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.

Barks, Herge and Spielgelman

   Carl Barks' comics about Donald Duck and his nephews are full of humor and whit.  I think its is important to note that whenever he has Huey, Dewey or Louie speak he has it as if they are three in one. They all finish each others sentences like true triplets. They are basically three ducks with the same brain. They are mostly doing the same action and are continuously right next to each other, no matter what. I also find it interesting that in some of his stories, each panel is exactly the same in width and height and are set in a grid format, while others are more old fashioned in the grid format. They are still equal in height (if in the same row), but are not all equal in width. This is seen especially when Barks introduces Scrooge. I love also, how Donald Duck is always getting out-witted (normally by his three clever nephews). For example, in one Barks has Donald Duck and the boys enter into a horse racing contest. Donald thinks he is smart when he gives the horse in the boys stable to much food so that it will be fat and slow in the morning. The boys, on the other hand, are clever enough to know their uncle, whom they call "Unca Donald", would try to play a trick on them so they switched the their horse with Donald's.  In the end Donald ended up feeding his horse to much resulting in a sluggish, fat, slow horse for the race. Throughout this tale Donald tries anything to beat the boys, but all fails as always, and the boys win the race.
   
     All I said above does not at all apply to how Herge's Tin Tin adventures are told. First, the Tin Tin stories are much, much longer. There are more characters and more science involved. Not to mention the fact that Tin Tin is not a talking duck, but a boy who can venture to the moon. It is written more like a book than a comic in some areas, where you have long paragraphs before delving into the actual comic part of the story (the parts which have world balloons).  Herge illustrates his comic using a more realistic approach unlike the extremely cartoon style of Barks. Tin Tin also uses material that is more mature. For example, in one of the stories Tin Tin finds himself on the way to the moon. The rocket ends up having zero gravity and the captain is drinking. He has had so much, in fact, that he finds it funny that his whiskey has turned in to a ball and is floating about the rocket. Also, in Tin Tin, crazy things take place. For instance, these two scientists, who happened to be twins, end up taking some type of medicine in which they do not know the effects of. They soon find out that the pills cause their hair to grow rapidly and to continuously change color. As well, the space station on earth is consulting with Tin Tin , a young boy, to help get the rocket back to earth. I am not sure i am a huge fan of this particular comic myself but I can see the appeal it would have for comic lovers who are also lovers of science.
   
     Lastly, I will discuss Art Spiegelman's "Jack Cole and Plastic Man".  This comic is neither a story of talking animals or of adventurous boys, it is of the depressed man turned super when his bodies chemicals change. He finds himself able to stretch any distance and therefore becomes...Plastic Man. In this comic the material is definitely more mature than both Barks' work and Herge's. Men die and kids get napped. Plastic man is there to save the day but he can't always save everyone. For example, in the story of "Bright Eyes" a little boy with bright blue and irresistible eyes is kidnapped, or so we think, and is told if he does not corporate they will cut his arm off. Later in the story the two henchmen who are tasked with smuggling bright eyes and other children to an unknown location end up killing each other due to bright eye's innocent gaze. One shoots the other and the other bits the one that shot him in the neck. The one with the gun screams out, "No.your biting my jugular vein, No! No! No!". This comic is more graphic than any we have looked at thus far. I feel like it is a comic that inspired video games with its Plastic hero and violent rescues.

Additional reading: Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes and Flash Gordon

The Complete Peanuts 1963-1964 by Charles Schulz:
     I love Peanuts, I have seen all the holiday films that have been made, for example the Great Pumpkin and A Charlie brown Christmas. I have even read many of the peanuts comics strips from the funnies in the the newspaper, but never have I read the comic strips in a book where you can read them in the order they where created. I think it is interesting to read them in this way because you get a sense of there being a continual story rather than just a bunch of non-related events. I love how you start to see the characters personalities through only a couple of strips and you being to see what they think about. For example, i never new Snoopy had issues with being cold at night or feeling the need to hibernate. In many of the strips that I read he is very concerned with how he will stay warm and the idea of using a blanket or heaven forbid sleeping in his dog house seems preposterous. I think it is funny that Lionel needs something to rub on his face while sucking his finger. He even uses the bill his grandmother gave him as a temporary fill in for his blanket when his "Blanket-Hating" grandma confiscates his blanket. The he uses a dish towel and finally makes his grandma see that his security blanket is no different from her coffee addiction and therefore she gives him his blanket back. I think Peanuts is a great way of telling about how a lot of children feel. For example, Charlie brown struggles with the idea that no one likes him. He says if only the girl with red hair would sit with him he would feel better. So it shows how he thinks a girl will makes things better just like a lot of boys do. And Schulz shows how little girls can be swept away by a boy and dream of marring them one day with the conversations between Schroeder and Lucy. Lucy is always going on about how one day they will be married while Schroeder feels that their chances of getting married are "Googol" to one. I also thinks it's interesting that in the book you can see how the comic strip stories go with the seasons. It starts with winter and then goes to summer, etc.

