First Comic: Airships of Atlantis Discover- MU: The land that never was
So this comic was pretty swell. A pretty "tame" comic in comparison to the other ones that were around at the time. The storyline was actually pretty cool, and I did enjoy the whole 'twist' of Mu just being the Moon, or something along those lines. Very Peter Pan vibes that it gives me, and was just an enjoyable read.
Second Comic: Mystic Funnies ~ Crumb (Mr. Hipman and Super Duck)
Mr. Hipman just sort of looks like Crumb's other comics, with the really big lady just looking like a lot of his other characters that are girls; The story of it is pretty basic, kind of boring, but I did enjoy the art of the woman when she was around. It was also funny with the commentary making fun of Mr. Hipman and his ego and him being called on his bullshit. The end was pretty swell too.
Super Duck feels more like Crumb's general comics; overtly rude and sexual, with a 'just being gross to be gross' feeling. The interesting commentary of spending money on hokey pills to improve his sex life was pretty funny, though. As well as the "christian household" joke. The art didn't feel a lot like Crumb's other stuff, which was kind of refreshing. Overall, a lot shorter than his other stuff, pretty alright.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
[Week 6] Underground Comix
So for this week, I ended up reading three comics; Mr. Natural and Whiteman by Robert Crumb, and Fat Freddy's Cat by Gilbert Shelton & Dave Sheridan.
As far as initial impressions go, I was much more of a fan of Fat Freddy's Cat than the two comics I read by Crumb.
Fat Freddy's Cat feels a lot more like a relatable humor for me, personally, and I find it more of an "offensive" Garfield which makes it funnier for me. The art style of Fat Freddy's Cat just felt a lot more paletable, even for the "gross" subject matter of the comics.
I also found the distress of Fat Freddy when he spent his last 65 dollars on catnip pretty funny, and just his general distress at a drug-dealer/user lifestyle. The other part that I thought was kind of funny was how being "Queer" was a result of a drug that was supposedly so horrible that Freddy's Cat would rather kill himself than live in the world where everyone was "Queer" because of some drug in the coffee.
When it comes to Crumb's comics, the content was, as expected, sexual and overtly "offensive" for what it was. The art wasn't so bad, and I kind of enjoyed the art style of a lot of the comics, because it reminded me of old cartoons from the 20's and 30's in a way. Also, the first comic of Mr. Natural (where he just meditates and turns the little town back into a desert), was really neat, I thought.
The second comic of Mr. Natural just felt very obtusely gross with the implications of having sex with the giant baby, and was just generally very unplesant to read.
The same goes for Whiteman; the art of the comic was good, but the overt "grossness" of it just felt very over the top and sort of like it was just being gross to be gross, just like the second comic of Mr. Natural.
While reading a lot of these I just honestly listened to Glass Onion on repeat.
As far as initial impressions go, I was much more of a fan of Fat Freddy's Cat than the two comics I read by Crumb.
Fat Freddy's Cat feels a lot more like a relatable humor for me, personally, and I find it more of an "offensive" Garfield which makes it funnier for me. The art style of Fat Freddy's Cat just felt a lot more paletable, even for the "gross" subject matter of the comics.
I also found the distress of Fat Freddy when he spent his last 65 dollars on catnip pretty funny, and just his general distress at a drug-dealer/user lifestyle. The other part that I thought was kind of funny was how being "Queer" was a result of a drug that was supposedly so horrible that Freddy's Cat would rather kill himself than live in the world where everyone was "Queer" because of some drug in the coffee.
When it comes to Crumb's comics, the content was, as expected, sexual and overtly "offensive" for what it was. The art wasn't so bad, and I kind of enjoyed the art style of a lot of the comics, because it reminded me of old cartoons from the 20's and 30's in a way. Also, the first comic of Mr. Natural (where he just meditates and turns the little town back into a desert), was really neat, I thought.
The second comic of Mr. Natural just felt very obtusely gross with the implications of having sex with the giant baby, and was just generally very unplesant to read.
The same goes for Whiteman; the art of the comic was good, but the overt "grossness" of it just felt very over the top and sort of like it was just being gross to be gross, just like the second comic of Mr. Natural.
