I could complete it in a timely manner.