Week 7 : Maus

Maus is an incredibly interesting work done in the style of a graphic narrative. It depicts the life, trials, and tribulations of the author’s father alternating between the time periods of before, during, and after the Holocaust.  The art created this comic over the span of 13 years of interviews with his father. He wanted to immortalize his  fathers history into an biographical graphic narrative The novel is over all very symbolic and overly simplistic, It’s unique in that it illustrates German Nazi’s as cats and Jews as mice., but it works in the sense that there’s seemingly no difference from the way cats treat mice and the way Nazi Germany treated Jews. Different animals represent other races/nationalities, and it kind of exposes the wrong in labeling different people. It visually simplifies the relationships between races and different people

I enjoyed the execution and style of the graphic novel very much. The heavy line work and graphic shapes and shading, as well as the designs of the characters were very appealing. It is so appropriate for the historic moment and story that it is telling. It is bold, dark, which fit the subject mater perfectly.

 The narrative follows and retells his life story as he goes through different cities in countries in Europe and eventually ends up in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Another large part of the story takes place in New York. I think it is very interesting that he tires to show the differences between his father’s personality today and who he was 50 years ago before the Holocaust. He notes the hypocrisy in his father’s attitude of being critical toward gay people and African Americans, even after what he’s been through. Another part of me thinks that what he’s been through has actually served to reinforce those thoughts or behaviors. Art also notes how his personality is now stingy, making his close ones’ lives difficult.

Week 6: Underground Comics

Underground comics was very different from anything else we have read for this class While there is a loose quality to these comics, within the writing a lot of them send to be satire or cynical in some way. They are thought provoking, innovative and even controversial.

I’ve read a lot of underground comics recently. My friend Reed is really into them and he always has a comic to show me. He first introduced me to Frits the Cat, which I like to think of as an animated version of underground comics. I can appreciate how the comics goes beyond what considered culturally appropriate and throws sex, drugs, violence, and general immorality in the face of the reader.

My friend Reed’s artwork is very much inspired by Robert Crumb's style of drawing. It is very expressive and exaggerated but not in the usual way. A lot of emotions are expressed with extra feature/ markings and doesn’t exclusively occur on their faces, for example, puffs of steam if their angry, or little lightning squiggles coming from the eyes if they're looking at something. It's not a style you see very often, or used as frequently as he does so it was very refreshing to see it.

Week 5: Eisner and Thompson

Will Eisner revolutionized the comics industry and how they are thought about today.  He strongly stressed the attitude that comics should be thought of as a form of art and not just a tool for cheap entertainment.  His drawing style is amazing.  It is some of the best art for a comic I have seen.  It gets the point that it is trying to make across so easily and his characters are so expressive.  What I liked about Contract with God was how the rainy effect he applied on his drawings was also applied on the opening text.  I think that's what ultimately separates this from a comic book. I felt that the way some words were bolded or bigger or in different fonts helped you feel out the inflection of the words and I felt like it made it all the more powerful.  I felt that with the graphic novel vs just the Spirit comics, the words were designed as part of the composition instead of an afterthought. Additionally I loved how expressive the characters were.  It made them very easy to relate to.  With this story I feel that he was pushing the boundary of what a comic is and really made it into a piece of literature.  With this story he really successfully created the genre of the graphic novel.  There is definitely a reason why The Eisner Award is the biggest award in comics.  He really revolutionized the Graphic Novel industry and helped it reach the heights that it was at today. In contract with God the characters were so relatable.  it had me engaged on an emotional level.  

Week 4: The comic book

This week we looked at the natural next step after the comic strip, the comic book. The development of the comic book took form with the creation of serial episodes of strips the were sold as a pamphlet of combined strips with continuity that could be taken in all in one sitting as opposed to having to wait for the sunday newspaper.

I chose to read Tin Tin this week, the first time I was exposed to Tin Tin was when I watched the animated film. I knew it was a comic prior to watching, but I never had the opportunity to read it did not read it then, but when I read it now, I could see why Tin Tin was so popular. Everything about the Tin Tin series, whether design, characters, or story, is very appealing. Visually, Herge illustrates the comic linearly and cel-shades the color. It is bright, simple, and lends to a lot of visual clarity. Personally, I found it a relief after reading render-heavy comics that utilized lots of blacks and cross-hatch rendering. The stores were very exciting and adventurous as well, i could see why it appealed to a younger audience but just like the peanuts and little Nemo, it stayed relevant after all these years because it had such rich and relatable characters, with meaningful lessons.