Maus

For this week I read Maus by Art Spiegelman, which just immediately sucked me in. The story is surprisingly well paced, and it moves rather quickly. I like when a chapter ends the characters in the book are tired, and want to take a break. I really enjoyed the build of of events happening in the story. You are not immediately thrown into the concentration camps. In the book I remember the father not wanting the son to talk about his life before the concentration camp because it had nothing to do with the story.Which I disagree knowing more about a characters backstory, and who they were before these events happened makes you feel more for the characters. The father son relationship is very interesting because of how emotionally distant it is. The son wants his father to be there for him emotionally. I'm sure the father wants the same thing but because of what has happened to him it's almost impossible for him to express this to his son.

This book was made in 1991 I'm just very surprised it took so long for graphic novels to be finally viewed as serious pieces of literature. It definitely carves the way for graphic novels like Blankets, and Asterios Polyp to be taken seriously. I'm a little surprised how ineffective Will Eisner's graphic novels were. I think why this novel was able to be taken so serious was because of the subject matter of the novel. Anything dealing with the holocaust is going to be a very serious, and heavy topic in history. It will automatically not be grouped for just kids which is fantastic. Just like the anime we watched in class dealing with the bombings of Hiroshima. Both works bring awareness and understanding to the events. Both of these events  It is defiantly a stepping stone showing graphic novels can be taken seriously with the right subject matter. One of my favorite graphic novel writers, Luke Pearson does this in his books

Also I am a big fan of the style of this graphic novel. It looks like the artist made all the panels out of linoleum cut prints. Art spiegelman's style defiantly reminds me of some of the crude styles from underground comics which i really enjoy. The style gives it more of this serious tone that is a bit dark. I don't think Maus would be as effective if it had more of a Carl Barks style to it. Which would honestly be pretty creepy.

I have a few comics suggestions as well if anybody is interested Luke Pearson's Everything We Miss is an amazing read.

Underground Comics

I've been looking forward to the underground comic week for sometime now.  I enjoy absurd in your face comics dealing with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I read mostly gay comix, tits and clits, and a few Robert Crumb comics.
I really enjoyed Robert Crumbs work, but I was really put off at the amount of text per image panel. The beautiful grungy images were just so over powered with the text that was incorporated poorly.

The tits and clits comics besides from having an awesome name, were funny and enjoyable. It was awesome to know that it was an all woman publication. I'm all for sex-positive feminism, and sexual freedom. All the stories were focused on women, and their desires. Also I thought that the vibrator ads were very perfect for this publication.

Gay Comix also had really interesting short stories. Gay comics had more of an array of stories from sex hungry gay men to lesbians looking for love. Again it's awesome that everybody that contributed to gay comix were openly gay. Most of the stories in this comic seem like a bit autobiographical. I remember one comic about a guy going to a gay bar looking for a man to have sex, and just thinking about his family and how they view him. This story reminded me of one of my friends from back home and how he about his family and himself. The story about the bisexual girl, and her journey of coming out was really charming. It was a very personal story that she shared with the world, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to her.

Body Talk

I'm really disappointed in myself for not picking up Will Eisner sooner. I read Will Eisner's New York City, life in the big city. The language used for the titles of the short stories was just amazing. One in particular that really stood out to me was Jericho which pretty much is just the destruction of a facade of a building.
Then other stories like The Last Man are really relatable to people who have lived in NYC. Where it's a guy rushing to get on a subway car thats too full, and is left to wait for another car. This even has happened to me way too many times.

The Comic book

This week I focused on Carl Barks, and Herge. As a child I grew up reading, and consuming everything TinTin related so needless to say I was very excited for this week. This is the first time I have read any Carl Barks, but I can understand the universal appeal of his stories. Especially the stories with Uncle Scrooge, I just really enjoy the idea of an old miser that is a duck and swims in pools of his money. The stories are entertaining enough, and are very safe stories with not much risque behavior like in TinTin. Where they often get drunk and sometimes say pretty racist things.

When reading TinTin I went on a huge nostalgia trip to when I was seven. I remember receiving a few TinTin books from my aunt, and when I started to read them I was hooked. I reread the books so many times. For a brief period I also had a giant crush on TinTin, and had the hopes of one day growing up and marrying him. After many years, and crushed dreams of marrying a fictional character  TinTin is exciting, and still very enjoyable.

The Wonder Winsor Mccay

For this week of comic lit I focused mostly on reading work from Winsor Mccay. His comic Little Nemo in Slumberland is a perfect example of liking a comic just for it's style. Little Nemo is very well drawn and has a lot of hints of the style of circus posters. The original format of these comics are giant newsprint size, so it's very eye catching  The stories are not very interesting, and end in the same way every time. Which makes it perfect for a newspaper because of how easy it is to digest, and jump in at any time to the comic.
I've noticed that most newspaper comics give viewers either this quick one liner joke, or the illusion of something incredibly complex. I believe that nemo's visuals that are overly ornate and complex gives the comic a false sense of deepness.
Basically Little Nemo is the equivalent to liking a super hot woman, with not much going on upstairs.