Week 7: Maus and the Legitimization of the Graphic Novel

Art Spiegelman's Maus, is an illustrated interview where he asks his father about surviving the Holocaust. The story is dramatic, emotional, and gripping. Spiegelman presents his father's story in a straightforward cartoon way, with Jews represented as mice and Nazis as cats. The simple mouse masks make it easy for readers to empathize with the protagonists. Along with the eloquent visual storytelling, they make the book easily accessible to non-comic readers. The cartoon style and anthropomorphic allow the reader to approach otherwise horrific situations in a direct way, without the use realistically explicit images, while still retaining the power of the experience.

The present day sequences give us an unsentimental portrait of this survivor of the death camp. Spiegelman doesn't glamorize his father as some sort of hero. Vladek, his father, comes across as irritating, manipulative, exasperating, and even bigoted. I wasn't expecting some humor, but it was there, though often wry and situational. It's a very rich, well-rounded book that opens your eyes more about the experiences that survivors of Auschwitz and other death camps went through to tell their amazing, emotional stories of life and death.  

Week 6: Underground Comics

Robert Crumb's Whiteman is about a family going camping in the woods and the father takes his two kids out to explore nature. While the kids are wanting to stay out longer and look for "bigfoot," they leave their dad behind because they claim to have seen a footprint of the creature. The dad is left alone in the woods chasing after his children when out of nowhere a hairy creature kidnaps the Whitman in sack and brings him back to his pack. Sexual encounters are had between the man and the female yeti. The man falls in love with the yeti and wants to stay with her.

The story reminds me a bit of Peter Jackson's King Kong with how the giant ape was fascinated by a female human. Instead of unimaginable, sexual encounters ensuing with that of Whiteman, the beast falls to his death. I've read another piece of Crumb's and I have to say, he's pretty out there. I read one story of his where he talked about his life, basically bragging about his current life, and takes us back to when he was in his mother's womb (literally.) We are treated to a graphic birth of Crumb submerging out of his mother's womb. The mother proceeds to have sexual encounters with her newborn baby but luckily the father walks in and asks what the mother is doing and she immediately stops (looking upset that her husband was home.) Newborn Crumb tries to escape literally back into his mother's womb but the father pulls him back out and tells him that he needs to get a job. Crumb is then kicked out and cries as he has to look for a job.

I don't think I'll ever understand Crumb's disturbing, crude, sexual, works as he is said to have taken LSD and claims to not like drugs after his experience with it. I beg to differ.

Week 3: The Comic Strip

For this week I read some Calvin and Hobbes. Growing up, I never got around to reading these sort of classic "newspaper funnies;" I was thrilled to have the opportunity to finally read a well known classic that has always intrigued me. This is undoubtedly one of the most popular comic strips of all time. Calvin, a young precocious little boy who's imagination runs wild, while sharing the world and adventures around him with his stuffed (imaginary) best friend Hobbes.

What's attracted me the most to this multitude of adorable comic strips, is that it's not written for kids. It's completely appropriate for children but there is so much depth and subtlety to the comic. There's a lot of culture criticism, commentary, and focus on the media and the environment. The kid is outright sweet but mischievous with an imaginary best friend. But there's a darker element to Calvin and his tiger. At times, the strip makes you wonder: is there something wrong with Calvin? Should he be receiving some kind of therapy?

I've gone through and read a lot more of Calvin and Hobbes recently, one particular story that felt unsettling to me was where Calvin begins receiving letters from an unknown writer; they come marked with a skull and crossbones and the must be decoded. And what happens is that the letters are actually coming from Calvin's own house. Which means that Hobbes wrote and sent them. Which if you recall, is impossible, because Hobbes is an imaginary tiger. And Calvin honestly does not remember writing and sending these messages to himself, which means that he probably has a serious case of multiple personalities disorder. So the question becomes: what sort of tragedy has Calvin suffered that has fractured his personality thusly? It's a troubling question, for me, at least.

Calvin and Hobbes captures a type of magic. The humor dances between many levels, brilliant visual comedy, erudite observation, poignant insight, laugh out loud slap-stick, and just feel good stuff that touches everyone who has really lived.

Week 5: Body Talk: Eisner and Thompson

Will Eisner's A Contract with God is a collection of four short stories set in the 30's era fictional Bronx neighborhood. In Eisner's world, the denizens of the Bronx gossip about their neighbors, scheme to escape the terrible realities of tenement life, and hang an endless supply of laundry to dry. Families fall apart over the weekend and drunks fling their infant children across rooms in drunken rages. A whole page is even devoted to the word "Shaddap!" There is a surprising sexual frankness in three of the four narratives. Women are objects and sex is either portrayed as infidelity, desperate attempts at personal gain, or attempted rape.

