Maus

Overall, the book was very surprising. I didn’t have much of a premise of the novel other than it being about the holocaust before reading it, which is a genre that is hard for me to digest sometimes despite the event being so critical to understand. The most surprising part of “Maus” was not only the fact that the main characters were depicted as animals rather than human beings but the very personal nature of the film as a whole. I never felt like I was excluded from the conversation of the book because I’m neither Jewish or experienced the Holocaust, but rather invited in as a quiet shadow to Art Spiegelman as he slowly but persistent gathers the story of his family's experiences in the war. It was incredibly easy to stand in Art’s shoes and relate to his curiosity and even annoyance with his father. A small note, I thought it was extremely relatable when Vladek threw out Art’s old jacket because he thought it was too run down for his son to be wearing, and it made the whole reading so much more relatable.  My mom has also done the same thing in the past, but no nearly as abruptly as Vladek had, but it still reminded me of those moments.

I was also more surprised to feel more comfortable reading this comic than previous Holocaust materials. My high school had us read books like “Night” by Elie Wiesel that only made me feel intense guilt and disgust about the events of the Holocaust because it was so detailed and I felt so terrible that humans could conceive such terrible things for one another. I don’t want to say that this book is watered down, because the events and concepts are not watered down whatsoever. I want to express that because the characters are depicted as animals and we are constantly experiencing Art’s side of writing the story, we are given terrible events and stories in manage doses that we can retain better and with less aversion, because the novel balances both terrible events with very human qualities and experiences. It allows me to want to continue reading without as much guilt or a sense of helplessness, which is what I normally feel (and should feel) when reading Holocaust memoirs.

The pacing of the story is also, I think, one of it’s greatest achievements. I never felt lost or overwhelmed by the amount of content as the first book progressed. I will admit that I wasn’t able to reach the second book, but the first was very manageable and conversational rather than a daunting un-ending amount of story. The story's natural flow between the past and present is incredibly tasteful and even when the present quickly removes us from the past storytelling, it still feels very gently and very much how our attention would shift in real life. I also want to mention that I appreciated that Art preserved how his father told the story and wrote the recounts word for word from his father's mouth. It's very easy to want to make sure that there is clarity for the audience, especially when it comes to dialogue and proper grammar, but it would have felt far different if Vladek had spoken perfect English without an accent. Instead, we can read it in our head exactly how Vladek would have spoken about it, and although I had to re-read a few sections, it made the story much more immersive and realistic.

Overall, I really enjoyed the first book and will move to read the second as soon as I am able because it was incredibly written. I also forgot to mention that this illustrated story felt, at least to me, very reminiscing of “The Arrival” in its personable qualities, but still more literal and grimmer. I will say, too, that a large reason why the story makes me want to read more is the fact that I’m reading a story within a story. Both Vladek’s history and Art's present contains stories that I desperately want to find the conclusion of. I root for the families as they progress, both past and present, and even though I feel like I could guess the endings of each, I’m still compelled by my love for the characters as well as finding the ending out for myself rather than letting it remain a mystery.

The Underground

I know we received a warning in class, but I truly still was unprepared for most of the content within the comics that I read. For the most part, I jumped between Zap, Arcade, Barefoots, and I also looked at Four Sketchbooks and Gay Comic. I also listened to most of the songs provided, but my favorite was Strange Brew while I read. I think it's safe to say, because of some of the content in comics, that it was hard to enjoy most of the comics even while being pretty immersed just because of my own personal tastes. (Gay Comics actually being an exception to this rule.) So I want to talk about what I did like about the comics.

I thought the art style and graphics linework was wildly energetic, and a lot of the illustrations were extreme caricature that had been pushed to the brink of stylization and exaggeration in order to depict a character's most important physical traits or to help stereotype characters in away. I found that especially in Zap and Four Sketchbooks. The drawings overall where what impressed me the most, and while I sometimes found some of the comic stories to be humorous or entertaining, I couldn't truly relate to any other comic other than Gay Comix.

Gay Comix was blunt and brutally honest about the gay and queer experience, and even though there were still parts of the comic that were a little... too much for me, I supremely enjoyed a lot of the storytelling and felt like these were glorified or romanticized stories that I can often see today, but rather the comic artist sat me down in their living rooms and simply told me how being queer was and how their life had unfolded. The best way I can put reading Gay Comix was that it was a conversation. One that I really enjoyed out of all the rest, and inspires me to keep reading it.

