Week 7: Maus

I, like many people, have had to read Maus prior to taking this class, but I find myself getting so much more out of it in this second reading. I had grown up in a house that comics were definitely seen as legitimate media especially considering we had just as many comics on our shelves as we did 'ordinary' books, but even then I found it odd that we were covering a comic in an English class. The moment we started discussing the novel though, we didn't treat it much different than any other book. Honestly I'm not surprised that Maus is considered  to be the graphic novel that really legitimized the medium.

The non-fictional nature of the story has a lot to do with how accepted it was amongst general audiences. The subject matter, being a holocaust survivor's tale, is probably about as serious as you can get as far as literary topics. It would be much harder for people to dismiss Maus as being 'a thing for kids' or as 'just a cartoon' since everything written in it is an actual account of one of the most terrible events to occur in human history. The only thing that really 'softens' the account too is the fact that the people are drawn as animals. Interestingly, anthropomorphic characters is very common amongst 'cartoons' but even so its practically impossible to confuse Maus for a cartoon.

While the words of Maus would easily be enough to tell the story and get the mood across, the art adds an extra level of understanding to the mood Art is trying to get across. By casting the groups of people as animals, it helps to express how these people were seen as. Cats are predators so its not a stretch to see why Art portrays Nazis as them. Mice are the usual prey of Cats so the Jewish people as Mice makes sense as well. The Americans rescued the Jewish people from camps so they are Dogs which are usually portrayed as being the enemies of Cats. Pigs are outside this food chain so they represent the Polish people who were overall neutral aside from Germany invading them. Some could see this animal comparison as offensive, but I believe the visual difference of having each 'race' as being a different animal helps to show exactly how they were seen during the time all of these events were going on. Other books have used animals in a similar way, the novel Animal Farm coming to mind, but in Maus it feels more metaphorical.

The way the story is told is also odd. It's not an auto biography at least not in the usual sense. The history in Poland is not Art's but a large portion of the story is just Art talking to his dad, giving the reader a feeling of practically being in the room as Vladek is talking. It's told in the style of an interview but Vladek keeps breaking away the story as he does things like drop his pill bottle and complain. I heard that Art took audio recordings as he talked to his dad. Its interesting that he would keep these distractions and actually illustrate them. These even evolve into an odd 'side plot' that deals with the relationship between Art and his father.

Despite it being a Holocaust survival tale, in the 'modern' story, Art doesn't particularly portray his dad in the best light. He constantly complains and is generally unpleasant to Mala. This is all understandable why he acts this way since Art opens the graphic novel saying how his mother committed suicide and Valdek has suffered two heart attacks.

All this together makes Maus a very raw tale. It has great literary and historical merit while also being a very raw, amazing comic.

Week 6: Underground Comics

I’ve never actually sat down and read underground comix.  I’ve known of them, have even flipped through a few of them to look at the art when I was doing inventory at the comic store I worked at. But this was my first time actually taking the time to read them.

They were basically everything I expected since going into them, I knew they were going to be raunchy and offensive. These comics were made for shock value though so I found it hard to actually be offended since that was the reaction they were going for. 

Knowing the history behind all these, I appreciate how completely over the top they are. The underground comix movement was a counter culture movement created as a reaction against the comics code authority that started in the 50s. Underground Comics started in the 60s and were definitely a product of their time. Counter culture movements were taking over the nation at this point with the hippie movement in full swing. Fashion was changed forever, music was changed forever, and its not surprising comics followed suit.

Art in general has had a long history of being censored from the very material that Underground Comix hoped to bring to light. Things like sex and drugs are so often taboo and forbidden topics and society, so its oddly satisfying to see a group of people so boldly take those very things and shove it unapologetically in people’s faces. Even in media today, its still scandalous to show any genitalia. Underground comix exaggerates these very things that the rest of society tries to hide. Yes they most definitely do it in an offensive way, but I think that it only helps to highlight how prudish our society is. 

Week 5: Blankets by Craig Thompson

I related far more strongly with blankets than I expected to upon first picking it up. The first chapter I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Granted, my situation was by no means as terrible as Craigs, but still, certain parts definitely rang true to me.

