Peanuts: Re-write

So I’ve decided to re-do my post on the Peanuts comics. I feel like there’s just so much more to say about them. To be honest though, I’m more familiar with the Peanuts movies than the comic strips. Every Christmas, when I was a kid, the family would snuggle up on the couch and watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special. The one where Charlie Brown had to get a Christmas tree and he comes back with this dinky little thing. All the neighborhood kids make fun of him but they decorate the tree anyways and everything turns out just fine. Oh, those were the days. Anyways, I digress. In my last post about Peanuts I talked a lot about the similarities it has to Calvin and Hobbes. I really enjoy comics like Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes because the strips are so short and concise. They’re like a one line joke. Quick and simple, but effectively hilarious. I also really enjoy anything that has to do with witty children. The characters are more like child representations of adults. It kind of has to do with what David Steiling was saying in class the other day about how real representations of children are never shown. But for this comic, I think it’s effective. Sometimes there are jokes in the strips that only older generations would understand, but at the same time, the strips are fun and timeless for young children. I truly hope that Peanuts will be one of those comics that will run for years to come. With the digital age quickly rising above us, it seems that a lot of our printed treasures are being ignored. It’s so much easier to go online these days for this sort of content. There is just something magical about seeing a Peanuts strip in the newspaper. It reminds me of my childhood. Peanuts, even the newer ones, just have such a vintage and classic feel to them. The characters and their crazy antics need to be preserved for years to come. I feel like I see Charlie Brown and Snoopy everywhere nowadays on shirts, hoodies, lunchboxes, you name it. But not enough kids actually have read one of their strips.

Diary of a Dominatrix

So even though our week of reading women’s comics is over I wanted to give another female written comic a try. So I decided to read Diary of a Dominatrix. Wow. I’m not too sure if this type of comic is what I’m really into, but it was definitely interesting to check out. First of all, I thought the way the figures and objects were drawn was exquisite. What I mean to say is that the style of art was very intricate and showed a huge sense of craftsmen-ship. I loved how the artist drew the main character with such thick, bold lines. It seemed to match the character’s personality very well. As for the story, I’m not too sure if it was something I could really get into. I think maybe if the comic was told in more of a traditional story format I could like it better. Instead, the story seemed like little pieces that never really fit together. I guess this makes since because it’s the diary of the dominatrix. So it’s probably supposed to feel like small, little episodes. As for the content of this comic all I can say is that it was quite interesting, for lack of a better word. Showing some of the ways she tortured men was quite alarming. The artist drew everything with great detail and without censoring any of her wild imagination. I kept wondering if some of the stuff the dominatrix did is really done in that world. I mean, obviously men request the schoolgirl stuff, but the whole binding thingy? Doesn’t seem enjoyable, but “hey” that’s just my opinion. I really loved how the dominatrix was portrayed as a real women. The page with the before and after she’s done up as a dominatrix was great. Showing her as just a normal, slightly scary looking girl, to a sexpot dominatrix was amazing. I also really enjoyed where her beauty tools surrounded the frame with her little descriptions. The same was done with her torturing devices. Lastly, I enjoyed how her body shape was drawn. She wasn’t some super tall, unrealistically skinny girl, but a curvy, slightly short chick that has problems getting into her leather suit. That was funny.

For this week we were to read women’s comics. I read Lillian Chestney’s Arabian Nights. I found this story very enjoyable to read. The new bride of an arrogant king is about to be beheaded when she cleverly dodges her death by distracting the king with her amazing stories. She unfolds the tales of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, The Tale of the Magic Horse, The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, and Aladdin and His Magic Lamp. The art was very unique and beautiful. The colors were very vibrant and alive. All of the stories Scheherezade (the beautiful new wife of the king) had told were folk tales from the Middle East. The comic was uniquely feminine in the fact that the female characters were strong, intelligent women who used their wits and charm to escape the oppression of men. Scheherezade was to be killed by decapitation twenty-four hours after she married King Shariar. She distracts the King from ordering his death sentence by telling him a number of folklores. In her story of Ali Baba the heroine is Cassem’s slave, Morgiana. She pours boiling oil into 37 leather jars, killing the band of evil “cut-throats” who are hiding in them. Although Morgiana was a slave and the King was controlling Scheherezade they both managed to outwit the males in the story. I felt like the comic overall was very simple. It wasn’t a deep or intelligent read; however, sometimes it’s nice to read a story that doesn’t take too much interpreting. I liked reading this version of Aladdin and comparing it to the Disney film. Aladdin is one of my all time favorite Disney films. It amazes me how different the two stories were from each other, but also very alike. For example, very specific things happened in the comic that also happened in the movie. When the evil old man, Jafar in the film, becomes a genie he uproots the castle with Aladdin inside it to banish him. The same scene is played out in the film. Of course it’s a bit more elaborate in the film, but the comic had some very fun points. I give it an A-.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