While reading a lot of these I just honestly listened to Glass Onion on repeat.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
[Week 5] Will Eisner Interview with Stan Lee! (In class)
[ Based on in-class viewing of the movie ]
- Will Eisner's descriptions of gesture and the intricacies of expressions and feeling was really inspiring. It's something that definitely shows through in his work, especially when reading his heavier comics like Dropsie Avenue.
- I like the allegory of the camera being an 'idiot' and pictures not looking like people you know sometimes because the face is constantly in movement. Watching him draw these expressions live is really inspiring as well, because he so easily throws together expressions that not only feel natural, but because they're so natural look fantastic.
- His art is realistic without being hyper realistic! The raw emotion is what makes most of it incredibly powerful!
- His (and Stan's!) are great views on comics and people not wanting to see things based on critics, or that people don't want to see something because it ruins their imagination, or that people don't want to read comics because it's ruining your imagination. Watching the two of them converse about comics and the associated connotations.
- Eisner also talks about happy little accidents! The idea of nothing in art being an accident is very reassuring, because I think it helps with confidence in art. Stan's allegory of calling drawing 'tracing' because it's already in your mind is als overy funny. It's true, and I've personally never thought about it that way.
- Stan Lee's view on anything that's entertainment has some sort of educational value is very interesting; It gives sand intrinsic value to anything that's made by someone! "It's impossible to write a story without a message."
- Stan talking about Will being a deep thinker as well as a great drawer was swell.
- [ To Stan (oh my gawd) Lee. ]
- Will Eisner's descriptions of gesture and the intricacies of expressions and feeling was really inspiring. It's something that definitely shows through in his work, especially when reading his heavier comics like Dropsie Avenue.
- I like the allegory of the camera being an 'idiot' and pictures not looking like people you know sometimes because the face is constantly in movement. Watching him draw these expressions live is really inspiring as well, because he so easily throws together expressions that not only feel natural, but because they're so natural look fantastic.
- His art is realistic without being hyper realistic! The raw emotion is what makes most of it incredibly powerful!
- His (and Stan's!) are great views on comics and people not wanting to see things based on critics, or that people don't want to see something because it ruins their imagination, or that people don't want to read comics because it's ruining your imagination. Watching the two of them converse about comics and the associated connotations.
- Eisner also talks about happy little accidents! The idea of nothing in art being an accident is very reassuring, because I think it helps with confidence in art. Stan's allegory of calling drawing 'tracing' because it's already in your mind is als overy funny. It's true, and I've personally never thought about it that way.
- Stan Lee's view on anything that's entertainment has some sort of educational value is very interesting; It gives sand intrinsic value to anything that's made by someone! "It's impossible to write a story without a message."
- Stan talking about Will being a deep thinker as well as a great drawer was swell.
- [ To Stan (oh my gawd) Lee. ]
Monday, February 11, 2019
[Week 5] Reading Response
So for this week, I ended up reading the entirety of Dropsie Avenue and Blankets.
When it comes to comparing the two's works, Eisner and Thompson's art share a very bold lined, graphic sort of style that is very heavy with gesture and the general "feeling" of a piece, which is totally awesome. Thompson's feels a lot more emotionally based with the gestures and bold, almost child-like lines, while Eisner's feels much more realistic in gesture and proportion-- but they're both equally as powerful, to me. Both comics also had an overarching theme of the 'cycle' of things and the lifespan of certain things like bullying, racism, xenophobia, etc. This is especially similar between Craig from Blankets and Abie Gold from Dropsie.
From a personal standpoint, I feel as though Dropsie Avenue was the most relate-able for me. I grew up in a moderately okay part of my city, but it quickly fell into ruin.The whole comic was uncomfortably familiar. It really fell apart in the last year we were living there, and it has continued to crumble ever since. I don't know if that neighborhood will go through a 'rebirth' and start the cycle anew like it did in Dropsie Avenue, but it would be interesting to see if it does.
When it comes to comparing the two's works, Eisner and Thompson's art share a very bold lined, graphic sort of style that is very heavy with gesture and the general "feeling" of a piece, which is totally awesome. Thompson's feels a lot more emotionally based with the gestures and bold, almost child-like lines, while Eisner's feels much more realistic in gesture and proportion-- but they're both equally as powerful, to me. Both comics also had an overarching theme of the 'cycle' of things and the lifespan of certain things like bullying, racism, xenophobia, etc. This is especially similar between Craig from Blankets and Abie Gold from Dropsie.
