Week 6 Underground Comics

This week reading the Underground Comics was definitely a change from what we have be reading a lot lately.  During this week I read some Air Pirates Funnies and it was definitely not what I was expecting.  These comics are written and drawn for an adult audience rather than the child/everyone audience.  The content was definitely polar opposites from what was in Little Nemo and Calvin and Hobbes.  The story that I read in the Air Pirates Funnies is Dirty Duck.  The drawings themselves are not even that welcoming.  The drawings are very scratchy and seem quite dark and gloomy on most.  The story that Dirty Duck partakes in is about him trying to get laid by this woman.  He goes into great extent to win this girl over for a one-night stand.  But in the end is rejected.  The story is definitely not child friendly but it does hold some morals to it.  At first I thought I was reading a comic that was going to highlight the stereotype that women are fools and blind to what is in front of them.  For a decent part this was the case.  But then the woman figure fought back and put the men in their place.  So the underlying moral would be not to fall into stereotypes and allow one to think for themselves.  This comic was definitely not as strong for adults as other were graphically but I still would not recommend it for children.  I would say that in creating this piece it was probably the artist thought to dial down the piece from what it could have escaladed to in order to produce sale numbers.  The piece does not look that harmful to the eye and in some cases is welcoming but the content holds it back to be viewed by the adult audience.

One thing that is definitely appealing in this comic is the gestures that are used in each shot.  In every frame there is an iconic gesture that is exaggerated to make it believable for the reader.  The lines of actions for the characters are clear and allow the reader to follow them through each frame.  This comic was interesting to read, but it is not quite my style.

Week 5 Body Talk

Blankets by Craig Thompson is a piece that reminded me who I am and where I come from.  Blankets is a book that is proof that using ones experience and past to better enhance a piece is sometimes not the easiest but the most successful way to connect to an audience.  Craig Thompson composed this book from his experience and relationships with family members and his first love.  Most people can relate back to when they had a crush or when they made the first steps into a relationship.  Thompson took experience that was relatable and began to draw and since then this book has become a major icon to those who have read it.  For myself this book is where I hope my goals will take me.  All of my life I have been putting myself out there and trying to gain as much experience as I can and observe everything as well.  This all gets put into a pool of knowledge that I can later reflect on when I am working.  Thompson succeeded in pulling the moment with his first love out of the pool of knowledge and placing the viewers in a position where they feel integrated into the piece.  The ability to integrate or transform people into believing they are actually partaking in the story is my goal, and Thompson accomplished it beautifully.

Blankets is not only composed very well but the drawings are heart-stomping.  The use of positive and negative space creates this surreal but realistic moment.  In a sense it is like a black and white movie.  It allows the reader to become involved and believed they have entered the piece, while taking them back in time to when they can relate with the content.  The contrast also creates space and gives the reader walking room for when they enter the piece-  it is more welcoming.  The positive and negative space is only one of the many things that I love about the construction of this book but it is by far my favorite.  Blankets was simply a mind-blowing piece to read and I highly recommend it!

Week 4 The Comic Book

This week I read a huge amount of Calvin and Hobbes.  I have regretfully never seen this comic strip before, or at least I do not remember seeing it.  As I was reading the comic strips my eyes were just blown away and I kept thinking “Where have you been all my life?”  This comic is amazingly composed.  Each strip is rather short which allows the viewers to not get stuck on the images for too long and in doing so adds to the comical narrative of the images themselves.  This strip brought me back to my childhood like Little Nemo did but in a completely different way.  In this strip I was more of the on looker and Calvin became one of my younger brothers or sister.

Looking back I have a lot of experience observing what little boys and girls do to pass the time and have fun.  I have four younger siblings so I had plenty of subject matter to watch.  My siblings were always doing some of the most ridiculous things, as was I.  Each strip Calvin and Hobbes triggers different memories in my past and allows me to reflect on what has happened over the past twenty years while having a good laugh.  From asking to drive the car at such a young age to playing with food to the little immature antics I was dissolved quickly into my past.  This trip back memory lane allowed me to refresh my awareness as to what has gone on all of the years and put that in a box of treasures.  When I go to work on my animation or an art piece I will refer back to my box of treasures and reflect on a memory from the past to add my experience to the piece.  Calvin and Hobbes is an extraordinary piece and it reflects what a young boy and his stuffed tiger would typically do at such a young age.  Calvin and Hobbes gives the reader short strips that leave them begging for more but also give them a great amount of information to reflect on their own experience.

Week 3 The Comic Strip

Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland was an absolute treat to read this week.  I was transformed back into a little girl again, with extravagant dreams of traveling the world.  Each new chapter in this story took me to another place, and I was under the impression I was actually there.  I do not think I was actually paying that much attention to the characters but more to the backgrounds and new places that the characters were going.  The characters were very stiff and were hard to relate to when actions didn’t seem like actions.  But the detail of the background completely pulled me into this new world. I am a sucker for detail and the way McCay structured each of the locations for Nemo to travel was simply fun to explore along with him. The locations were always changing and getting more complex as it goes on.  It was more intriguing to watch the locations then the characters that kept the same identity and profile through each story.  The stories also allowed for my imagination to run wild and really fall into each location and feel with the characters.

As I said earlier, I felt like not only was I taken to a new place but also traveled back in time when  a child’s imaginations is huge and the outcomes of their imagination is even bigger.  This book reminded me why I chose my career in computer animation and why I have an undying love for performing music. When I was a little girl I was so fascinated with movies especially animations and would be stuck in front of the television for hours.  Watching those show movies was my escape from what was normal in my day-to-day life.  After many year of watching movies I was hooked.  I was a huge fan of Disney and animations.  The ability to create characters to pull the audience out of their norm but bring them back down by making those characters believable in their setting I found intriguing.  So I am now studying as a computer animation student in order to one day create these escapes for a future audience.  My performance in music also allows the audience and myself to escape to a different place.  The style of the music sets the mood and the location.  No words are needed.  Just the interlocking sounds and the experience the audience brings with them, creates a the escape.  Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo was an amazing little comic to read.  I never would have though that one comic could take me to all different places and travel time, as well.

Week 2 Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics was a very interesting book, that I found the theories and chapters to be parallel to many things in life and not just comics.  Chapter Three, Blood in the Gutter, caught my eye as I was reading through because the theory deals a lot with what I work with today.  Blood in the Gutter is a chapter about the space that is left between each image in a comic strip that allows the reader to have closure.  McCloud goes into a great amount of detail about the different types of closure that the reader could be offered to participate in.  In this chapter the seven different types are:  moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene, aspect-to-aspect and non-sequitur.  The reader will try to create meaning of two juxtaposed images no matter what their content.  This theory applies to me in many ways including: in animation, poetry, music and design.  In animation each and every image is not drawn, instead the iconic images are drawn and the human brain uses gestalt to fill in the blanks.  In poetry, I tend to write in metaphors; by keeping each statement juxtaposed in the poem the audience will still comprehend it as one piece even if they do not understand the metaphor that has been laid out.  In poetry the metaphors also allow the reader to fill in the blank and disconnections with their experience and thoughts.  In design, artists many times try not to spill out everything for the audience.  Instead the artist will piece together multiple images to push the audience into getting a specific meaning.  This is where the blood in the gutter theory comes in.  Different images juxtaposed creates different meanings, just as each person viewing it will see it in a different light as well.  The content of each image triggers the viewers brain and tries to find connection and hugely influences what the outcome statement is..  As I read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud I was using my experience and knowledge to create closure in what he was writing and it lead me in a complete circle of all my daily practices.