I read Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. I really enjoyed the stories with the main character, Jimmy, as a little boy. The story would cut between Jimmy as a kid, a middle aged man, and an old man. I didn’t really like the stories about Jimmy as a man or old man. They were some-what confusing and a bit depressing. I can’t tell how the different stories are supposed to relate or if they’re suppose to relate at all. Jimmy as a child is very smart and invents rockets, shrinking potions, and new dads; things we know are most likely just figments of his imagination. The older Jimmy mopes around talking to his dead mother. He attempts to meet women but they never like him. It seems like the little boy version of Jimmy is nothing like the older version. Boy Jimmy is smart and creative. He makes wild adventures for himself. Older Jimmy is bland and pitiful. Maybe Ware is trying to show how people lose that childhood spark. Even amazing children can turn out to be losers. Getting to the art style of the book, I thought it was well drawn. The panels were very tight. What I mean by this is that Ware didn’t draw outside the panels or leave a panel without a border. They were all drawn in thick, black lines. The characters and backgrounds were also drawn with thick, black lines that didn’t waver. It seemed to fit the rehearsed, monotonous lifestyle of the older Jimmy. I thought it was strange how Ware never showed any of the women’s faces. It’s as if Jimmy is so detached from women that to show their faces would be unreal. I like the page with the house drawn on it and where arrows directed my eyes through the phone call Jimmy was making to his mother. I thought it was well conceived. I didn’t however like the fact that there wasn’t a starting arrow. I didn’t know which part to read first. So, I guess overall the book was well conceived and drawn out, yet the story to me was very annoying. I didn’t want to read about this sad, old guy who didn’t have anyone in his life.

A Contract With God

I read Eisner’s A Contract With God a little while ago and decided I really need to do a post about this one. A Contract With God is a graphic novel that’s separated into four different stories about the lives of Jews living in a run-down tenement in the Bronx. Before the stories begin Eisner writes that all of these stories are true.
The first story, titled the same as the book, is about Frimme Hersh, who when he was young wrote a contract with God on a flat stone. Because of Frimme’s good deeds as a young man he was always told that God would reward him. One night when Frimme was home in the Bronx tenement he gets a knock at his door. He opened to see whom it was but instead was amazed to find a baby at the foot of his door. He took the child in and raised it as his own daughter. Years later, at the stories beginning, we find out that Rachele, Frimme’s daughter has died. Frimme doesn’t understand how God could have done this to him. They had a contract. His daughter’s death convinces Frimme to shave his beard and become a businessman. He buys the tenement in which he used to live and becomes quite a mean old snob. He marries a young idiot who’s clearly only with him for the money. Frimme then goes to a group of wise elders and asks them to write him a new contract with God. They do so and Frimme is pleased with his new contract. As he’s reading it he suddenly has a heart attack and dies.
All the stories in this book are lessons. It’s hard for me to relate, since I’ve never really dealt with most of the situations portrayed in this book, however, I think even these elaborate stories can be boiled down to simple human emotions that we all experience at some point.
I think Eisner told half of these stories through his line work. His drawings are just so expressive and detailed. He has a way of drawing that really sets the tone for the emotions he’s trying to convey. I love how he throws away the panel at times. He’ll use up the whole page for one big drawing. I also love how he draws around the type a lot. It gives the comic such a unique and powerful voice.