From a personal standpoint, I feel as though Dropsie Avenue was the most relate-able for me. I grew up in a moderately okay part of my city, but it quickly fell into ruin.The whole comic was uncomfortably familiar. It really fell apart in the last year we were living there, and it has continued to crumble ever since. I don't know if that neighborhood will go through a 'rebirth' and start the cycle anew like it did in Dropsie Avenue, but it would be interesting to see if it does.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
[Week 4] Comic Strips ~ Various Library Readings
So, from the field trip that we had to the Library and the various amounts of comic books, I'll just share a few of my thoughts on what I managed to read in the time we had.
The first comic that I managed to read bits and pieces of, was a comic that I honestly don't remember the name of. It was large print and was mostly a comedy, social commentary type of comic, and all of the pages were in color.
It mostly consisted of the older father character and his old wife, taking care of their daughter and her would-be suitor. Hijinks between the father wanting to not be home much and wanting to hang out with his co-workers mostly, the wife constantly trying to fix things, and his daughter wanting to be pretty.
Most of the time the humor comes from the husband, but other jokes from the comics mostly result from insulting other characters or the women characters. There was also a mini version of the comics called 'and then they were married' or something along those lines, that usually entailed two wildly different situations, only being changed by the characters being wed.
Other comics that I managed to read were just things like the old Superman comics, Little Orphan Annie, and some random comic I don't remember that was about space and random stuff in space and people being lost in space, or something like that. The only one that felt like social commentary was Little Orphan Annie, without really relying on making the main character look dumb.
General impressions is that while there were definitely comics of the time that weren't mostly dependent on degrading characters that weren't the main character, and also didn't contain a lot of really bad caricatures, the comics that I managed to read were all of the variety that relied on that for their humor.
[Week 3] Comic Strips ~ Peanuts
So for the past week or two, I've been reading the Peanuts series by Charles Schulz!
The things that surprised me about these comic strips, since I read the book that had all the first runs from 1950-1952, is that the humor is still very, VERY funny-- at least to me. The humor of the Peanuts strips doesn't depend entirely on either being stereotypically heroic like some other comic strips at the time, and also really doesn't rely on making female characters the butts of jokes.
The best part about the humor of the early Peanuts strips is that their humor comes from the fact that it feels like a real life instance. A dog being annoying for candy or other food he's not supposed to have and constantly showing up the second you open something is incredibly relatable, more so than someone asking if women are people because she forgot her bathing suit.
The other surprising thing that I found from the Peanuts strips is just how much is actually packed into relatively short strips-- most of them only really being 4-5 panels long. The occasional large page of comics was also really nice, and gave me lots of memories of Calvin and Hobbes.
The last thing I'll bring up that surprised me about the Peanuts strips, is how late Lucy really comes into the game of the strips, and the fact that she's so much younger than Charlie. I also had no idea how much backstory the little piano kid, Schroeder, had, and that's only one of the characters that I had no real idea about prior to really reading the old Peanuts strips.
The things that surprised me about these comic strips, since I read the book that had all the first runs from 1950-1952, is that the humor is still very, VERY funny-- at least to me. The humor of the Peanuts strips doesn't depend entirely on either being stereotypically heroic like some other comic strips at the time, and also really doesn't rely on making female characters the butts of jokes.
The best part about the humor of the early Peanuts strips is that their humor comes from the fact that it feels like a real life instance. A dog being annoying for candy or other food he's not supposed to have and constantly showing up the second you open something is incredibly relatable, more so than someone asking if women are people because she forgot her bathing suit.
The other surprising thing that I found from the Peanuts strips is just how much is actually packed into relatively short strips-- most of them only really being 4-5 panels long. The occasional large page of comics was also really nice, and gave me lots of memories of Calvin and Hobbes.
The last thing I'll bring up that surprised me about the Peanuts strips, is how late Lucy really comes into the game of the strips, and the fact that she's so much younger than Charlie. I also had no idea how much backstory the little piano kid, Schroeder, had, and that's only one of the characters that I had no real idea about prior to really reading the old Peanuts strips.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)