In this story, Eisner figuratively draws his characters and situations in this very sketchy line work. Some of it is pleasing to look at, while other parts of the story's line work is just hard to make out because the lines are used for the values as well. Simplistic lessons abound: honesty is good, greed is bad, and no man is above God. His characters emote hugely and gesticulate wildly, often with a fist raised to the heavens.

Week 4: The Comic Book

For this week I read Action Comics #1; the first time the world is introduced to the Man of Steel, Superman. This comic featured a few separate stories, only the first of which featured Superman. This was also the first appearance of Lois Lane, the reporter at Daily Planet who becomes a staple of most Superman stories. A difference that I noticed in this story compared to the more established Superman histories: Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent, works at the Daily Star newspaper, not the Daily Planet.

The Superman story in Action Comics #1 gives the first details of Superman's origins, explaining that he is from another planet and was sent by his scientist father to Earth in an attempt to save the infant Kal-El's life from their dying planet, Krypton. On Earth, he is discovered by the Kents, who raise him as their own and name him Clark. There's a scientific explanation for Clark's amazing strength, in the form of ants and grasshoppers.

While it's true that Superman's adventures only last 13 pages, much is accomplished in them. His powers were a result of him being millions of years more evolved than humans, while the planet he came from (which the name is never mentioned neither his birth parents' names,) is said to have died of "old age," indicating that the people of this world have been alive much longer than humans.

Siegel and Shuster, Superman's creators, would have no idea how successful their character would become. He would go on to inspire other heroes like Batman, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, and many more. In truth, every superhero ever created owes their existence to the Man of Steel and this comic.

Week 2: Understanding Comics

In Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, he examines comics as an art form. Understanding Comics is truly a comic book written about comics as a literary and artistic medium. He explains the fundamentals of genre, including the passage of time, depiction of motion, and broad interpretation by the reader as elements unique to comics. 

He also provides a detailed history of the medium, along with examples of various styles and strategies used. He provides the book with examples of the works of some of the most well known comics artists in the world, along with the techniques that make them notable in the evolution of comics. McCloud provides plenty of visuals in order to demonstrate each concept he introduces. He contrasts the work of both Eastern and Western artists, and points out the influences of many non-comics artistic masters, including Picasso and Monet.

The six steps involved in creating any art form are examined in detail. Although he insists that all artists will follow some variation of this formula, he also makes the argument that only creators choosing to focus on ideas and concepts over form will actually elevate the medium to a higher level. There are brief discusses of the pros and cons of using color to illustrate images, especially by means of the traditional four-color process used in the United States.

The influence of Expressionism on comics is also reviewed. Examples are shown of ways in which different comics artists convey mood and appeal to the readers’ senses. Emotion through use of different images is analyzed, either with or without the addition of word balloons and sound effects.

Week 1: The Graphic Narrative

Shaun Tan's The Arrival is truly captivating. There were no words in this graphic novel. No dialogs, no written sentences, nothing. But as I realized throughout my read, they weren't needed. The mesmerizing art was enough. Never have I read such a graphic novel before without the use of words with all the emotion in the illustrations! The story was poignant and I loved how realistically it portrayed immigrants and how metaphorically and fantastically the author drew the world-building and settings.

A man says goodbye to his wife and daughter, and sets out, taking only a suitcase containing a precious photograph of his family. He leaves a dark and ominous city for a journey across the sea. Days pass, each depicted by a drawing of the sky. The ship enters the harbor and a strange new world is revealed. The man is examined, catalogued, and labeled. Then he ventures forth into an amazing city. He is bombarded by new sights and sounds; everywhere he looks there is something he's never seen before. Even the food is strange. He doesn't speak the language and must draw pictures of what he needs.

Aside for the graphics and settings, what I loved the most was the fact that, not only we could see the main character's experience at traveling and changing completely of surrounding, but also the people that he meets on his way and that gave him some support. It was breathtakingly captivating. My only complaint is that I felt was too short. It could have been longer, because every scene lasted less than two minutes or so. That did give some unrealism to the story - not including the settings which I like to consider well-fitting. It would also have been interesting to get to know his wife and child better, with some more scenes including them.

Adults will appreciate the simple story of a stranger in a foreign land, while children will be enraptured by the amazing drawings of fantastical creatures that populate this magical world. This is just a wonderful book to be looked at again and again, and a powerful reminder that we are all immigrants here.