The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book by Bill Watterson:
     First of all I like how this book begins with some explanation of how this comic got started, what influenced the comic and most of all who the main characters in the comic are. I have never read calvin and Hobbes before and so it is nice to be able to read a little about the character before jumping into a comic strip. I also think is neat how right before you really get into the pages that are comic strips only it says this, "In the beginning of a comic strip, the characters are vaguely defined, and they can develop in almost any diraction. That kind of exciting, but the cartoonist can write himself into corners if he is not careful." Watterson then goes on to say how putting Calvin in the boy scouts did just that. It backed him into a corner and just didn't fit Calvin's personality. I think this is cool because it gives tips to readers who would like to start their own comic.
     I was surprised to find out, having not really read Calvin and Hobbes before, that Hobbes is a tiger who can speak and interact with Calvin but he is actually a stuffed animal. I thinks it's awesome that this whole comic is about Calvin and Hobbes ( A tiger who is basically Calvins imaginary friend).  I think the stories are really cute too. How in one he finds a raccoon who is badly hurt and ends up not making to the next morning. Here he has attached himself to this raccoon he just met, like all little kids do, and ends up learning about death. I like how he says "I'm not crying because out there he's gone, but he's not gone inside me." I think it can relate to they way many children feels. So in that way this comic is much like the Peanuts comic in that it really connects with the emotions of children.
     To end this summary, I have just one last thing to add. I especially like how unlike many comics I have seen, at the begging of each of the short stories, the first page of the comic is in color. It is a simple use of color but very useful. It is very appealing to the eye and just adds to the comic as a whole. I also like how when Calvin and Hobbes argue instead of using short one-liner come backs Watterson just uses a more drawn out funny conversation.

Flash Gordon Volume 3 by Alex Raymond:
     Unlike all the other comics I have written about thus far, Flash Gordon is the most different one of all (and not only because he is a superhero). First it is all in color and doesn't use the more simple cartoon look of Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes but strives to be slightly more realistic in its imagery. I also found that Raymond likes to write the date of when the particular stories within the comic where made. As well, unlike those i wrote about previously, in the Flash comic Raymond inserts not only dialogue boxes but at the tops and or bottoms of each panel he narrates more of the story giving us hints to where the characters are, actions the characters are doing and other important information that is not being spoken by the characters. Raymond also puts in, in the last panel of each of his stories what the reader can look forward to in the continuing story next week. For example, in one Raymond has Flash and his companions in a forest where they crashed in flames. At the end of this, I guess you could call it ,"chapter" of the story, he tells us that nest week the chapter will be about a "Forest Fire". And each one of his "chapters" is only one page long.
    The actual story itself is also vastly different from the readings previous to this. Unlike the others which relate with children's emotions, flash Gordon targets a different audience with his adventure themes as he battles evil. He deals with villain's and rescues damsels. He also speaks of more adult topics like that of love. For example, in his "Fate Strikes!" chapter, in the last panel, Flash and his girl Dale, stumble into each others arms and Flash says, "We're safe, darling...safe!...and to think you almost gave your life in trying to save mine!" and Dale responds with, "Life? What is life compared to a love like ours?"

Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice

         I have heard of Little Nemo in Slumberland from art history and the history of illustration but never really took the time to look at more than one page of the comic. I found that reading Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice really made me think more highly of Winsor McCay and his art. I loved how each page is so colorful and has wonderful illustrations of a magical world, the world of Nemo's dreams. I also find it extremely interesting how McCay doesn't use the format we see in comics today which is basically have panels that are smaller and larger and thinner and wider. For Little Nemo, all of the pages stick to a grid format. There are smaller panels and larger panels but if they appear in the same row they are the same size. One of my favorite things about the comic is that McCay ends each page with a panel inserted into the bottom right corner of a larger panel that shows Nemo out of his dream. I love how every time it shows Nemo falling or running into something, etc., Nemo is seen in the last panel as a boy who has fallen out of bed. I like how it ties the dream with reality. Another example of this idea of tying the dream to reality is on one page the snowmen are having a snowball battle while Nemo and his friends are passing them on their way to see Jack frost. On this page Nemo is seen, in one panel, getting hit in the face by one of the snowballs. So in the last panel where Nemo is back on his bed awake, Nemo says "Well! If I didn't think I was hit on the nose! I must be dreaming!"
         As far as the actual story goes about Nemo in the Palace of Ice, I feel it's very fun. It has a surreal feeling like you are in a dream and the events and places are quite entertaing. For example, i love how the Palace of Jack Frost is made out of ice cream and that you have to get there by taking a toboggan and then wear ice skates to actually approach Jack Frost. I find it entertaining that the man named Flip is always complaining that he will bring the sun about and due to this everyone puts up with his nonsense about being cold and whatnot because they are afraid he will melt the Palace.
         Lastly, I love how even though Nemo starts off at this cold palace, how his adventure isn't confined by that. Because he is in a dream constantly he can dream of going anywhere. So in this particular story he proceeds to find himself in the midst of pirates on a ship, then he and the princess are rescued by the Navy, get flipped out of a boat by a whale, ride elephants, get kidnapped by a tribe who wants them for dinner, etc. All in all a very exciting tale to be told through a little boys fantastic dream.