Maison Ikkoku

Last week I read Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku Vol. 1. When I was in middle school my two best friends were addicted to anime and manga. I tried to read their manga books and follow along with their favorite anime shows, but I just couldn’t get into it like they were. For me, Harry Potter was more my style at the time. The anime shows my friends watched annoyed me. Dragon Ball Z was the show I thought of when someone mentioned anime. I tried many times to watch Dragon Ball but the slowness of its plot bored me. It took whole episodes to show one fight. Most of the mangas my friends suggested were pretty cute to me. I liked them, but like I said, Harry Potter was more my style.

Maison Ikkoku is the first manga I’ve read in years and I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot. It’s a very simple, light read. There is no symbolism or hidden meanings in this book. It’s kind of refreshing to be able to read a cute, romantic story without looking deeper into underlying themes.

Maison Ikkoku is a story about a new manager who comes to live at a run-down apartment building. The tenants there are a very interesting group. They all know each other and love to annoy the main character, Godai. Godai is a student who usually takes his studying for granted. The tenants always call him “flunk-out.” Immediately upon seeing her, Godai falls in love with the new manager, Kyoko Otonashi. Kyoko helps Godai get the quiet time he needs for his studying. Godai wants to try really hard to pass his entrance exams to not let Kyoko down.

The first volume is separated into six chapters. Each one consists of Godai trying to tell Kyoko how he feels about her. He fails every time. In one chapter Godai is informed that Kyoko has a boyfriend by his flaky neighbor, Akema. Of course Kyoko doesn’t have a boyfriend but until Godai figures this out he traipse around, wallowing in his own self-pity. As we read farther into the book we discover that Kyoko may have feelings for Godai. Overall, the book is a very easy and light read. I’m really interested to see what happens next with Godai and Kyoko.

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Maus by Art Spiegelman is a clever story about a man learning his father’s WWII story for his story. I enjoyed how Spielgelman included how he collected his father’s memories. Maus is centered on Vladek Spielgelman, Art’s father, recounting what happened to him and his family during WWII. Vladek is a well off Jew, living in Poland, with his new wife, Anja, when the war breaks out. Vladek and his whole family are Jews and quickly try to escape the persecution. Throughout the book Vladek uses his money and influence to protect his family, but when the war worsens he realizes that money has no power. They’re all on their own. The tale is a haunting one, recounting how all of Vladek’s family, including his first-born son, was killed. Vladek and Anja were the only ones to make it out alive after surviving the Auschwitz death camp. Intermingled with the story of Vladek’s past is the story of his present. Art Spiegelman, Vladek’s son and author of the book, is trying to get his father’s story while having to deal with his father’s stubbornness and constant tirades with his current wife, Mala, who was also a concentration camp survivor. Vladek recounts how he met his first wife, Art’s mother, and the obsessed girlfriend he had before his wife. He then explains how he became successful with his own business and had his first son with his loving wife, Anja. Shortly after his son is born, Vladek must join the army and once in battle against the Germans he’s taken in as a prisoner of war. He’s released and goes back to his family who he hasn’t seen in two years only to be shoved back into the claws of war when the Nazi’s begin hunting down all the Jews. The story is truly haunting and unforgettable. Art Spielgelman depicts the Jews as mice. Perhaps he does so because, to the Nazis, this is what the Jews represent. Dirty, filthy, mice. The Germans are depicted as cats, which we all know are infamous mouse destroyers. The depiction of mice can be viewed as a negative thing, yet mice are one of the few creatures of our planet that have persevered over hundreds of thousands of years, through natural disasters, being hunted by predators, evolution, climate change, and so on. They are very strong survivors. Mice hide better than most creatures and Jews were forced to hide, many times in the same places mice hid. There’s even a part of the story where Vladek and Anja are hiding in a bunker when they encounter some rats. The use of animals to depict people was a very clever decision that Spiegelman made. The style of art was also very supporting of the mood of the piece. The quick, dark hatchings set the tones of the WWII era. My favorite panel of the entire book was the one in which Vladek and Anja are walking down a sidewalk shaped like a swastika. This visual representation is just so clear and powerful. It’s definitely an image not worth forgetting.