Underground Comics and then some.

Unfortunately for this week's reading I was unable to get the Crumb comics to work for me. I did take a look at the Air Pirates Funnies, the "Four Sketchbooks", and the Zap Comics 0-5. In class I also looked at the posted Tijuana Bibles and the Bizarre Sex comic.

I was really shocked at how wonderful the artwork was presented in these comics. I was expecting the artwork to be just as trashy as the subject matter but really, some of it was incredibly detailed and well thought out. It was something that made looking at this stuff more enjoyable. Its not anything that really shocked me, but I definitely found it all really amusing in a hilarious sort of way.

I think that seeing the Four Sketchbooks before looking at anything else really helped me to appreciate these types of comics even more. Getting a little insight to some of these artists when they're not illustrating for a story, but rather just doing their thing and playing with random styles shows just how versatile they can be. I was particularly intrigued with Art Spiegelman's portion. I love the fluidity that his figures take on. His style varies so radically and he doesn't try to make his sketches polished and beautiful which throws in so much personality and really makes these drawings unique.

The Air Pirates comic was very funny. Some of the subject matter was a bit shocking but overall I just had a few good laughs. It was strange for me to see Disney-esque characters in all these sexually explicit scenarios. Let me just say, that never in my life did I think I'd see Mickey Mouse going to town on Minnie in such an explicit manner. I didn't offend me, but I grew up with Mickey so when I saw that I was like just thinking in my head, "Mickey! What are you doing!?" That just gave me a good laugh.

The Tijuana Bibles were interesting to say the least. But unlike the other underground comics, the art was incredibly poor. The anatomy in all the figures was so far off that the subject matter was less of a shock than the way some of the hands were drawn. But I suppose that for somebody who isn't trained in the arts, the books serve their 'purposes' just fine.

The Bizarre Sex comic was something that I enjoyed reading. Just like the Air Pirates, it was a compilation of work from various artists. The stories were definitely bizarre. The opening short was about a werewolf that decided to go fishing, used a severed penis as bait to catch a mermaid. He finally hooks one in through her mouth and out through the center of her forehead. He then proceeds to pull her up on the dock and brutally hack her to pieces, walking away with his prize catch. After reading it I could only think, "What a way to start a book!!"

All the reading for this week was very entertaining. Really opened my eyes to another facet in the comics industry that formerly, I never had an opportunity to appreciate.

Will Eisner's Contract With God

Before this week's scheduled reading, I had never read any of Eisner's work. I had heard a lot about him, and I knew what his style looked like but didn't know that he also wrote his own stories. I really enjoyed the way he organizes his pages. You can really tell that everything in each image is incredibly well thought out in such a way that the story is easiest to follow. He takes special care to make it so every little detail in the image has a purpose, there are no accidents in his work. I like that he doesn't set his pages up in the traditional panel to panel format. His illustrations are contained, but within the border of the page rather than a series of small boxes. I thought that it made reading this novel more enjoyable because it flowed more freely rather than having a staccato-type movement that for me is typical of traditional panel to panel comics.

Something else that I found very compelling about this work was the story line. I had never read or even heard of a religiously-based comic and I think its very interesting that he chose to address that topic. Something that tends to be very controversial and debatable among groups of people. Particularly the stance that he chose to take with religion, which really isn't a glamorous, innocent, happy one. The people involved in the stories are by no means "heavenly". The fact that Frimme Hirsch (one of the main charaters) is losing his faith, and questioning god's ways is something I think many people can relate to. I personally am not a religious person, but I know what it feels like to lose faith in something/somebody that you've dedicated yourself to. I love that this topic was addressed. The way it was presented really makes you question the ways of this man's God. You start to feel for Frimme. After signing a contract to be dedicated to God and serving him for his life, it makes you wonder what he did to deserve having his daughter taken from him. If I were in Frimme's position, I would probably react in the same way, debating the true nature of God and whether or not he truly exists.

I thought that the other stories were also compelling but after the first one, didn't pack the same punch. One common theme that's within all of the stories is that there's no clear protagonists or antagonists. Every single person in each story has their flaws. You may begin to think that somebody in one of the stories is not all that bad, but then Eisner comes around and hits you with this real dark side to the character. I love his plays with duality, it definitely adds a fantastic dimension to his story telling.

After reading this piece, I can certainly understand and respect why Scott McCloud spoke so highly of Eisner in Understanding Comics. Eisner receives a lot of praise from McCloud and now I see that it is very well deserved.

Little Nemo

So this week I read Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice by Winsor McCay. I fell in love with his artistic style, but found his handling of the speech bubbles distracting. Perhaps it was the difference in times between when the comic was created and the time that I'm reading it but the language used was also more irritating than amusing. He incorporates "um" and random words that seem like they should be sounds in the way the characters speak. I thought this tended to make the actual statements difficult to understand or fit in with the rest of the panel. I thought that a lot of the things some of the characters said could be left out to make the point more direct and concise. When you're working with a static image I think it's important to use what little space you have for text effectively and clearly. I just found that McCay left a lot to be desired in this department.

