#viruseye

So, Anti can’t kill Jack because Jack is Anti’s host (The virus can’t kill the host or else the virus dies as well) so after Say Goodbye, Anti trapped Jack in his computer file of horror games and Anti has continued running the channel as Jack. So Jack has been stuck in horror game after horror game, trying to get our and every time he dies, part of his human body dies as well and is replaced with glitches because the games/computer doesn’t know what to put there (he does try to hide these glitched spots under a big sweater). We’ve only just seen him in Detention 返校 (3:48). He has finally started to fully escape the computer and is now trying to show up in videos to tell us that Anti is in control.

Over time Jack’s hair had greyed more and the green is a greenish-grey. His skin is riddled with scars and bruises. One of his eyes is starting to look like static and is slowly losing sight. Dark circles have formed under his eyes and all his colors have faded. You can always see him shaking slightly. He insists on going by Sean and is nearly emotionally numb.

This is Viruseye._Vincent. He was trapped in an online horror game than Sean had downloaded. When Sean gets trapped in his horror game file on his computer by Anti, they meet. They are now trying to escape together, but is there something that Vincent isn't telling Sean? 

 This is part of my Viruseye au thing and Vincent is based off Septiceye Sam. Vincent was an engineer and mechanic before getting trapped in an online horror game; which jack later saved in his computer.

Depending on who’s asked, an author who writes themselves into their stories is either egotistical and self important, or a mega genius with high emotional intelligence. To be honest, I think it’s a little bit of both. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, not at all. And one might be thinking, “dude, is that really what you took from that entire lecture?” And maybe they might have a point. Charles Hatfield, author of “Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby” and various other works does an amazing job of explaining the connections of Jack Kirby’s comics with the various things surrounding his life. Overall, the main thing that could be taken away from the lecture is that comics, at least the state that they are in today, would not exist without war. Propaganda, pain, escapism, boyhood; it's not even a debate that Kirby, maybe the most influential person in comic history, made his comics to reflect on his feelings of nostalgia for his discomforting childhood. As Hatfield puts it, “We share our books to our children, continuing to be children, even when they're adults. An unorthodox way of teaching kids to grow up” (Hatfeild). Kirby made stories such as The Newsboy Legion, Boy Commandos, Boy Explorers, Boy’s Ranch just to name a few. While they can be seen as stories written for little boys, and they most certainly are, I feel like there’s more to it. These stories are clearly love letters from

Jack Kirby to his boy self. They are a romanticization of his rough street kid childhood. He’s crafted an aesthetic around his memories of being a rambunctious and ratty boy. These types of comics are what he probably would've wanted to read as a child, but there was nothing like that around at the time for his childhood self to open up and get lost in its pages. They are completely self indulgent, and I love every aspect of that unrestrained story telling. Their wacky and often violent elements are so incredibly boyish and obscene at times. I personally can relate to this type of self indulgence that he put out in his art. At age eleven, I decided that I would become a comic artist. I didn’t care how long it would take, or how much work I would need to put in. All I knew was that I wanted to... no had to be a storyteller. Now that I’m older and my art skills are more developed, I think I can say that eleven year old kid me would be incredibly proud of my current art skills and comic planning drafts. Similarly to Kirby, the type of art and stories that I want to make aren’t really for anyone else but my adolescent self. Like I said before, Kirby was likely making those comics somewhat to be marketed to children, but he also put most of himself into his stories for his own happiness. There’s something so fulfilling about reading a story where the ragtag team of punk kids beat the big bad with the power of friendship and pummeling them into the ground. Because deep down, everyone has that little boy in them who wants to leave the real world for a bit an fantasize about a place where they’re the big dogs.

- Isabella Valenzuela, The Unveiled Egos

ECL 157: Unveiled Egos

TA: Toki Lee

Extra Credit Assignment for November 16, 2023

Navigating the Liminal Landscape of Boyhood

Student name: Joseph Alonzo

Class: ECL 157: Comics and History

Group: The Bared Psyches (TA: Rose Padilla)

Professor: Bill Nericcio

Extra credit assignment for Kids at War: Jack Kirby’s Mythology of Boyness with Charlie Hatfield (November 8, 2023) 

 My essay including pictures from the event down below. 

Pictures of the presentation:

  Kirby's Boyhood

I attended a presentation by Mr. Charlie Hatfield at San Diego State University. Charlie Hatfield discussed his research on the author Jack Kirby. Kirby started the wave of well-known comic books. He was the co-creator of Captain America, Fantastic Four, and Young Romance comics. Jack Kirby was an animation assistant in the 1930s. He started to lean into Marvel comics in the 1950s. His comics were a blueprint for idealized boyness. Boy Commandos, Boys Ranch, and Boy Explorers are examples of idealized boyness. His comics were based on the mythology of street gangs. Boyhood is innocent and troubled according to Jack Kirby’s vision. Boyhood was seen as preparation for adulthood. He drew street boy gangs to superheroes. Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos from the 1940s portray Kirby's interest in the collective group as opposed to the lone superhero. For a time, Kirby barely published comics. Kirby and his team were preparing to launch new comics like The Sandman and the Kid Gangs. Another type of comic created by Kirby was Detective comics also known as war comics. These comics were successful in the 1950s. The backstory of these comics is boarding military schools and 19th-century literature that featured the empowerment of adolescents. Jack Kirby depicted kids in gangs fighting wartime allies. It was depicted as a dark take on kid gangs. Kirby was an anti-fascist. Marvel's comic called The Tough Kid Squad combined superheroes with violent kid gangs. In one of his comic books, the Boy Commando, Kirby shows that gang members can redeem themselves.

Charles Hatfields lecture!

link to my essay :