Blankets and Dropsie Avenue

Contradictory to previous readings of Herge or Peanuts strips, graphic novels like "Blankets" hit a tender and painful nerve in my childhood. The pieces of youth that are no longer full of wonder and imagination but rather full of fear, uncertainty and turmoil that comes with growing up are all in the pages. The story itself contained a lot of feelings and thoughts that I also had when I was growing up and even though a few topics were very smarting for me (the mentions of child abuse and homophobia), reading Thompson's experiences were almost a balm to some of my own personal memories in the sense that it gave me relief to know I wasn't alone in some of my experiences. It's also almost too painful to try and discuss how much this book has affected me on a personal level, so I need to digest my feelings and instead move on to the graphic novel itself.

Not only do I love the line quality and use of like and dark within the book pages, but I also loved the way panels were structured and sometimes abstracted themselves by flowing organically. Words weren't bound by sections or placement, but rather jumbled or used fonts to differentiate ways of speaking or context of situations. It felt like the whole book was structured like a very beautiful release of emotions, frustrations, and explorations of the mind. There is so much energy and sentiment in each page, whether its a torrent of angry and despairing ink that seemed to rip through the drawings or carefully illustrated scenes that are gentle and almost reverent. 

The best way I can describe the overwhelming immersion of reading this book is the simple escapism of exiting my current existence in the real world and entering a film or a novel, and then coming back the real world and realizing that I had traveled somewhere entirely different without moving an inch for two hours but feeling almost breathless from traveling in my own head. To be able to feel an author's emotions so clearly and so explosively out of a book almost encourages me to attempt something similar, in the sense of gaining a cathartic release.

Dropsie Avenue is a very different flavor of a reflection on history, as well as a much large scope of time that is incredibly illustrated throughout the novel. I really love the humor and contradictory nature of all the characters that pass through the story, especially when it came to discussing immigration of one ethnic group "ruining the neighborhood" only to flourish from the new groups and then have the new tenant complain about immigrants and having the same situation prior continue from there. The cyclical nature of storytelling is both intriguing, but also a little tedious on top of having to take in a lot of new information at different time periods, but I enjoyed it as an exploration of history and the growth of culture in the melting pot of America nonetheless.

Hergé, Barks, and Edelstien

I'm starting to discover in this class that, in reading a comic, I felt utterly like an adventurous kid again. Hergé made it all too easy with "Explorers on the Moon" and the marvelous escapade that is journeying to an unexplored moon! I was more so surprised upon reading Hergé comic to see the huge and sophisticated vernacular of the character and the dialogue. Most of the comic dialogue took up the top quarter of the page, or even half at some panels because of the density of the words, but I still found all of the material to be fairly digestible. Still, the comic seems to prioritize and utilize the panels to help emphasis the setting and certain actions. The rare action panels or question panels were also pretty helpful to helo fill the silences of characters, as you would see TinTin and the Captain look over in a direction curiously and their dialogue bubble would only read a question mark. Or during a scuffle, the bubbles would be filled with colorful stars and exclamation points. These little symbols easily convey interests or quarrels without a need to describe it at all.

I also have the pleasure of reading Carl Barks's Donald Duck comic, "The Hard Loser." It actually seems pretty in line with how I've seen Donald Duck portrayed in television and film, and has a very heavy reliance on the comedic value at all times as most of the story relied on Donald's competitive nature with his nephews, who are also portrayed as good-willed and idyllic child relatives. It was a very quick comic as well, and I could very well see the strip evolve into a short animation today, but probably with a few tweaks.

The last comic I dived into was the January to February of 1951 edition of "Weird Science." I was only able to read the first section of the comic, "Made of the Future," where Alvin Blank accidentally travels to the year 2150 and brings how a kit that allows you to assemble your own wife. While the stories are truly an indicator of the context within the times, I still found the whole story incredibly entertaining. The trope within the comic also seems to have been something that became vastly explored as humanity looked to the future, and I found the comic to be within the same stylistic vein of "Invasion of the Body-Snatchers" from 1956.

The Comic Strip Pt. 2: Alley Oop

I chose to read "Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure" on the trip to the library on Thursday.

