Underground Comix

I couldn't really get into this week's reading assignment. Nothing against the style of these comics, even though I would deem it a little strange, but the stories don't capture my attention. The books are set up as a collection of short stories. Between "The Book of Mr. Natural," "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers," and "Fat Freddy's Cat" I was mainly bored while reading. I found myself skipping over passages to see if, through just the illustrations, the story got interesting at a later point. 

The "Freak Brothers" and "Fat Freddy's Cat", both by Gilbert Shelton, have an overlapping stoner character. To me "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" is entirely about the mishaps that happen to a group of druggies. The characters reminded me the behavior of a few annoying persons who attended the same high school as I did, only these men have crazier facial hair. The cat is possibly a more vulgar creature than his human companion. There is some humor, but not enough to keep me invested.

I felt slightly better about underground comics after talking about them in class. They’re still not my cup of tea, but I can appreciate some of them a little. A few stories dealt with political problems that the author thought people weren’t paying enough attention to. Drug awareness was a very big part of most of these comics. Showing examples of how messed up your life could get if you continued or developed an addiction. So some of them had “edu-tainment” value.  Others were just completely full of very badly drawn sex, crazily drawn penises, and using women as solely sexual objects. I attempted to read some ‘Zippy’ but I found it to be just crazy. I don’t know if Zippy has a mental disorder or no functioning brain at all.

I won’t have any underground comics on my personal shelf. They aren’t something I could see myself reading in the future and I don’t really feel like picking up any more of the issues I read this week.

Eisner & Thompson

I thought ‘Blankets’ by Craig Thompson was fantastic. I really like his style, simple and efficient. None of the pages ever felt crowded. I don’t think there were more than 7 panels on any one page. Which kept the story at a nice pace for the reader. His transitions were great too. I had to read the entire book (almost 600 pages) in one sitting! The story jumped between his childhood and teen years, but the time skips were to usually to explain why he reacted to things the way he did. Thompson’s story evoked real emotions. I felt genuinely sad for some of the things he and his family members went through. The chapter about the girl he fell in love with made me miss my boyfriend. Even if I hadn’t known that it was a autobiography, the story has a truthful and relatable substance to it.

The other graphic novel I read this week was ‘A Contract with God’ by Will Eisner. His beautiful is extremely simple the more you observe it. Most backgrounds are just some gradating line textures and dark shading is one large block of ink. Also, the volume I read was printed in a dark brown, so it wasn’t as stark of a contrast as black and white, making it easier on the reader’s eyes. In the first chapter, the story is very narrative, with text covering almost half the page at times. Other chapters are dialogue heavy, but Eisner has examples of how he can show motion and time without any words. There’s also sex in almost every chapter and in one a man is accused of molesting a young girl. I found the rape and cheating unnecessary. I know far too well that dishonest people exist, but in at least 50% of the relationships shown, one of the partners was unfaithful.

'Brief History of the Comic Book' Readings

I found ‘Plastic Man’ very strange. It has the wonderful art of Jack Cole, but a bizarre main character, at least to me. I do, however quite like that Plastic Man and his sidekick Woozy Winks (what a name!) are reformed villains, turning around their previous lives of crime. Even with words this comic is filled with exaggerated motions. With Plastic Man being able to stretch any part of his body, there are a lot of panel with very scary anatomy. His super power though keeps the artist from having to worry about proper proportions too much. Often times some of his stretching seems unnecessary and he’s just either showing off his rubber abilities or it’s impossible for him to maintain a regular human structure for too long.

Tintin has a very whimsical style that plays well with the personalities of the characters. Adventurous and stubborn Tintin, soft but sassy Snowy, scruffy and usually grumpy Captain Haddock, to the exaggerated mustache of friendly Professor Calculus. The line work is simple and direct. (Captain Haddock actually reminds me a bit of Doctor McCoy from Star Trek) The story flows smoothly through the panels with no confusion and the humor helps keep the comic light hearted.

Scrooge McDuck keeps the Disney feel with wacky half-dog/human characters and its classic art style. In ‘Crown of the Mayans’ Scrooge drags Donald Duck along with his three nephews on a silly adventure through Mayan ruins in hopes of joining an Archeologist Club. They have to outsmart non-scary villains hoping to steal the same treasure that Scrooge is after. I wasn’t very interested in the story aspect while reading, but I do remember enjoying the tv show ‘Duck Tales’ as a kid.

I felt that the film ‘Chasing Amy’ spent less time focusing on the comic book making aspect and more on the fact that no one could accept that Joey Lauren Adams’ character was actually bisexual. I can understand how being bi was hard to grasp in that time (which wasn’t that long ago at all) but everyone had this square cutout idea of “this is gay, and this is straight, and never the twain shall meet.” The movie had a misogynistic overtone until the very, very end. At which point Ben Affleck’s character stops being an asshole and uses his experience to create a comic book with personal meaning and rekindle his passion for the pure art of comics, regardless of payout. 

Classic Comic Strips

I started off this week’s reading portion with Winsor McCay’s, ‘Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice.’ Which took me longer to read than I expected. The main component that tripped me up was the text. I liked McCay’s panel arrangements, the actions were easy to read, and there was no confusion between transitions. My favorite part of ‘Little Nemo’ was the transition between his dreams and how he woke up, which most of the time involved the poor boy falling out of bed. However the speech bubbles often felt awkward to me. Sometimes text would curve up along the edge since there wasn’t room to comfortably fit all of it in. Or it could have been the period dialect. Society doesn’t use a lot of the mentioned phrases or words anymore.

After that I decided to read some nice classic ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ by Bill Watterson. These comic strips are short and to the point, mostly lasting 4 panels. The witty humor drives the reader to continue to see what other silly adventures Calvin and Hobbes will have. The strip is told in a convincing child perspective and is believable that a very young boy would act this way. The art style is simple with an edge that helps give the characters personality.

The next comic I decided to read was part of volume number 4 of Flash Gordon. Published in 1952, Flash has the traditional comic book aesthetic. The illustrations are in black and white, with the only color being on the front cover and very saturated. I’m not sure if it’s because I started with a later volume, but this story struggled to keep my attention. There was actually a section where two panels were basically repeated back-to-back. The text was exactly the same, but the illustration shifted the perspective a little. I have nothing against the style, I understand that it was popular at the time to be slightly more realistic and there are comics with a similar style I quite enjoy. However I just can’t seem to get into the actual story.

I decided to end on a high by reading some 1965 ‘Peanuts.’ I loved ‘Peanuts’ as a kid, waiting for my parents to dissect the Sunday newspaper so my sisters and I could steal the funnies. This comic strip was always on the front page. Charlie Brown is just your regular, below-average kid with a gang of friends and a dog. Snoopy is probably my favorite character with his internal dialogue. I really enjoy the clever comedy of this strip. The writing sounds like kid problems and comes up with kid-invented solutions. The sassy comebacks keep the comic light and what I really like about this strip is any age can read and enjoy it.

Puppy Surprise

Our assignment was to tell a story using 3-4 panels.

I wanted to make a simple story that conveyed at least two emotions. The importance of wordless comics is to have really clear expressions. Both facial and body language. Exaggeration is often used since the expressions have to be amplified to make up for the lack of text.

I asked my roommates to look over my strip to make sure that it was easy to read.