Week 7: Maus
I found it interesting that the artist used mice to depict Jews. However, it makes sense in this story about the Holocaust because the war was all about identifying people. Animal faces are the easiest way to communicate different groups of people to the reader. Yet, it also gives some stereotypes to the characters. The Jews are mice who are meek and weak. The Germans are cats who prey on the the mice. They’re depicted as cruel and brutal. The Americans are dogs who clash with the Germans. The Polish are pigs. The French are frogs. I imagine that some people might get offended by that because there are negative connotations attached to some animals.
This was a deeply personal story, like Blankets. It was fascinating to read because it really illustrated someone’s life. When the author added the parts about when his father went to the supermarket and is counting his pills. These little anecdotes added more personality to the characters and made the story seem like a real living person’s story. I also appreciated how we learned more about the narrator and his family. All the background came through in bits and pieces, intriguing the reader. It answers all the questions we have about why the father has peculiar behaviors. We really get to piece together who they are.
Whenever the artist wanted the dad to keep talking about Auschwitz, I felt the same impatience and urgency. I just wanted to know what happened next. The author was good at making us adopt his feelings and emotions. This comic has also made me realize that there can be adult comics without drugs and sex and violence. This story was too intense for kids to understand. It also related to adult readers because they understood the complexity of maintaining a relationship with a parent after childhood. The moment when the artist wonders about how he is going to depict the relationship with his father really spoke to me. I am starting to question how I interact with my parents. I compare it to the relationships I have with other people. The dialogue the characters used sounded like it was verbatim from the sound recorder. The comic was really an ink depiction of real life.
It was extremely fascinating to me when I learned that Maus was one of the first comic books to win a literary award. This work led the comic book world into legitimacy. It paved the way for other comic book artists to count as real artists and writers. It became a socially accepted medium. However, this wouldn’t have been possible without underground comics. The author of Maus grew up in the end of the underground comic era. So he learned to adopt the “tell it like it is” style that the underground comic artists had. He was so brutally honest about his past and family. The great literary scholars and reviewers embraced that with enthusiasm. The irony is striking. They used to condemn comic books, especially the underground ones, yet they commend the work that is directly influenced by the underground comic books. It reminds me that art develops faster than the public’s taste. When Monet and the other Impressionists started their new artstyle, they were scorned. Interestingly, they also scorned the next new art era. This is just a reminder that you should never really be encouraged or discouraged by what people say about your art. You just make it with your purpose and you keep making it.
Week 6: Mr. Natural
I was really shocked when I started reading Mr. Natural. There was really no censorship at all in the comics. The artists drew all kinds of naked bodies. They also made them very detailed and realistic. However, I have to respect the artists for getting the courage to push it really far. There always needs to be someone who tests the limits just to show how far the boundaries are. This doesn’t mean that the artwork can be considered bad. It’s just different. I know I’m not used to it because I’m too innocent for this generation. Then again, I can’t claim to understand the modern art movement either, where twisty paint lines are considered masterpieces. Yet, I’m not going to dismiss it. I can understand that there were people who enjoyed these comics and some followed them fervently. Therefore, the comics accomplished the purpose of art. It expressed and entertained.
I noticed that they broke the fourth wall a lot. There was one part when Mr. Natural was trying to get with a girl but she stopped him, saying that they couldn’t show that in a cartoon. In a way, they were mocking the censorship of comics. They made fun of the safe and clean comics that were allowed. In Air Pilots, they really made fun of the safe comics. They picked the cleanest and most family friendly thing they could find, Disney. I definitely wasn’t a fan of it because I love Disney and hold it to a very high esteem. So it shook me when I saw something that parodied it in an erotic way. However, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean that it should be banned or disappear.
It is fascinating to me that after the 60s appeared the way it did. I associate the 50s with prim and proper wholesome American families. Then, it seemed like in the 60s, an entire generation decided to rebel. The culture and underground comics display their rebellion. However, I think that if we didn’t have underground comics, the cartoon world couldn’t have evolved the way it did today.
