King by Ho Che Anderson

    King is a graphic biography of Martin Luther king jr.. The New York Times summarized it best by saying, "[King] is a study in extremes. Stark, uniform black-and-white panels contain talking heads: a Greek chorus providing varying opinions and historical background. Among these, Mr. Anderson inserts montages full of raw, visceral energy. At times, tightly-rendered grids give way to near-collage, in which retouched photography is melded with oblique, loosely sketched forms that convey an ominous tension with moody imprecision. Violent eruptions splay into vast,painterly tableaus, as in the Birmingham riots of 1963."
    For me it was more moving and moody due to the black-and-white portraits that the New York Times mentions. The panels are striking due to Anderson using no gradients, no hatching, just stark black on white, white on black. I also thought it was interesting how in the panels with "the witnesses" that he has multiple people and in order to recognize them each individually, he has the same portrait each time the same person speaks rather than having them change in position. Along with this, when Anderson gets into his larger panels (one's that are not just portraits) he really plays with space. For example in some he makes taller than need be to add a looming dark space above the scene.
      Another thing to note in Anderson's work, is that he writes, before he goes into the comic, a little background about both Martin and the historical context in which he was living. Then when you get into his actual text in the word bubbles he quotes people. Meaning, he lets the characters speak like they normally would with out cleaning anything up. They curse, use slang, etc. I also like that in some panels where no one is speaking, he has the radio on playing a tune from the era and in one imparticular, the first time we see this, he has the words flow in and out of the panels like they are swaying to the song and finally end up looking as if they are coming out of the jukebox.
And I truely think the image for the back of the book is really quite breathtaking. (See image below)

Maus by Art Speigelman

         "Maus" is very interesting on multiple levels. It brought the graphic novel into mainstream literature, while also transferred the Underground Art Movement from being just comics to being Literary "Art" comics. It puts on display a man's recollection of his life in Poland during the war- the Holocaust- therefore dealing with the experience of time and the nature of memory. To soften the hard truth of the man recollection, Art Spiegelman illustrates this work using mice, cats and pigs. I believe this is so that we can read about a tough subject without completely putting ourselves in  the situation. By using animals instead of humans, I believe our view of the work changes greatly. Some might say it degrades the war and what happened by using animals, but I believe it is just to make a subject most would rather not talk about more bearable.
        It is also interesting that this comic was not originally written in English and therefore we read it differently, as well, because of this. For example, one translation reads, "Lived happy happy ever after" instead of the phrase we all know to be "lived happily ever after".  Another would be "I ran out to my friend what introduced us" instead of, "I ran out 'on' my friend 'who' introduced us".
        Also, this graphic novel has chapters which also makes it seem more like a novel rather than a ordinary comic. Each chapter is highlighted by a stand alone spot illustration panel that seem almost like mini book covers.
      I think, going back to the idea of having mice, cats and pigs, that it is interesting and something to discuss about the roles in which these animals play. The book is called "Maus" meaning mouse, so obviously the main characters are mice. The story begins with a son asking his "poppa" to tell him of his past. This goes into talking about the war and how Poppa, also know as Valdek (a jewish mouse), became a solider. During his time he became a captive by the German Nazi's who are depicted as felines. This is fitting because cats eat mice, mice run from cats, cats are in control. Therefore in the story as well, the cats being Nazi soldiers is seen as natural. Then you have the pigs. The first pig we encounter is a train man. He ends up helping Valdek escape the German's only because Valdek himself is disguised as a pig. So the pigs are somewhat neutral in the story.
      Spiegelman's art is also not to be forgotten. In this graphic novel he chooses to use pen and ink with no color. His characters are somewhat simple in their line work to contrast with the rough topic. He uses a lot of hatching to shade both the background but also to darken a figure in the foreground to bring attention to a figure in the back. He also uses many patterns on shirts on wood, etc to give the images a little more to look at. But in scenes with crowds he does not use much detail in describing the forms. He just uses squiggles or rough shapes to indicate their presence. For example, look at the panels from "Maus" below.