Like Craig, my family is religious, though only on my moms side. Recently, my mom actually visited me and while she was here, I realized it is impossible for me to communicate with her. In recent years, she has become more invested in her religion and it has created a huge rift between us. We can start to have a normal conversation, but the next minute, she is doing what I find to be crazy things like sneaking a cross under my bed. Unlike Craigs parents, my mom knows I’m not religious so I find this very confusing. My grandparents though, aside from the abusive father aspect, reminded me of his parents. Every time I see them, I put on a good little Catholic face and lie to them, going to church and playing a part. I don’t tell them how not religious I am because I know it would break their hearts. When I was younger, I even appeared to be going on a more religious path as Craig was. I even volunteered to be an alter girl a few times, though clearly it didn’t stick as I consider myself an Apathetic Agnostic rather than Catholic.

Another aspect of Blankets I could relate to, and I’m sure several people at this school could relate to is how Craig would rather sit and draw than go to a busy party. I’ve never been comfortable around drinking and drugs, though my stance on it is similar to Craigs. Any time I see people around me, especially my friends do such things, I instantly feel awkward. The scene in the cabin where the teenagers were passing around whatever drug that was, is a scene I have been in many times in my life. I’ve sat in a room before several times as the only sober one and wanting nothing more than to leave and draw.

Blankets also perfectly captures that awkwardness of confusing romantic feelings. They can be suffocating and make you act in ways you never thought you would. Back in high school when I had a crush, it took over all I could think about and honestly looking back on it is embarrassing. Romance is not perfect, and as Blankets shows, usually doesn’t have a happy storybook ending.

Week 4: Comic Books

This is a subject I am very familiar with considering from Sophomore to my Senior year of high school I worked in a comic book store. This week, I read several older comics that I had not read yet. Of these included the first issue of Action comics, which I feel any fan of the superhero genre should read considering it sparked the whole genre. I also read a few of Carl Bark’s work on Donald Duck.

With the arrival of comic books, individual stories could be lengthened. And since they were printed as their own thing separate from newspapers, the content became more about the stories. Whereas comic strips have a certain charm to them, I feel comic books truly tapped into a gold mine of story telling. With both of the comics I read, the worlds of these comics are huge and really capture the imagination. The world of the ducks developed into a well beloved series that contained a wide array of characters and was the basis for several cartoons including Duck Tales. 

The world that Action comics created is on a whole different scale. Even though the first issue of action comics had multiple stories, only one of which being about Superman, it was the beginning of a whole modern mythology. One only has to look at the box office to see how well the super hero genre has survived since 1938. Comic books allowed for characters to become so much more than just cartoons. Through the lengthening the stories, comics allowed their characters to become so much more fleshed out, letting them practically become people than just mouth pieces for gags. Through the medium of comic books, our imaginations have been captured by the same characters for over 70 years.

It is interesting to see how the actual art form of comic books has changed since its inception however. Over the summer, I decided to take on the task of reading every issue of the Avengers, starting from issue 1 (1963). Its amazing how much they’ve evolved throughout the decades. Even comparing that first issue to the first Action Comics issue, it seems that with every decade that passes, the characters, the stories, the art styles, the panel layouts, practically every part of a comic have grown.  With perhaps the exception of the 90s, comic books have only gotten better and better. I for one am excited to see what the future holds. 

Week 3: Comic Strips

For this week, we had to delve into the topic of comic strips. I in particular chose to focus on Calvin and Hobbes. This title has always intrigued me but before this, I never found the time to sit down and really read some of Bill Watterson’s works. Considering the sheer amount of people I know who say Calvin and Hobbes is their favorite comic strip (a friend of mine has had a cat for 13 years named Mr. Hobbes), I was happy to finally join them.

What is interesting about comic strips is unlike  the form we typically equate with comics, comic books and graphic novels, comic strips must be accessible to all  and in small amounts. With exceptions to the rule with comics like Prince Valiant where there is a continuous ongoing story, the majority of comic strips must have a very contained story, limited to usually one line of panels or on occasion, a page. They tell their gag or their often humorous message and that is it for that story.

