Underground Comix

     This week in my expedition into the literature of comics lead me to what may some of the strangest and most offensive works of the graphic narrative I have ever read; Underground Comix. As a start to my evening, I watched Terry Zwillgof's 1994 movie Crumb. I also read selections of Zap comix, Mr Natural and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. I think I liked Zap Comix the most because I liked the varying types of work in it and some of the strange humor. Most of this week's selection was raunchy to a point of mild discomfort. 

   Most of Underground comix are highly sexual and rife with not only drug references, but actual drug use. Accompanying these themes, in one strip of Mr. Natural, Mr Natural receives fellatio from an adult sized baby in graphic detail...twice. Most of Crumb's most famous work is highly sexualized and gathers huge inspiration from psychedelics such as LSD. Crumb is also best known for his very objectified and large bodied women, who sometime don't even have heads to further their purpose as nothing but a sex toy. His wife said when asked about how she felt about this, that it is only really in his comics, and while he is very sexual, he doesn't have the same ideas in real life as he does in his comics

     In Crumb, one of the subjects that comes up is Crumb's very racist depictions of black people, and he essentially said that he was just using the stereotypes without any hurtful meaning. In an interview, he goes on to say that he used the 1920s sterotypes in a psycadelicized way, and it wasn't meant to represent his view and that it wasn't his job to try to explain it to someone. 

   Crumb's drawing style is incredibly graphic and has very small but heavy use of lines, adding gruesome detail to everything he drew, sometimes using it to further the psychedelic drug feeling, and other times just to enhance his gross sexual illustrations. 

     

The human emotion in narrative

          In both Will Eisner's Contract with God and Craig Thompson's Blankets, the human emotion is pushed with body language and strong dialogue. Facial expressions with dramatic lighting dominate Eisner's piece, and surreal imagery and body language are very present in Blankets. Both of these apply to both works, but I felt the concentration for each was as previous stated. 

  In both, the drama is all human problems, but is made larger by the body language and manner of storytelling. Contract with God is told as a story from the past, made present like a memory being remembered, perhaps in this way, the exaggeration of body and face is pushed to better tell the story. In Blankets, it is told from a first person past tense, but because of the first person POV, the imagery is greatly distorted to fit the character/artist's thoughts. 

     I Connected with Craig on a personal level while reading and had trouble putting down my iPad, which I was reading it from. The story felt so real and personal and I related and felt incredibly close to Craig. His social discomfort and victimization by the bullies reminded me of my middle school and high school life, even extending into my present life at school. I felt for him when he tried to go with the avoidance tactic, rather than confront the bullies, usually imagining them literally eating excrement or dying. On the same emotional level, but lighter and more warm tone, his relationship with Raina when he first visits her in Michigan made me feel the exact emotions and made me miss walking in the snow and falling back into the static snowflake silence that I am so very used to having lived in both Michigan and New York my whole life up until College in Florida.

The comic book

     
     This week I read a selection of mostly Carl Bark's Donald duck, as well as a few stories of from the E.C comics a Crime Suspensestories issue, and a selection of Tin Tin in tibet. The comic book essentially took two paths, in terms of this week's reading. One path was that the same style as the comic strip was extended into a few pages to tell a longer story, but still be as fun, goofy, and overall as brief. The other path was that much longer stories with more serious tones and a significantly larger amount of text was put onto a page. I really enjoyed the simplistic art of Tin Tin combined with the full text and dialog that came with it. It still had some of the fun and exaggerated feeling of comic strips and even some Carl Barks, but had a serious narrative and quirky dialogue.

     The reoccurring situation in Donald Duck, where his nephews  ruin all of Donald's plans or property only go funnier the more I read. The most outrageous one was when Donald volunteers to fly to the moon, but is sabotaged when his 3 nephews weigh down the rocket and they stall on the moon. It was the sort of Comic that would be right at home being animated like Tom and Jerry or Looney Toons.

The comic strip

This week I read an assortment of Little Nemo, Krazy kat, Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts. Both Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts were comics I read when I was growing up. I remember we had all of Bill Watterson's books and collections and I would read and draw different panels, it was such a huge part of me growing up.

All of this week's comics had a few aspects in common, that I had totally forgotten from my experience from Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts. They are told in a short form with a more or less contained story. Some exceptions can be made for Peanuts and Little Nemo, where some strips lead into others, but all seemed to be originally told in a week's time.

While reading Little Nemo, I was reminded a little of Calvin and Hobbes. While Calvin tends to get in trouble and have his adventures in real life and end up with consequences to fit a 6 year old, all of Nemo's mischief takes place in the dream world, and usually wasn't meant to be mischief, but is seen that way. Still, at the end of every strip of Little Nemo in Slumber Land, he has to wake up and have one of his parents yelling at him to go back to sleep or to wake up, effectively giving him consequences similar to Calvin and Hobbes.

Part of the art of the three to four panel comic strip, and in general the short form comic strip extending to one page comics such as Krazy Kat or Little Nemo, is the ability to convey the entire story, or in most cases the joke, in one short set of panels. Because of the length restraint, often the humor becomes very simple, but at the same time so much more unique. Also in many cases, especially common in Calvin and Hobbes, is the introspective, philosophical strips such as when Calvin asks Hobbes if he believes in fate and that everything is pre-determined, and by the end of the four panels, they just shrug off that complex idea as scary.