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          All in all, Maus is nice also, because not only does it recount a tough subject, but it also tells a story about a man and his fight to survive and what he does on his journey to being who he becomes. For example, he tells of how he met his wife, when he had his first child, etc. He also tells of how he was forced to sleep in the cold, eat almost nothing, choose between staying in these poor conditions or helping the Nazi's by volunteering for labor work. At least in doing this he kept himself alive.

Robert Crumb: Mr. Natural

        So... not a fan of this one. I new that from the beginning, especially being an underground comic, that this particular comic would be geared toward a more "mature" adult audience. But honestly, I did not expect it to be on the fine line of pornographic. To say the least, I would not ever read Crumbs comics again. I think that Mr. Natural is interesting, in that, people find him to be wise even though he is mischievous and I think the stories about him meditating are clever. But, having a baby face on a naked adult female is not my idea of entertaining. It is disturbing and even more so when Mr.Natural feeds the "big baby" his penis. I don't think things of this nature should be written, and I don't think they should ever be illustrated. So, due to this I only read a small amount of Robert Crumbs work due to the fact that I find it rather offending. I do have a comment about one other thing though. Crumb seems to be almost racist when it comes to black people. He puts them into his stories, but portrays them as being poor or hoodlum type people. He also draws them almost in the way you would draw a clown. They have big noses sitting atop these big outlined mouths (an example is below).

Blankets by Craig Thompson

     I was not able to read much of Thompson's work so I can not give a precise review. But, what I have seen and read I will discuss. I have read a couple pages of Thompson's work "Blanket". I can see from this that Thompson pulls a lot of his tales from his own life. For example, the very first story in Blankets is  called "Cubby Hole". This story is all about how when Thompson was younger, he shared a bed with his brother, or more like was forced into the same bed as his brother. His annoying brother who would not let him sleep and complained of his stealing the covers (which he did on purpose). I feel a lot of people reading this can relate. For his audience is more geared toward the young adult-adult consumer. Therefore, his audience is old enough to enjoy reminiscing on there childhood, amongst other things. As Publisher's weekly so nicely says, "Thompson manages to explore adolescent social yearnings, the power of young love and the complexities of sexual attraction with a rare combination of sincerity, pictorial lyricism and taste." I especially love Thompson's use of thin and thick line work. He to has a way of creating a certain mood through his line work like Eisner, but in a more simplified way. Unlike Eisner's characters, Thompson's are a little more playful and soft. They have a  bit more curve to them. This is why I would say that i enjoy Thompson's work a little more than Eisner's. I especially love this panel in Thompson's work from "Cubby Hole" in "Blankets":

Will Eisner

     Will Eisner's comic is more like a comic book full of short stories. Before I started reading I got the impression that Eisner's work would be more like that of  Disney for the mere fact that his signature resembles that of Walt Disney's. But all to soon this thought was done away with by reading "A Contract with God","The Street Singer", "The Super" and "Cookalein". I read "A Contract with God" first and had the idea that Eisner liked to write about people's problems and about their lives and that he may even be religious or used to be religious. But then I continued to read the others and began to see rather quickly that Eisner had the fancy to write about the naughty things people do or get themselves into. In fact, it is the first comic I have seen which has, not only nudity, but sexual activity going on. I will say, I think it is nice how Eisner sets his story up. I like how he does pages of text with spot illustrations to set the scene before he has his characters say anything (an example is below). Also, like you can see above, his illustration's themselves are also rather good. He does not use color, but his line work is very skillful. I love how he lets things disappear and only shows what is need to make the mood and/ or the point of what he wants to say. I also noticed that most all of his stories end badly. The man who made the contract with God dies, the Super is framed for raping a ten year old and kills himself, the singer forgets the alley in which Maria found him and therefore will not become a famous singer like he planned, etc. But as well, all that die or are in trouble by the end of the story are those who created mischief anyway. For example, the guy that made a contract with God used the churches money for his own pleasure, the singer cheated on his pregnant wife and child, and the super paid a nickel to look at the ten year old girl. Lastly, I think Eisner was very big on stereotyping and I know he made some comments towards Jewish people especially.