Mary's Comic Blog

This week I read Girl Fight, and it was not what I was expecting when I read the title. Girl Fight is a very feminist comic with a lot of powerful women. I do believe that some of the violence is a little intense, but they do have some very disrespectful male characters in the narrative. I do wish that I saw more men that were not shown in such awful ways, and maybe showed how all men are not as vulgar as the ones depicted. I do understand that the comic is about empowerment of women and I do respect the author for showing females in such strong ways.

After reading Eisner's A Contract with God and Craig Thompson's Blankets, I see a similarity between the way the two write comics. They are emotionally packed images with mainly word bubbles from supporting characters. The pictures are the most important part of both of these comics.

This week I read many of the Uncle Scrooge comics. There is a lot of emotion in each of the panels, and if you had to guess what was happening without reading the words, you probably could. I also appreciate the amount of color that goes into each panel and the level of detail in the environments.

This week I had read Charles Schultz's Peanuts, and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. Peanuts has  the kind of sense of humor that will make you smirk to yourself, which can be nice if you just want to read something that will make you smile. The characters are super memorable and likable, so you kind of start to realize their personalities as the return more and more. Calvin and Hobbes is something that I have always loved, because they really make you believe that Hobbes has this defined personality. When you see him as a stuffed animal in certain scenes it makes you remember that he is just a stuffed animal, and most of the comic comes from Calvin's imagination. The style of Calvin and Hobbes is also one of my favorite drawing styles of the comics that I have read. The way that Calvin is only slightly detailed makes you able to picture yourself in the same situations as him, with your own stuffed animal as a kid.

The arrival requires no words to tell a story. It uses images that are speak to our emotions. It makes you look deeper into the images and interpret for yourself what is being depicted. When I read The Arrival the first time, I didn't completely understand what was happening. I thought that the narrative was in a dreamland where monsters lurked. I re-read it afterwards and after seeing the entire narrative, I realized that it was about immi gration. The scary shapes and objects represented the foreignness and the nervousness of the people in the narrative. Without the words, you can sort of make up your own narrative in your head.