Eisner

Eisner and Thompson aren't just comic book artists, they are narrators. I enjoy Contract with God and the different characters stories and how in depth they are. However, Eisner tells human stories, where Thompson tells stories with subhuman characters with surrealistic settings. I have to say I was shocked that Thompson made up this adventure in, Doot Doot Garden, where two characters go floating down a diarrhea river and eat poop. Quite disturbing. But, perhaps he was trying to make commentary about something that was going on at the time.

I very much like Eisner's drawing/ pen and ink work. His characters have a lot of expression in the character him or herself, without the words to explain. In Contract with God his stories take place during the depression in New York City. Many of his characters in this story have a deep depressing story attached to them. You can tell that life during that time must have been very hard.
In his comics there are also lot  of reflection and going from past to present. I also like how the page is open to text and the image as well, and not confined to panels. Such as when the Jewish man looses his daughter to sickness and he comes back to the present to explain why he is breaking his contract with God. Of Course Eisner, writes for a mature audience because he writes about sex, scandal, and drugs in his comics. During the time he must have had a hard time selling his comics because comics were frond upon, not only that but mostly kids were thought to read comics. He must have been apart of this sort of underground comic book readers club.

Blankets is a very compelling story about how this characters goes through periods of changes in his faith and his art and also how his religion affects his art. Also about he is afraid to tell his parents that he is no longer a christian. The little things are stressed the most in this graphic novel and they seemed to be the most important things in this character's life. There is a precious moment where him and his brother are trying to catch the static electricity in the blankets. Fairies they called them. This is one of the moments that this graphic novel is named after. It also could be referring to loosing his virginity to the beautiful girl from his summer camp. It also could be referring to hiding under the blankets. Because he is a very sad and afraid teenager, because he is grunge and his high school is out in the country filled with cowboys who bully him. It also could be a symbol for being blind or ignorant. One other thing i can think of blankets symbolizing is to seek and want comfort and security in life.

Both stories are very heavy and not a light read at all. Both having a conflict with faith in god themselves, and humanity.

The Comic Book

The difference I see between Carl Barks, and Tin Tin; and Ec comics are the age differences. Carl Barks and Tin Tin are for the younger age groups; and Ec are for a mature audience. The way Donald Duck and Tin Tin are drawn in a whimsical fashion with bright colors and lots of fluidly drawn movement and action; and unrealistically drawn. Where as EC comic books are stagnant, detailed, pen and ink work; realistically drawn, and the text speaks for most of the action portraid. The format for the Ec books is more on the lines of a graphic novel with the story at the top of the page typed like a novel and  the drawing is on the bottom of the page. It pretty much is a traditional written novel with a illustration on each page. The comics are mostly told through speech/ speech bubbles. Also the context of the comics with Donald Duck and Tin Tin the problems in the comic are light hearted and slap stick. Where as the Carl Barks comics are murder mysteries. As you grew up during this time I think you would read Donald Duck comics first, then Tin Tin, and then Ec. Tin Tin is the sort of in between the two it has the light heartedness of Ec with the mystery of Carl Barks, but doesn't go as far as murder. As the number of pages differed from the Ec Comics being the shortest and Tin Tin and Ec being the longest comics. I think Carl Barks had a shorter number of pages because the audience which is children would have shorter attention spans which ment less time reading.

Understanding Comics

I enjoyed the part of the comic where it talked Japan's manga comics and how sometimes they use detail to emphasise importance of objects. Such as, when the narrator cartoon guy was swinging the sword around and it looked cartoony and we got the information. But, when he stopped to look at the sword it looked very detailed and beautiful. I think that this techique is good at showing extreems. Such as ugly or beautiful. Take for instance Spongebob. The world they are drawn in is pretty neutral or basically drawn, however, when they zoom in on a characters face and it is drawn detailed, it looks very ugly. You can see every poor and pimple and wrinkle on the cute cartoon's face and its funny. 