Week 5: Blankets and Contract with God
Reading Blankets was more like seeing paintings move. It wasn’t the typical comic style that I’m used to reading. There was no set panels of frames. When Craig narrated the thoughts that were going through his head, the images completely broke the panels. When Raina asked Craig to paint a mural on the wall, the pages transformed into surreal scenes of the characters weaving through the trees. This is hard to do in a movie because the sudden change of environment will confuse the viewer. Craig Thompson also used abstract drawings erupting from the mouth to show when the character Craig loses his childhood. Whenever the panel frames disappeared, the line quality became swirlier. The images felt ungrounded and fleeting because there were no solid black lines. This helped reveal Craig’s feelings about how his joys vanish so easily. You have to make sure you appreciate them. This graphic novel was an autobiography which was a new way to me to read about someone’s life. It didn’t have any superheroes or evil plots. It just had pure real life experience. Because it was so personal, it made the reader able to relate to the character Craig. Everyone has felt anxious and confused like him before. Young readers can especially relate to the difficulty of trying to navigate the complexities of growing up. We’re just trying to figure out who we are and where we belong. Also, whenever, an artist creates a piece about themselves, it feels like they’re giving a part of themselves to us. It’s not an easy thing to do. Therefore, the reader feels honored and cherishes the piece of the artist’s soul they were given.
Will Eisner’s Contract with God was about real life as well. However, it was colder and harsher. There wasn’t any happiness in the characters’ stories. They were bitter and had the wrong motives so they just suffered. Therefore, I couldn’t relate at all to the stories. The drawing style was fitting for the story theme. Eisner was very good at making the characters’ faces show emotion. They stretched out their eyes and mouths into ugly faces for their ugly feelings. There were times when Eisner used the whole page for one panel. He did that in the first story, Contract with God. The father is grieving about his dead daughter. The big drawing has space to contain lots of detailed lines, thus making you stop and study it. Afterwards, you feel the grief because you’ve looked at the picture for a long time. It slows the story pace down.
Both artists were skilled at using the page format to show emotion. They used their line quality too. They effectively delivered real life stories.
Week 4: Tintin, Black Panther, Tales from the Crypt, Bugs Bunny
I read Herge’s Adventures of Tintin, more specifically, the issue called Tintin in Tibet. It was very similar to another comic I follow called Asterix the Gaul. However, the drawings are simpler. Tintin’s face is abstracted to two dots for eyes, thus making it easier to relate to. The comic format is very suitable for the adventure genre because the action can be shown easily. Herge makes sure to break up all the dialogue with surprise actions that are happening off screen like when Tintin’s sidekick eats the spicy pepper in Dubai. Herge also uses a lot of irony for his comics. An example is when the sidekick is scoffing at people who walk blindly into things, but later he does exactly that. Finally, Tintin ends up in a lot of dangerous situations but he also pulls through so the reader never really gets worried for him. She just eagerly waits to see what creative solution he will come up with.
Meanwhile, Jack Kirby’s The Black Panther in King Solomon's Frog moves at a completely different pace. The drawings are harsher. The characters have dark hatch marks on their faces for shadows. They have well defined jaw lines and shoulders to show power. The Black Panther rarely takes any breaks in the action while Tintin took place over several weeks. The panels are drawn in dynamic angles and perspectives to make the action feel more dynamic. Since the panels are small and can’t fit a lot, the captions describe the action happening most of the time. Lastly, the Black Panther was shorter because it ended on a cliffhanger. I can see why this style of superhero comics became popular because it doesn’t require a long attention span or careful reading.
Another comic I read was Tales from the Crypt No. 2. The narrator broke the fourth wall by talking to the reader during the doctor’s story. These stories were very short but suspenseful because they fed the reader information a little at a time. The drawing style was similar to Jack Kirby’s. A common theme for all stories is that when someone committed a terrible crime, they would die a horrible death.
I also read Bugs Bunny in Football Luck. The drawing style is very round and appealing. This is also another comic that you don’t need a lot of attention span for because the stories are very short. Therefore, you can keep reading many of them. Bugs is also the cocky and charismatic kind of character that readers are drawn to. They enjoy the antics and how he manages to thwart authority. Bugs is the character that many people wish they could be more like.
