Week 9 Wide World of Comics

I read The Black Incal by Moebius and Jodorowsky. This comic is set in the future and the main character's name is John Difool. His job is a private investigator and he is sort of like the anti-hero in main of the old Noir films. He is kind of rough looking, hasn't shaved in a whole, his clothes and all messed up, and he's got bandaids where he has been hit. Like the detectives from Noir, his motives are not totally pure and he hangs out with robot hookers and people from the more shady side of life. He finds the incal but doesn't exactly understand it or its power.

As far as the layout of the comic goes, it uses 4 basic colors in vibrant tones and with variations of it. The figures are realistic with all the usual body parts, but there are lots of nonhumans type monsters. The layout is usually 5-6 panels per page that are easy to follow but the speech bubbles are all over the place and very confusing. It's fun that they use the old fashioned word art for the sound effects such as KPOW!

Parts of the story are like ironic fairy tales. For example, he meets a princess that looks so pure, she is drawn with a halo. She pays him to take her to a place seek pleasure for kinky desire but if he doesn't get her back by midnight he doesn't get paid. She has sex with a freaky dog man and when Difool tries to get her to go home, she turns the dog man on him. The ironic part is that while they fight it turns midnight and she turns into a saggy old lady. I don't really don't see a difference with this comic compared to the ones in the U.S.

Week 8 Stereotypes in Comics

Of course various racist have been stereotyped in comics. For example, Asian Americans are either the brilliant scientist or the Kung fo master. African Americans are dark superheroes like Black Panther or Spiderman's alter ego. In some of the older comics, African Americans are pictured as less intelligent and of the poor working class. However, things have improved in these groups in recent comics. But one group is still objectified are women, whether its Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, they are all illustrated to be sexy symbols. Even in the Archie comics, which are supposed to be typical high school girls, they wear tight sweaters, have big boobs, and are not always very bright. One more recent example is Aeon Flux. She had an amazing body and wear tight clothes but she is a total badass. She can kick any man's butt. So if women are going to be objectified, a least now they can kick butt.

Week 7 Maus

Maus by Art Spiegelman is set in the 1950s after WWII and is the author's retelling of his father's story in Auschwitz. The cats are the Nazi and the mice are the Jews. It's all black and white, which is appropriate for this story because its a dark subject. It is considered to be the first graphic novel because this book is not recommended for children. This started a whole new genre, and I'm glad because I enjoy this type of style of "comics". I do think this story gives cats a bad name because I see cats as nice and cuddly and in this story that is considered the bad guys,

One image that does a good job of making this novel reflect the horror of this time is the title art for Chapter 4. A group of mice is being hanged. Some have their heads down and some have their mouths open crying for help. I think it's strange that someone would make a comic about the holocaust, I'm sure the people of the 1950s thought the same thing.

It does get a little confusing sometimes when the story goes back and forth between the 1950s and the war. Unlike graphic novels today, they don't show a lot of blood and gore when someone was being beaten. We find out that the artist's mother commits suicide in the end because she can't live with what has happened. 

Week 6 Underground Comics

For underground comics, I read Dirty Duck that was published in the Mickey Mouse Airpirates funnies. It didn't say what year it was published but they talked about being on acid and talking about the war, I would say this was from the late 1960s to the early1970s. The illustrations are poorly executed and the graphic/text is very hard to read. However, that is the point. The Dirty Dick's name fixes well for this story because he is pretty raunchy and his behavior is very crude. The artist has included a lot of penis symbols that were not very settled. The storylines are very weak and don't really make a whole lot of sense, but he does make some references to events of that time. For example, he says his friend might get taken by the CIA. Nudity is there but not dominant. The duck always wants to have sex with the female characters even though he's older. I like the part was the music student hits the duck with a boxing glove for being a creep but that really doesn't stop him. He eventually wants to kill himself because he was rejected by the girl but he changes his mind in the end. I don't exactly understand why people liked or wanted to read these comics because the illustrations are bad and the writing/story is terrible. Many people like them because they are underground.