 

I have to say that I do like western cartoons and comics, compared to most Japanese cartoons and comics. First thing that bugs me is the lack of originality. It seems that Western cartoons are more iconic than Japanesse ones. Like it says in the comic most people respond better to icons. There are many cartoon characters from America, that I would recognise if they were only siloettes. However, there are only two I think I would regonize from Japan and that would be Sailor Moon. It's because of the iconic hair and outfit. Nothing else besides the distinct hair and clothes are very original about the way it is drawn. 

   

One other thing I do not like about Japanese comics is the very detailed backgrounds and the simplified characters. I think it looks very mismached and it is honestly pretty hard to look at and it gives me a headache. Because, in my mind the two should not match up together. I feel that detail in cartoons should only be enphasised very limitedly and only in times of importance. 

Speaking of detail I also really enjoyed the part of the comic where the little narrator man talked about how detail could be distracting from the message. In the one pannel he is drawn more detailed an more realistic. I was paying attention to him more than what he was saying. Rather than the simplified recognizable drawn version of him, the message did not have to compete. I also perfer western cartoons  to Japanese comics and cartoons because, usually Japanese cartoons have more of a complex story behind them and a lot is going on and the cartoon is drawn simple. I find it very mixed matched and unejoyable. Take X-men comics and superhero comics in general. X-men is a very detailed comic with a very complex and layered story. I find the two to go together. Perhaps culture has another factor in preferance. Maybe I don't enjoy the Manga comics is because of the culture difference. It is something I  may have to learn to understand. 

The Comic Strip- Little Nemo, Peanuts, and Krazy Kat

I didn't realize that a lot of animated cartoons came from the classic comic strip a person would read in the paper. When I was a kid i loved the peanuts cartoon, pop-eye, and little nemo cartoons shown on tv and vhs. I like Lucy's character in the peanuts series. In the comic strip it seems more apparent that Lucy has a thing for Charlie Brown. However, in the cartoon series she is more mean to him, so no one will know that she likes him. It is funny how kids use reverse physiology in a romantic sense maybe because they are a stranger to romantic feelings and they do not know how to react. Maybe they are even afraid someone will make fun of them for liking someone before puberty hits and its cool to have a mate. This is the classic case with a lot of kid characters such as Helga on Hey Arnold!, a classic 90s Nickelodeon cartoon. She is mean and hateful to his face, but ends up stalking him and making poetry about how in love she is with him. I see similarities between the two cartoon couples. Like Helga, Lucy is bossy and aggressive, where as Charlie Brown, like Arnold, is calm, and patient and willing to listen. They balance each other out making them a perfect match. The Peanuts have a variety that many different kids can relate to. Pig pen, "the kid who doesn't bathe"; Linus, "the kid with attachment issues", he never let go of his blanket; Sassy, "the annoying little sister who has a crush on your best friend", etc. I find it funny that they always make fun of Peppermint Patty as being a lesbian in multiple parodies who is usually in a relationship with her nerdy best friend Marcie. She is of course made fun of as the lesbian because she is a tom boy.  However, they never make fun of a character being a boy and also gay, because either, it is not apparent, or as a society it is inappropriate to be a gay man. However, i think that Schroeder is they gay boy character. He is the reserved artsy type that doesn't usually get involved. Lucy is openly attracted to him because is the cool guy, and mysterious which attracts her. She won't be criticized for liking him. However, Schroeder ignores her, which makes Lucy want his attention even more. One more observation can't go without notice is, like Archie, there are no minorities.