Week 3: Nemo in Slumberland, Krazy Kat, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes
My initial reaction was surprise that Nemo and Krazy Kat were not formatted in a way that I expected. For Nemo in Slumberland, there were captions below every panel explaining what is going on.The pictures were clear enough so I could tell what was happening. The pictures were also colored and well rendered. A lot more effort was put into these panels than Krazy Kat and Peanuts. For Krazy Kat, each character had their set archetype personality trait. Krazy is curious and that leads him into trouble. His partner is Ignatz Mouse who only wants to cause trouble for Krazy, but Krazy never realizes it. The same joke of Ignatz throwing the brick at Krazy is used over and over throughout the comics. It gives the reader a recognizable cue to laugh. Also sometimes, the artist doesn’t put frames around the panels. However, he still keeps the cartoons in order by numbering them and keeping space between the pictures. The flow became faster because it seemed like they were connected in one long picture. Meanwhile, Nemo felt more like a picture book. The perspective rarely changed and we mostly had a profile view of Nemo. There were captions below every panel explaining the events which felt like the words that accompany the pictures in a children’s book. His adventures are what imaginative kids like to dream up. The storyline was very similar to Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Nemo goes into another land and meets otherworldly characters but always comes home safe and sound. On the other hand, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes can appeal to adults and children because they deal with deeper and more philosophical topics. On the surface, they have the funny childhood incidents that everyone can relate to. The characters are also lovable and mischievous like all cartoon kids. Yet occasionally, Calvin and Charlie Brown will wonder about family and loneliness and purpose. Especially, Calvin will have long philosophical discussions with Hobbes and end the joke with a typical kid concern. I grew up reading Peanuts because I was introduced to them by my mom’s English teacher. I loved the Peanuts because each of the characters had their distinct personalities. The way they interacted with each other was so true to the their personalities that they felt like real people to me.
Week 2: Understanding Comics
Unfortunately, I had to count myself as one of those people who didn’t view comics as a very skilled medium. However, that’s only because I didn’t know how much thought went into the process. Luckily, Understanding Comics helped me realize that comics are as much of an art form as other media. Each frame and speech bubble is a choice on the artist’s part. The part about the difference between eastern and western style comics also fascinated me. Japanese manga does have many more subject to subject transitions. They also have non-sequitur sequences. Meanwhile, western comics are more fast-paced and chock-full of action. I feel that animation corresponds in the same way. Japanese animation has more silences and scenes where the characters do nothing and think. Hayao Miyazaki was asked about the main difference between western and eastern animation. He said that westerners don’t have a word for the silence between the claps when someone breaks into applause. Yet, the japanese call that, “ma.” Miyazaki said that he puts “ma” into his films and fills it with thought, feeling and intention. Another statement that Scott McCloud said also rang true with animation. He stated that content needed to be viewed separately from form. Also, that were were different levels to creating comics. Most readers only see the surface when they read comics but comic book artists need to see the craft, structure, idiom, form and idea. Therefore, the art and details can be very skilled and flashy, but if the message is not there, the comic won’t hold up for more than a couple of years. Similarly, a good story is what’s key in animation. The film could be rendered the highest definition you can find but if the characters aren’t relatable, it will flop. Also, like Scott McCloud said, the high level of detail could cut down on how relatable audiences find characters. It is true that people like to see themselves in abstract looking characters. Because cartoons are so relatable, they are the most effective at communicating images. They have no details that exclude one group of people. No wonder why they are the best at becoming international pop culture.
Week 1: The Arrival
The Arrival takes more effort to understand because the there are no clear words to tell you what is going on. Instead, it gives little hints such as the pictures of immigrants in the beginning or the sequence of packing a suitcase. Shaun Tan alternates between close ups of details like the picture frames and far shots of the whole scene. The zoom out then reveals the big picture. For example, when the main character's friend shows a flashback of getting locked up in a coal working mine, the next large panel then makes the reader realize that it is a whole factory of locked up children working the coals. Another way Shaun Tan effectively tells the story is the use of symbols. In part V, he shows the passing of time by illustrating the birth and death of a flower. In the end, he uses the same images to show that the story has made a complete circle. He shows the same hat and family portrait to show that main character is satisfied and has brought his life back to the same level of stability he had before. You can see the giant sculpture of the bird holding the egg that greeted the main character in the background when his daughter runs into town. Shaun Tan also displays the mood of the characters with close-ups of their expressions. Other times, he uses the sequence of body movements to reveal the emotions. When the old man recalls his soldier days, the frames showing his walking into grime and obstacles mean that the soldier is traveling a long hard way. The motion blur of his running legs pick up the pace of the story. Suddenly, the one key image of skeletons on the battlefield hits home for the reader. The reader recognizes the evidence of death and instantly feel everything associated with war. Finally, just the images of the struggling bandaged leg shows the essence of giving up, but then getting back up.
