Betty:
The first thing that struck me about this comic was how all the male characters still looked somewhat dorky and cartoonish while (mostly) the female characters looked like John Singer Sergent sketches. They were all incredibly elegant, especially Betty herself. A couple of pages back, there was a blurb of femine mystique and how female characters were becoming more prominent in comics. This was due to the rising of feminism and women finally being aloud to vote and have their own paying jobs. It makes me wonder why women weren't featured before in comics in other ways besides the "working gal" and the flapper.
Adventure Strips:
The adventure strips were noticeably different from the other comics that we have read for this class. They obviously had a continuous story line, instead of strips that continued to a continuous story, but could also be understood and enjoyed in one strip with their humor. I loved the more realistic artwork by Hal Foster.
Krazy Kat in Tiger Tea:
I had a hard time understanding what the ulterior message in this comic was. I understood the "tiger tea" as being a marijuana reference. Was the comic a statement about drugs/ drug use? Maybe. There was no proof wether Herriman ever smoked, or make this comic specifically about drugs. Was the comic about human nature? Could have been. It was most definitely funny and entertaining to read even though I had a hard time understanding what Krazy Kat was saying in his broken english.
(If there is someone who could explain the comic to me better, PLEASE HALP.)
He Done Her Wrong:
Again, I love Lynd Ward's work. I love his ability to be able to tell an entire story (and not an incredibly simple one) with practically no words. I liked how this book was a different style from some of the other work that we looked at in Wordless Books. The story was incredibly sweet and I was glad to see that the female character finally got her happy ending while being dragged around by the other characters. The huntsman was very funny. The artwork was fun to look at and made it easy to understand the story line. In some of Ward's other work, he uses a lot of symbolism that makes the reader take a longer time to look at each picture to understand the full meaning. He Done Her Wrong was definitely something more for the funnies, or a fun and quick read.
Note: He Done Her Wrong is not the work of Lynd Ward, but the work of Milt Gross. Hence the distinction of style.
ReplyDeleteFeminism seems to be an important topic for comics during this time frame. In Sunny Sue, the woman seems to be portrayed as sort of an airhead heartbreaker whom it seems you would not want to be in control of more things. She is also a more free woman in that she doesn't take a man, or show any want of childbearing and the home-maker wife. Where as in He Done Her Wrong, the woman starts out sort of helpless but she does work hard to take care of her family without a man around.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in Sunny Sue, I believe the beauty of the woman is important to the topic of the strip and the character, so it makes sense that emphasis was put on that and not at all on the men.
The adventure strips by Hal Foster, well I don't see them as being all that historic, but I guess as for what came before them, it is a bit. I think its realism is the important part. This sets its apart not only from most of the comics at the time, but also from animation as far as I know. Later on, the look was copied for animated cartoons, but not for a while. Which is different from the similarity in animation and comics then. I personally think that the realistic look is sort of boring. The characters tend to all look the same with different hair and clothes, and the large layouts are filled with lots of empty space. It just has more of an empty, stiff, and clean look.
It is also fun to note the difference in writing between Tarzan and Prince Valiant. Tarzan is fighting apes and a Pharoh, which seems really outlandish and extremely unrealistic compared to Hal Foster's story lines for Prince Valiant. But, Tarzan and the Val seem to be fairly similar characters. Apathetic and morally right characters that will always somehow beat the hell out of massive amounts of people/animals. This seems to be common with many hero characters at the time including the hero in He Done Her Wrong.
As for Krazy Kat and Tiger Tea... there definitely seems to be some link with Prohibition. Everyone wants the Tea when only Krazy Kat has it, causing him to hide it, only to find then when he does want to share it. No one wants it, because its no longer a rarity. I do agree with Lindsay though, that the story is really, really confusing. The plot seems to only exist to give some structure to the slap stick, and that it seems to be adjusted and changed as it goes on. Tiger Tea could be marijuana, or it could just stand for a substance that is taboo in general. It's so strange, I just feel comparing it to a specific substance in real life is just silly.
I liked He Done Her Wrong, it referenced lots of popular tropes of the time, it's readable to anyone that could afford it, he again is starting to think about passing, layout of images, and it has a clear story line which does more than just string along gags.
Krazy Kat and Tiger Tea was a fun read for me. I read that Herriman mostly made short comic strips that were featured in magazines and that this book that he made was kind of contrast to what he usually did. I loved it and I really wished that he had made more short story books with krazy Kat and his wild adventures. I also read that the tea in many ways could be a reference to marijuana but after reading the book I didn't really think of it as being that so much but instead something with a high caffeine content. I also agree that some of the writing in krazy kat is off the wall and I had to read it two or three times to understand it but after reading it for awhile I started to grasp the wording better and it became easier to read and understand.
ReplyDeleteHe Done Her Wrong was a classical comic/ early animation style. I am in animation history and I could see similarities in the styles of drawing: squash and stretch, exaggeration, rubbery limbs, etc. I liked reading that in order to make a comic even funnier, Ward make the guys' noses really big. The pictures in this book were simple but made reading the comic without words so easy to do.
hey... sorry I didn't mention before, but I would suggest He Done Her Wrong to the other groups out of the reading we did. As for the reasons mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteAnd next post, I will try on actually make a post and not just a comment (oops.)