I did find some minorities in the Nemo comics how ever. Of course though they were depicted as servants because of the time period they were made. Black people were depicted as enjoying there oppressed position. Because, having rebellious black people in the comics would be too inappropriate for publication at the time. However, I can understand how children would like the comics of Little Nemo in slumberland because it is playful,circus like, and fantastic. My favorite scene would probably have to be the walking bed. There also is another way black people are represented in this comic, as savages. The Imp is a character that plays tricks on people and is uncivilized, he is a racial caricature of native Africans. Black people are represented as either servants, or savages but never quite so civilized, or people of mainstream society. Other companions in Nemo's world is flip. Who is a clown that is Nemo's nemesis and then becomes his friend. It is not indicated whether or not flip is a small man or a child even though he does smoke cigars and hints at a balding hairline. I think his character is suppose to represent a fool, a man who never grew up; possibly even being a disobedient kid. There is also a princess in the comic which Nemo denies an attraction to. And there is her father who is king Morpheus, who is the god of dreams in greek mythology. There is a lot of mythology in this comic strip from ancient to religions and also focus towards biblical stories and Christianity. There is a nightmare realm with a demon as its ruler which represents the devil and evil, and king Morpheus who be god, and slumberland would be heaven because it is place of safety and fun, child-like and without sin. There is also a hint at the story of Pandora where Zeus tells her not to open the box and she does anyway. King Morpheus gives Nemo the key to the city that will unlock any door. But, he must never unlock the door with the symbol of the key on it. Flip ends up convincing Nemo to open the door and he lets evil or the nightmare back into the world. This is also an interpretation of Adam and Eve. Eve being Flip, and Nemo being Adam.

Lastly, Krazy Kat is an interesting comic strip where a mouse keeps hitting a cat with a brick. It looks like a retro tom and Jerry cartoon, but it is the mouse that is hunting the cat which is ironically funny. The slapstick in the comic gives inspiration to later cartoons such as Looney Toons. The in these cartoons one animal is always trying to hunt another, like Elmer Fudd is trying to hunt Bugs Bunny and Bugs Bunny is trying to convince Elmer to hunt Daffy Duck instead. Or the road runner vs. wild e. coyote.  Also, i can see where Matt Groening, got his idea for the Simpsons cartoon. Lisa and Bart watch the show Itchy and Skraty where a mouse hunts a cat ironically. However, it goes beyond slap stick humor, and shows shows the mouse chain sawing the cat's body inhalf and his blood and guts shoot every which way. I think that Matt Groening was intentionally trying to parodies the violence in cartoons.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

A wordless graphic novel is universal. By making up a written language and by relying on only body gestures to understand the story, everyone can experience what it may have been like to be a foreigner migrating to America through Ellis Island. I think it is profound that the Shaun Tan kept the people the same, but changed the architecture, animals, plants/ food, and machinery. I think what Shaun Tan was trying to say is that people are generally same everywhere, the atmosphere, culture, and language just changes. One can really feel the anxiety that the character goes through by making the architecture larger than life, and the culture somewhat futuristic and alien like. Everyone can relate to this graphic novel because everyone in their life has felt alienated, whether it is going on a vacation to an unfamiliar place, being the the new kid at school, or moving away from home to go to college, or the first day at a new job, etc. However, we adapt to survive. Just as the main character does. I like at the end of the story where the main character's daughter is showing the new comer the way around the city. It shows that she has already submersed herself in the culture. It is always the younger generation who adapts the best to new surroundings, and the mature are more set in their ways. I imagine what the story, told through the eyes of the main character's daughter, would be like. I imagine that when she arrives to this strange wacky city things look as they do, but, over time the atmosphere because more recognizable to new yorkers or Americans. Such as the buildings take shape from big pyramid like shapes, to sky scraper rectangles; gibberish becomes English, and the weird lizard like pet, turns into a recognizable dog. It would be interesting in using the elements in this story, but use them to tell a story about racism or immigrants. Perhaps there could be a main character that lives his everyday life and then suddenly these strange people could show up in his city. They maybe wearing goofy outfits or something of that nature; something to set them apart from the norm of the city. The story would be about them trying to get along with the people of the city and the moral would be people are just people we don't need to be afraid of them. I'll maybe think about this for my thesis. Anyway, the drawings are beautiful in this graphic novel and some of the pages are incredibly detailed. I wonder however why he did make the images black and white. Perhaps that was the easiest choice for production. However, there are uses of cool shades and warm shades in the sketches. Maybe this is a universal easy way to show positive or negative energy, rather than color. I could also be a way to show the difference between day and night.