Maus

I remember back when I was a junior in high school I was given Art Spiegelman's book to read for my English class. It's a treat to be able to come back to this graphic novel after all these years, as it's one of the first ones I've read that had to do with something non-fiction based in origin. I didn't check when it was made but I had always thought it was a comic made later than it actually was, probably due to it's design that influenced others.  The lower usage of type in every panel, how well he spread the conversations were for each page, its a long book but it never felt long with how he spread the information.  

I suppose it makes sense that the subject that would legitimize graphic novels would be an autobiographical take on WW2.  The war has inspired countless works of art that have been highly honored in our society as its such a crazy period of time where a good portion of the world was thrown into chaos en masse.   But what really helped Maus at the time in the 80s was that comics were a new medium for storytelling and were previously untapped by writers who wanted to make biographical novels.  So many stories of holocaust survivors told, or told of the countless ones who were unable to make it out of the death camps. 

 It's an event far away enough to be somewhat romanticized by the following generations and still a present reminder due to the consequences we now deal with.  What makes Maus stand out from other movies and books is the simple and effective symbolism behind the anthropomorphic elements in the book.  It's something that's immediate and takes no time to decipher yet adds such a different feel to the book.  You know that all of them are human one in the same, but having them personified as cat and mouse helps you identify the "chase" of the Nazis after Jews and eventually all non-Germans.

The layers of Art Spiegelman's personal life that we dive into is also what really helps gain other empathy to his and his father's story, with the absent tale of Anja Spiegalman left untold sadly.  You can tell although Vladek's life was undeniably marked by the Nazis, he had always been more of a shifty character in his own nature.  His skill with business, building, crafting, and quick wit helped keep him connected to potential allies or eventually winning over adversaries.  Also being more financially well off at the start of the war greatly helped as well.  Looking back through there's usually a situation where Jews will be attacked and rounded up in the ghettos and Vladek will either sneak away or get snatched up by a friend just in time.  Artie definitely identifies characteristics that Vladek has that benefited him, between his frugalness, his do-it-yourself attitude, and his willingness to do whatever is necessary to live.

Originally in high school I hated that Vladek had burned Anja's diary, I didn't feel Vladek should have been punished or anything but I felt hurt in a way that someone's story was simply just burnt away with not much else to know them by.  I can empathize with Vladek's pain, having to see his wife's diary and pain from her suicide, but I felt having her perspective on her experience in the holocaust would have added an interesting dimension to the books that we can only speculate about now.  Reading through the first this time was different in that I wasn't angry with Vladek, but instead I felt more enamored with the squabblings of his current life oddly enough.  Artie continuously wanted him to get back to the war but I felt that it was a way for Artie to not get close to his father, as Artie probably still doesn't forgive him for the diaries.  It was even more interesting looking at Artie's comic about his mother's suicide as I could see more of the Underground influence on Art in that story's nature.  The disconnect he protrays from his parents in that comic was interesting to see as we never get a full picture of what their family was like together.

I'm glad that I now know the significance behind Maus and the path it helped create in graphic novels, Art Spiegelman touches at the very core of the trauma that many Holocaust survivors went through and still go through.  The choices he used to tell this story with are what will make this a timeless book that still shines even decades from now.

 

Underground Comics

What's striking to me about the underground comics I've read through is how the writers would go after any issue or subject matter they chose in such an odd low-brow slapstick fashion.  In he facetious nature of the writing and wildness in direction of where the stories went to is fascinatingly dark.  It tells a lot more about the writers' and their time period, more or less the underground period was the rebellion era of comics where the boundaries of what can be legally written about were pushed to its limits.  Honestly there's not much that's appealing to me about this era, reading through Robert Crumb was interesting but increasingly weird the more I learned about him and his fetishes.  To me underground comics like Action Comics were significant in that they've helped pave the way for modern comics now, but the comics themselves were not really worth much on their own.  I feel like going through these is a look at the inner working minds of the counter culture back then and it's cool being able to look at that era in this way, but I'd rather not read pages and pages of comic sex.

Similarities between Thompson and Eisner

What is striking me as the biggest similarity between Will Eisner and Craig Thompson is the approach of their overall page layout.  Each page is carefully crafted around the art as the primary focus to the story, with dialogue and type as the secondary.  I feel like when I read both of their comics my eyes are more involved with the art and the direction the panels are moving me through as opposed to what's being said.  Although I believe the dialogue in both comics Blankets and A Contract With God are amazingly well-written, I also happen to believe the design of the art in these books is what really shines the most.

In a way reading through Eisner's A Contract With God felt like a cinematic experience, with how the pages were laid out and the low usage of words really gave it more independence to make dynamic layouts that sprawl out of the box or aren't even contained.  The frequent change up between distance shots also gives it a film kind of influence where it could be a page used in the storyboard process, but then other shots that form into a design of an abstract shape are what could not be done in film, for now at least.  It somewhat seems that Eisner and Thompson have a designer's eye along with an a cinematographer's vision for how each page should flow, and in what way the typography should react to the art design.  The word count in both of these books combined very well could be less than an average Action Comic book from around Eisner's time.

The thing that most affected me about both authors is the ability to reach the insecurities and flaws of people, and then the talent to visually navigate us through.  In one of Eisner's shorts in A Contract With God there's the main character in the Super whose untrusted and as he's an anti-semite.  Due to the tenants dislike of the Super as a person, he was cornered into an awful situation through manipulation of his illegal desires into committing suicide.  While in Thompson's book there's more of a breakdown into the inner workings of the main character's flaws in relationships and inner turmoil of life.