I did, however, like that at the end of each strip there was a small panel showing Nemo being awoken by someone/something to drive the point home that everything in the comic was all part of his elaborate dream. That's something that I thought was very creative and a nice way to break up the story. I'm just jealous that after this kid wakes up from his awesome dreams that he can continually fall back asleep an pick up right where he left off! I can't express how many times I've wished for that ability!

This series is most certainly not something I ever would have picked up to read on my own, but I'm glad that this class has broadened my horizons. Although the subject matter for this particular series isn't something that really piques my interest, what does interest me is the potential that other strips of this era have. Perhaps that's something I'll look further into in the future.

---

A note about the movie we watched in class about Prince Achmed, I'd really just like to say that it was a pleasure to watch. Definitely entertaining and very cool to see the difference between such early animation and the present day. I think the craft was beautiful and very clear in conveying the story.

---

Anyway, last week I picked up volumes 9 and 10 of The Walking Dead. I've been reading this series for a little over a year now (inconsistently, but I keep up when I spot a new volume I haven't read yet) and I must say that I am in love. If its not something that you've heard of or seen it is certainly a must. It's about the struggle of a group of people after the world has been overrun by zombies. I know it sounds so over done, but what attracts me to this series so strongly is that it's SO. MUCH. MORE! Allow me to quote the writer:

To me, the best zombie movies aren't the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society... and our society's station in the world. They show us gore and violence and all that cool stuff too... but there's always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness.

...

For me the worst part of every zombie movie is the end. I always want to know what happens next. Even when all the characters die at the end... I just want it to keep going.

...

The idea behind The Walking Dead is to stay with the character, in this case, Rick Grimes for as long as is humanly possible. I want The Walking Dead to be a chronicle of Rick's life. We will NEVER wonder what happens to Rick next, we will see it. The Walking Dead will be the zombie movie that never ends. Well... not for a good long time at least.

-Robert Kirkman

Kirkman holds very true to what he's promise in his introduction. Nothing intrigues me more than a good horror story but like I said, it goes way beyond the horror. It's passion, sorrow, hope, and just... life. (that sounded so corny) But believe me, if you pick these books up and are looking for a story, that goes beyond the action and delves deep into our feelings as humans my friends, this is the comic series for you. Everything in the book is in black and white, and while most graphic novels may get boring this one holds strong with expressive line work and beautiful panel composition.

Maybe I'm biased because I love zombies. But never in my time has a story captivated me like this. It keeps me going back and begging for more. I've read books 1-4 twice already, 5-8 once, and have yet to crack the spine on 9 and 10. My intent is to re-read the entire series again to keep it all organized in my mind. It just never gets old!!

Cheers!

Response to Understanding Comics

A few years ago I had read Scott McCloud's: Understanding Comics. I re-read it for our first assignment because I had forgotten most of the information. For those of us who read it, you know there is A LOT of info to process but McCloud manages to make it easy. I think the beauty of this work is that he makes topics that would be hard for the average non-artist to understand easy to comprehend.

There were a lot of points that he touched on that I found very interesting and he made his delivery clear and concise. But a few that really stood out to me were his pyramid explanation of style and abstraction, his point on how we never really see what our faces look like, and his ideas of time between panels of comics.

I've never really thought of abstraction in the way he depicts it. Showing different styles against different degrees of abstraction just makes it all much more clear. I thought it especially interesting that he says that words are as abstract as you can get. Which is very true. Words are simply a representation of an image that's a representation of the real object at hand. I see a lot of beauty in his description of this.

His point of people never actually seeing what they look like is something that I've thought of time and time again and it made me very happy to see that somebody else thought about this as well. Although we have mirrors and cameras to look at ourselves with, our reflection is just a reflection and a photograph will always just be a photograph, never the REAL us. It's just like the Magritte painting that Scott uses as an example so many times in the book. A picture of me is not actually me physically, just as the painting of the pipe is not actually a pipe. I find this concept extremely intriguing and although the depth of this thought can't go much further than what's already been stated, I still find it so fascinating and catch myself wrapped up in this thought continuously.

The space between panels in comics is something that I had never contemplated prior to reading McCloud's explanation. He elaborated on something that I've always done subconsciously without resistance. When I'm reading a comic it plays like a movie in my head flawlessly. Despite the space between panels, there's never a space in my mental imagery. When Scott pointed out that our minds automatically fill in the spaces between two comics panels a light switch went on in my head and I found myself says "So THAT'S what I've been doing this whole time!" The more I think about this, the more it amazes me that our minds have the ability to create something that isn't really there. To use our imaginations and fill in the empty spaces in somebody else's story is just remarkable to me!

Although I had read this book once before, I'm glad that I took the opportunity to re-read it because I found myself really learning a lot more than I did before. I also bought Making Comics and intend to read that in the future. I loved the format of this book. It's the greatest, most entertaining textbook I've ever read!