Week 6 Reading

MAD Volume 1 and 2:

These comics were great. I love it when artists can make fun of each other and themselves. The little details in all the panels in both Superduperman and Bat Boy were great. I found that I was staring at each panel just trying to find the differences in the last one. Robin's changing pant patterns and logo was great, especially when Mickey Mouse somehow shows up. The other great thing about these comics, was it seemed a vast knowledge of the characters and story-lines wasn't necessary to understand the jokes. I love how Captain Marvel also made an appearance in the Superduperman comic.

Art in Time: Kona

The art in this comic was nice, but the text/ story was hard to understand. I could get a gist of what was going on but I didn't understand what was going on and why.. if that makes any sense. It was definitely very action packed, with all sorts of groups of creatures going after each other. It somewhat reminded me of that extremely long chase scene from Peter Jackson's King Kong. There was no breathing room for you to put together what was going on. I enjoyed looking at the different mutant creatures. The comic might have made more sense to me if I had read some of the previous comics.

Batman:

This comic was pretty adorable. Batman obviously cares about Robin like his own son. The story telling was great and the art was spotless. I haven't read enough Batman to really support this statement, but it seems that most of the Batman stories have villains with some kind of a mental illness or psychological problem and this was true in the comic we read except there was an interesting twist. Instead of someone attacking Robin, most of the danger was caused by Batman himself and the hallucinations left over from the stress test he was given. It wasn't until the end of the comic that Robin was put into any real danger, but Batman was able to come through and save his sidekick.

War Comics: Love Hawk and Souvenirs

The first comic was really interesting. I liked how the story was historically accurate and the manner that it was told. The imagery was beautiful as well. I can't imagine what it must have been like to fly in a plane all day for the sole purpose of bringing down enemy planes, and then being lucky enough to have a long, successful career and not be a martyr in the process.

This comic seemed to follow the Tales from the Crypt philosophy, where the bad man gets his just rewards in the end. It was one of the solider's greed that ended getting him killed, though it saved the rest of his troupe. It was an interesting twist. That must have been the same fate of the first man the troupe of soldiers found at the beginning of the comic.

Challengers of the Unknown:

The first comics with the metal man was pretty strange (as Jack had forewarned me). A bunch of scientific facts were used to make the technology and story seem more real, but somehow a ball of rolling force ray energy, when collided with the metal man, was able to knock him out with the Challengers being unhurt. What happened there?

The second comic about the mirage world was pretty awesome. It was fun to read. Again, the art and the nature of the story telling was great for both of these comics. I'm liking Challengers more and more, and will most likely end up reading more from the text book when I have some free time. I would gladly lend someone my copy, with the mirage world chapter bookmarked, as recommended reading.

Week3 readings.

I'm lost as to whether it's blog for this post, or for the discussion board. I'll play it safe and post it on both.. Sorry guys. ^.^;

Week 3 - Prize #3, Batman, Adventure and Court Cases

Starting off with Prize 3 comics, I neither found them enjoyable or interesting solely because they were horribly racist. Maybe thats why we were supposed to read them. I simply found it astonishing that blatant stereotyping was deemed ok, even back in the 1940's. I know the mindset at the time was completely different, but none the less...

In the first comic of Prize#3, the evil emperor and his son were obviously based off the asian stereotype with 1, trying to take over the world, 2, bright yellow skin and 3, they even shrink the prince to "midget" size by jumping into a strange alien pool.

Then in the next adventure comic, which somewhat reminded me of Indiana Jones, all the black characters acted more ape than human and could not speak english very well. The main character was able to frighten one of them off by simply letting the man play with his lighter, as if a black man had never had much experience with fire before. Who knows, I could be reading into this too much and it wasn't meant to be viewed in this manner, but for some reason these comics got my goat as I was reading them.

I did however, find the Batman comic very interesting. I had never seen any of the old artwork before and thought it was funny how actual vampires showed up in the early story lines. I had to read the comic a few times before I fully understood what was going on. The story telling was a bit disjoined because there was nothing in the strip to signify the passage of time. Everything seemed to be happening at once. Other then that, it was enjoyable.

My favorite reading from this week was definitely Terry and the Pirates. From the individual strips, it was easy to get a grasp on who the characters were and their different personalities. I liked the group of them instantly. The strip where two of the characters found a friend of theirs dying after falling out of the back of the truck nearly made me tear up.

Terry and the Pirates is definitely something I would recommend to other comic readers.

The court case was incredibly difficult for me to get through. Ken Quattro's comments and summaries at the end of each posting helped me to understand what was going on. I still don't think I understand entirely was what going on in the case, though I did enjoy how short tempered the judge seemed to be. I'm definitely going to have to print out this case and re-read it again.

Week 2/3 Reading

Comics before 1945-

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.