Personal reading journal - Essay Example

Lessons from Recorded Attack and Night of the Living Dead Recorded attack is an additional story making some the Brooks publication more real than fiction. The book is about a successful story of how human beings can fight a character that is ‘out of the ordinary’ or rather a zombie (Max and Roberson, 67). These are not real people and they only relates to the spirits’ world. However, the author (Max Brook) and illustrator (Ibraim Roberson) of this book have used creative graphics and artistic intelligence that would seduce the reader to think that these creatures really existed sometimes in our history.

The characters mainly drive the story. The plot would not be comprehensible if we would not have been shown the distinct features of the characters in the story. The writers then proceed to let us know some real but fictional background of these creatures. That is to mean it exist in the history of the world but cannot be proven. Therefore, they play a key part in the relevance of the story. The characters I think must however be complimented by the dialogue for the story to make sense. Without the dialogue, we would not understand the actions of the characters.

The actions are very important for they help us in making judgments about the characters. For instance, we would not appreciated the heroic effort of the humankind in fight with the zombie and ensure its continuity without the words (Max and Roberson, 98).In addition, the setting of the whole story is not a trivial matter. Actually, the setting gives the story a meaning and the reader an interest to read. In fact, it is what makes such a horrific book a comic. The relationships amongst these artistic tools are mutual and will always make a book a journal complete.

For example, in the ‘Recorded Attack’ it is used to drive point home to the readers’ mind, sometimes without the reader realizing their formal use in fictional stories. In my opinion, this reveals how one can creatively interlink these minute devices to deliver a brilliant story. The movie ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is almost analogous to the story of Recorded Attacks. The characters are also the same but the setting and actions are not equal. Therefore, this makes a big difference in terms of defining the relationship between these artistic works.

This is a horror movie by George Romero that, funnily enough, was originally, written as a comic book. The movie is about ‘ghouls’ or zombies that are affected by a certain substance that make them ‘undead’ (Romero, 2002). They equally affect healthy people leading to the wide spread of the unknown condition to wider areas of the East Coast of America (Romero, 2002). The setting climaxes to a family set up that reveal some of unexpected painful events. A case comes up in which a young daughter infects and kills her parents after being infected.

Moreover, the only healthy person mistaken to be one of these creatures is also killed by the sheriffs (Romero, 2002). From the movie, the actions seem to be the main driver of the whole plot. However, the setting also illustrates a similar strength especially in revealing the horrific part of the movie. The two artistic devices works closely, as a bit of dialogue complements. The characters still have a big role to play here, though not as much as their actions. The viewer in this case, is absorbed to the actions than the actors themselves.

The main device might be profound but it has to be supported by others in order to bring out the real meaning of the whole plot. For instance, in the above movie the actions could not express its real message without the setting. Therefore, in writing or making a movie one may choose to use one device or the other as the main depending on the message he wants to send across, but must also need other devices to make the plot meaningful.Works CitedBrooks, Max, and Ibraim Roberson. The zombie survival guide: recorded attacks.

New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009. Print.Night of the living dead. Dir. George A. Romero. Perf. Tony Todd and Patricia Tallman. GoodTimes Entertainment, 2002. DVD.