I really enjoy both of these books, and this approach to graphic storytelling is something I hope to learn from in the future.

Tin Tin & EC Comics

What interesting to me from reading through some of these older EC books and Tin Tin is the mindset behind the writing compared to what I've been accustomed to in recent comic history.  In a way seems that comic writer's thought if there's not writing in each panel explaining then the reader would just not get it. In one of the Action Comics I've read there were 2 pages of Superman going through an epidemic where he's the last man on earth and the red sun has zapped his superpowers.  The majority of the narrative is told instead of shown as we only get a few shots of the wrecked landscape.  The other issue is I barely even took note of the villains that got Superman into this predicament, their ship was featured but  we only saw the Kanor in a few spare panels.  

What has me in disarray with the older Action Comics and certain EC adventure comics of the day I believe is the fact that there's not much of a variety in their layouts or action scenes.  In this era of superhero you can definitely tell the artists were pressed on deadlines as there's such a simple design that they all seem to follow for every scene; quick landscape shot that doesn't really show much of the background, portrait views of any talking character unless they're performing a movement, then they'll take up that whole panel.  I guess that's my issue, there's just some terrible design choices in panel compositions and page layouts that were being repeated instead of corrected.

Not saying that all comics that follow this are bad as that simply is not true at all. Jack Kirby's Black Panther comic was a pretty fun read because his design sense of the compositions in his panels were much more well done, along with making the text more subservient to his art instead of vice versa.

Reading through Tin Tin's adventure in Nepal was very enjoyable, in spite of the peculiar type choice and format.  I must be way too used to american comic bubbles and type, because whenever there were longer passages of type in Tin Tin I had to concentrate a little bit more otherwise I would glaze over it immediately.  One thing that's for sure is a lot of comics really suffer when they have to be formatted to online reading.

Little Nemo & Flash Gordon

As I unravel through the numerous pages of Little Nemo and uncover all of his wondrous adventures in his dreams I begin to realize the effect this comic has had on its successors, and also how much more experimental McKay was in comparison to other and even later comic artists.  When I read over his old tales I feel the whimsicalness of Nemo’s dreams sink into my head and I’m much more sucked into the comic, something that’s been hard to find in comics for me recently.  McKay’s sense of animation is something definitely felt in his comics, not only in his movement of the characters but in his comic but the way action is shown as well.  In a decent portion of his comics, most of it is usually scene-to-scene or action-to-action, but he keeps the fluidity between the panels going, as he doesn’t use as much type as older comic writers did.  My issue recently going back has been the longer paragraphs that seem to accompany a lot of the older comics, but as McKay uses more of the visuals to portray Nemo’s dream world I’m less caught up in reading and am more pulled in. Certain locations – like the mirror room the 3 cops are at- are simply brilliant.  Looking through his comics again is very much like discovering a gold mine for interesting concepts in movement and panel ideas.

I also read through Flash Gordon and a bit of the Conan strips, which were fun reads that definitely explained certain influences on other comics I’ve read.  Many situations Flash Gordon found his ship’s engine dying on him in I recall thinking to myself “there’s a parody of this”.  It’s just kind of funny when your first indirect exposure to a comic is through a Calvin & Hobbes bit, when Spaceman Spiff would show up. A definite homage to the sci-fi capers from the old days.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The reason a comic like The Arrival works so well is because of how well Shaun Tan understands the general use of visual language.  Tan understands what reactions to have his characters do, when to put flashbacks in use to explain a backstory, and the subconscious understanding of how much the reader can connect themselves by simply looking at two images.  There's an interaction that the main character had with a immigration worker who was interrogating him and all of his reactions were completely spot on for someone who doesn't understand a language. The guy went to his ear implying he couldn't hear, he shrugged, his eyebrows and eyes gave the perfect look of genuine confusion. The combination of these aspects along with reading them all together makes it simple to recognize "hey, this character doesn't understand the language of his new country".  It's interesting how he's so good at understanding what we need explained and what can be left to the imagination in order to help the story.  I have no clue what the black monsters were and how they came to be, but that adds to the mysteriousness of his world.  Meanwhile, I immediately can figure out when he immigrates to another country (that I assumed was America because the reference he used seemed like an image of old New York) but none of this was stated at all, it was simply showing the man going on a long boat trip overseas.  A really important key to the story was also how he kept reminding us of significant objects that mattered in the story, like the man's framed picture he kept of his family. I can't even count how many times he snuck it into the story but it helped reinforce that "look, this is important, this is his family that he cares greatly about". The reason we can even come to that conclusion is how he assumes we know that whenever we care deeply about a friend/ family member we keep photos of them. This use of common knowledge and simple story build up along with flashbacks and reinforcement through objects is what collectively makes this story work and read better than most movies out today.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics

A big aspect I really enjoyed about Understanding Comics was when Scott McCloud broke down the six steps for the learning process of comics.  In a way he basically nailed that path that all of us go down as artists.  I know that whenever I'm having an artistic crisis I go back to what my idea is and how I want to form it. It's very interesting to see that growth of an artist explained in this way, because I've definitely been through at least the first 3 dilemmas at once in my life.  The real issue is how to push yourself into those upper echelons without losing your original purpose in art. Although that also changes over time the more you create and learn from your craft.  The thing that still gets me though is at any time I feel like I'l rapidly shift through any of those steps without even realize it.  Alternatively I'll also find myself stuck on one aspect like the surface/technique of an artist I like, or where do I want to go with my style.  It's important things to ponder but the apple illustration displays why thinking of the big picture is fundamental.  Without the seeds of good ideas, how do you fully grow out your art?