The relationship between words and images is mainly dialogue, but every now and then there are descriptor bubbles to summarize any previous adventures that would provide context for the current strip. Sometimes V.T. Hamlin leaves notes for his readers about the course of the story, but the primary context you get for the story is through speech and actions. The comic does follow the dialogue taking up the upper third of the panels as well.

In was also a daily strip that had a comic for every day of the week except for Sunday, as well as a continuity strip. Alley-Oop, Dinny the Dinosaur, and Ooola other character make the same appearance in a specific story arc and progress the story forward each day. This story in specific is about the progression of Alley Op being taken to the future.

I’d say some very definitive qualities of the comic is the intricate art style of the lifework and the use of complex but subtle backgrounds, which can be foliage or caves with a good use of detail, but also they are not so prominent or complex that they completely distract the viewers from the main characters and the story. The character designs themselves are also very specific, and even though female characters like Ooola can greatly defer from King Guz’s daughter in aesthetic, I still think many of the character designs overall are very well executed to create audience interest.

I would also say that another quality to this specific comic is the fantastical world with implied real-world references and context that make it so unique. We, as an audience, can explore the land of "Moo" and enjoy a marvelous adventure that something we have never experienced before, but can also understand the context of certain events or actions that happen to Alley Oop because they are still situations that are relatable outside of cavemen and dinosaurs.

The Comic Strip

I had never really indulged in comic strips before, so although I was familiar with titles like Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbs, I’ve never had the chance to read them until now.

If I had to pick out the order of my favorite readings out of these strips, I would have to say I enjoyed Little Nemo in Slumberland first and foremost. I had never read Little Nemo before, and I really enjoyed the fantastical setting that Little Nemo was in for the Palace of Ice. The intricate backgrounds and really fun characters like the pugnacious snowmen fighting as well as the various tour guides that show Little Nemo and the Princess around were very colorful and amusing. I also thought the endings of each comic page, although repetitive, were very cute and emphasized the childlike wonder and adventure kids have especially before bedtime.

Calvin and Hobbs was my second favorite because even though I find some of the humor a little crude for the comics in general, I think its a very realistic comic in how it approaches ideas and concepts in the real world. It’s also great at stretching your imagination with the ever-present Hobbs changing between a stuffed tiger and a real tiger at different intervals.

My third favorite goes to Peanuts, as I feel its in a similar vein of Calvin and Hobbs, albeit a little tamer but just as much of a no-nonsense dialogue between characters. Last, but not least is Krazy Kat. I was only able to find a small selection of comics, but reading them outlaid did improve my understanding of the dialogue and the story in the end. The strip was unique, but I also felt that I couldn’t understand it very well because of some of the themes or concepts presented aren’t very present in modern times. Hopefully, through some more research and reading, I can better understand the context of the strip in the future.

Understanding Comics: The 6 Steps

Scott McCloud pretty much blew me out of the water with Understanding Comics as a whole, but the most interesting idea that I read in the piece was the concepts of the 6 steps for developing creations. It was never something that I had considered too deeply when it came to being an artist, but after McCloud goes into great detail about the depth and complexity in which creators work at with an example as simple as an apple, I was forced to re-examine what I thought it means to create any form of art.

McCloud has broken down some of the most complex ideas behind being a creator while also describing what is the fundamental journey of any developing student of the arts with such scathing accuracy that it almost hurt me. To realize the amount of work and depth any artist or creator must have long before even ourselves as the artist have realized. Even just seeing the 6 steps made me place myself on the chart only to realize that I’ve been working in Surface, Craft, and Structure while just barely scratched the surface of Idiom as recently as 2 years ago!

But how had I never considered this? How did my brain never put the ideas and processes that McCloud describes with such complex simplicity into my mind before? After considering this, I also realized that these thoughts just weren’t ever brought to my conscious mind, but more so developing in my subconscious. When I finally was addressed these concepts by McCloud, everything had clicked so easily that I felt like my understanding of his explanations were found in my personal experiences that I could now map out within his concepts.

As maddening and as fascinating all of McCloud’s explanation was, it felt also like I was able to put the complexity of what we do as artists and creators into a very simple set of parameters and definitions that I hadn’t deeply evaluated before reading Understanding Comics.