Calvin and Hobbes I found very interesting. It definitely played into the basic comic strip formula of small stories on a daily basis. The overall idea of the strip is its just following the adventures of Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, who he sees as a real friend. What I noticed was how many of these strips didn’t rely on that gimmick to be entertaining. While an original idea, to have a small kid talking to his plushie as if it were real, one would think that the stories would get old over time. However, Calvin and Hobbes is about more than that. It’s more of a slice of life story about this little boy’s childhood, and Hobbes just happens to be a part of that. In several strips, Hobbes isn’t even in there.

Calvin and Hobbes also showed me that comic strips didn’t need constant light hearted gags. On several occasions, it was bringing up rather large topics for a comic mostly about a kid playing pretend. One sticks out in my mind where he and Hobbes are racing in his wagon and are wondering about very complicated subject matters like fate.

Being a daily strip, the writer no doubt had to pull from a variety of sources to find inspiration. Strips like the one mentioned above could just be the writer’s commentary on such topics, a random thought that popped into his head turned into a strip. Other strips include subtle political commentary, comparing Calvin saying ‘no girls allowed’ in his tree house to full sex discrimination. Its a rather dark comparison, but it adds to the humor. Some strips I couldn’t even guess where they got the inspiration from, the ideas seeming so random, but I suppose when you need to make a strip a day, there’s no harm in it.

Week 2: "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud

Reading the book “Understanding Comics” brought to light several interesting concepts dealing with the comic media, many I had never actually thought of before. In particular, I found it intriguing how he brought up the idea that even in a single panel, there is passage of time.

Normally when thinking of comics, the time passes between panels. However the image, unlike single images of other media where the image is taken as a snapshot of an event, within comics, time can pass even in that single frame. I think I was always semi aware of this, but I didn’t even register the difference until this book pointed it out. Comics have their own flow, one thats so different from non comic illustrations and even from movies. Its like they are their own moving picture on a page.

How is this possible? Well as McCloud brings up, the inclusion of speech bubbles to an amazing job separating the events. We read it like a book where we see the flow of time through sentences. Reading draws the time out for our brains, and due to regular sentence structure, reading from left to right (or right to left as seen in manga), it allows us to follow the speech bubbles. Because of this odd delay due to the words, we have context for the art and are able to read it just as we are a sentence in any other book.

I do find it interesting that the term for enjoying a comic is to ‘read’ it, just as you would a book. Some would say comics are almost closer to illustrations or even movies but you ‘read’ neither of those. Instead you ‘look’ at a painting and you ‘watch’ a movie. Even wordless comics, such as “The Arrival” by Shaun Tan, we read them even though there are no speech bubbles. 

Week 1: "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan

The Arrival is a beautiful example of why stories can be told purely visually. The art itself, each image contains a narrative and due to the clarity words become unnecessary to get what needs to be said across. This combined with the flow of the panels help paint a larger picture. If the art itself are words, then the panel layout could be akin to punctuation.

The art, despite being very surrealist in places with creatures and buildings that look like they came from a Hieronymus Bosch painting, maintains a surprising level of realism. The people are all drawn in a very realistic style, perhaps letting the reader have a easy time identifying and understanding both their facial expressions and their actions. There is little room for guess work with these. Our protagonist is drawn scratching his head, looking just like a normal guy performing this same action. It is easily understood he is confused.

Another cue for what is going on in the story is far more subtle. The novel, despite containing only sepia tones shows an impressive display of color. It differs from scene to scene, which helps the viewer understand that we have moved on. It goes from being nearly grayscale in some scenes to being a much warmer very yellow tone in others. In the page with the clouds all in different colors and the flowers going through the seasons, it is a great way to show passage of time. 

The panel size is also an important story telling device you really can only get from graphic novels. The smaller the panel, typically the less important. The viewers eyes skim through them fast and collect the details needed in a pretty cursory way. Because of this, the time between smaller panels is represented as less. The huge page spreads often have huge amounts of detail and story contained within a single image so we can take in much more information. For each immigrant, a single large page is given in explanation for what was wrong with their old home. No words are needed but we understand what they are running from, no matter how surreal.

All these things carry emotion and despite not knowing word for word what was going on, we are still able to take in the full picture of this strange story. If anything, its more akin to how we take in information on a daily basis as opposed to reading a book.