Maus

When I first started reading this comic I didn't think I was going to be as engrossed as I was, this comic really felt like a novel and really got me to want to know more. The usage of anthropomorphic animals to represent people is great especially when you use the age-old enemies of the animal kingdom, a cat and mouse. I like that he used this because everyone can understand that a cat and a mouse hate each other and is more recognizable than say a bird and a worm, plus the imagery is better for it. The author is great in story telling, the way he goes back and forth in the past and the present really keeps the reader interested and kind of takes a break from everything as well as the main character. I thought that the visuals were, not messy but thick with the lines which was probably to really show the characters as they are with no further detail and to create a sense of tension, which happens throughout the whole comic novel. It was a great read and really makes you feel what happened during the Nazi revolution on a personal level.

Underground comics

When reading some of the Underground comics, it was a surprise to find the content of some of the comics, especially when I read Cheech Wizard. At first I thought it was a cute little illustration of a wizard, who is only seen with a hat and limbs and thought it would be about magic and such but was really surprised that it was like a horny sex maniac or something within the comic. He uses them and leaves the women, and that is the whole joke throughout the comic, that he is known for having sex and the women know that and they let him come in anyway into their home and sleep with him. It is not my favorite comic but it was interesting what people were interested in. The comic that I did enjoy was the Girl Fight comics, I liked the camaraderie the women had together, and they were tough and fighting against the bad guys clothed or naked didn't matter. They were strong women who took refuge in each other, and it was nice that the women were also into one another than just being damsels in distress and going with the man.

Blankets

When reading Craig Thompson's Blankets, it really related to some of the experiences I had as a kid, not as violent in school, but the feeling of being lost or lonely with no one out to hear you. The main character in the comic is told in the first person and it really shows the inner depth of the author and what happened in his life. I really like the parts where he is telling us about his relationship with his brother, I think for those who have siblings can relate that you can get a lot of trouble for just playing with your sibling and then it turns into fighting. I have fought with my sister many times and I can understand the feeling of it going to far, and your younger sister is the one that gets punished, it really makes you feel guilty and I like that it showed that in the comic, how you're not going to be the perfect older sibling and it can be hard to protect them from what's to come.

The Change

It's interesting to find the gradual change from cartoonish comics to mature looking comics, from a bugs bunny, Donald Duck to western comics and superheroes. All because a war took over everyone's mind, and due to this everyone developed a different taste or just wanted to read something that had a happy ending or a sense of adventure. In the Bugs Bunny comics it's a simple read with a funny anecdote and a happy ending most of the time of Bugs getting away with everything then there are Western comics that have realistic humans caricatured and more of a story that people have to read every week to find out what happened, and there's more to read and understand. The change of comics gradually became a necessity to just get away from what was happening in the real world. 

The Comic Strip

I remember reading the comics section every Sunday and my favorites were Garfield and Peanuts, so it's great that I'm able to read some in this class. It's funny to compare the Peanuts from the 1950s to the Peanuts now, it's drastically different in artwork but still has the cute humor that makes it so lovable. The artwork has gotten more detailed in shirts and in a way more mature than previous years and has gotten to a point where they stopped making changes, because it has already become iconic in the comic industry. It's fun to read these comics and just see and read what was the comedy then and how over the years it hasn't really changed all that much.

Understanding Comics

In the book Understanding Comics, there are a lot of ideas being thrown around that make a lot of sense and really break down the meaning of icons and cartoons. How we relate to a photograph as a real image is saying the same as a cartoon, because we see a representation of a human face and we just gradually abstract the form to relate it to a real face. Saying that is a cartoon can be the same as saying a photograph is as well. It also says in the book that it can be used as icons of what we imagine to be realistic faces just gradually broken down to the simplest form. What is really being said is that cartoons is just a simplified version of what we see in the real world. We see things differently and even see faces in inanimate objects to create a world that is more interesting.

The Arrival

Within this graphic novel there is no words within the pages or illustrations and if there are it's in a language that you can't understand. The only way you can understand is the actions within the illustrations. This is great storytelling because within this book you don't need to know what they're saying because the you can interpret it easily within the panels and you know what's going on, and you can get a sense of what the main character is feeling if you have traveled somewhere that you don't know. The lack of words added to the novel and made it more accessible to people around the world, and it's the same for the main character because he couldn't understand the new world he was in. This is an experience that many has felt and it's a great read to understand it more.