ON THE BORDER BETWEEN FLESH AND STEEL

* Update: As of May 2013 my senior project is completed and titled "Establishing a Post-human Identity through Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell and Innocence Films." It can be found on the Post-humanity tab above, and is available in PDF format.

Battle Angel Alita, Vol. 9. Viz Media, 1998.

Hello everyone, this is your editor-in-chief, Elijah Lee. Upon my return to college this coming fall I will be a senior, and my school requires that I complete a senior project in order to graduate and obtain my degree. I am an Art History major, so my project would center around the study of visual media, in either two or three dimensional formats. The issue, of course, is managing to do a project that I can enjoy while still fulfilling my graduation requirements.


Synthesizing a Topic

I love comic books. I've been reading comic books since beyond the reach of memory. I used to love the mainstream Marvel and DC books, but as I grew older I became infatuated with less popular comic book publishers and even manga. Historically speaking, comic books have been considered "low brow" art, art for the common man. But I am a common man, and "low brow" art forms like comic books and graffiti have always captivated me. I figured writing about comic books would naturally be a pleasant experience.

Comic books are both a visual and narrative medium. A narrative genre I have almost become obsessed with over the past few years is the idea of cyborgs, human beings who have transcended the natural limitations of their flesh through machine technology. I'm certain that the liking I had towards superhero characters in my youth morphed into cyborg mania at some point. In any case, cyborgs and the cyberpunk genre are rife with philosophical questions that I find very intriguing. What does it mean to be human? At what point do we develop souls, if they exist at all? Can machines develop souls and be considered "alive"? I suppose my being a Christian also has something to do with my interest in these issues; to be honest there's many issues the Bible doesn't directly address, either because the answers are assumed to be common sense, or they are to be discovered through personal meditation with God. Either way, I've learned that none of the material I study at school can answer those questions, unless one chooses to believe that scientific proofs can answer both empirical and philosophical questions. I'm not against the study of the natural sciences, and because of that, discerning the line between God and Darwin becomes blurry. But ultimately, I like to think that man is more than the sum of his parts.

These considerations in mind, I'll be engaged in a study of comic books that center on cyborgs. The project is tentatively titled, "On the Border Between Flesh and Steel: Transhumanism Through the Comic Book Cyborg." The main title (On the Border...) is a quote from the manga series Battle Angel Alita, which I've been reading for almost a year now. I don't know if I'll develop a thesis or anything for this project. I'll figure that much out in time.


Why I am Saying All This?

As far as this concerns the blog, I'll be watching a lot of cyborg anime whenever I get the chance. This will include the Ghost in the Shell franchise; Battle Angel Alita; Cyborg 009, and anything else I can find. These titles also have manga equivalents; the extent to which I'll be writing on their respective anime versus the comic book material is still up for debate, as I've also studied film in college and strongly consider films and its cinematography as artistic forms of expression. The conventional review format I've developed over the past few months may begin reflecting the style of my older reviews, which were heavily focused on analyzing animation styles.

I'll still put up the usual anime reviews as well; the series Lupin the Third: The Story of Fujiko Mine has almost finished and so I look forward to reviewing that. The blog must go on, albeit with a few changes. But change is good...


- Elijah