Literature of Comics and Graphic Narrative

 The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics was an interesting artifact to read through, to say the least. There were so many different comics to read through and take in. Personally, I was not excited by any of the comics I read through. I wasn't very entertained and this could be personal preference, but when I read a comic or graphic novel, I do it usually to escape from reality. I enjoy more fantastical storylines. But I noticed that the Smithsonian Collection was rather boring. The subject matter was mostly serious and based on politics and every day working class issues between families. Along with these subjects came offensive stereotypes of women working as house wives and unflattering exaggerations on people or characters of different races giving them animal like features and a dumbed down way of speaking. I understand that the times were different then, I just didn't find those things or any of the humor used in general as funny or entertaining. Maybe if the stor...

 This book did a great job of breaking down why we as people enjoy consuming comic books. When I read the title "Understanding Comics", I was expecting something historical and informational about the timeline of comics. But this particular book explains the psychology behind why humans enjoy comics and cartoons. I was pleasantly surprised and I learned some interesting things about design. The book talks about the importance of 2-D design and icons and how they quickly can capture the attention of someone. When a design of something realistic is simplified into recognizable shapes and lines, people are able to identify with the design and sympathize faster than that of a photograph. We are able to identify a human face with simply two dots and a line. The book also talks about the illusion of passing of time from panel to panel or even across one long panel. Time isn't really passing, but the way the images and words are delivered to the viewer make it easy to follow alo...

      The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel, but no words are necessary to portray the emotional and otherworldly journey the main character endures. The illustrations were so beautiful. Every page was successful in telling a cohesive story. I was worried that I would have a difficult time following along with a piece like this, but there were no issues thanks to the illustrator's smart decision making. In the beginning of the story we learn that the man has a family, a wife and daughter. He has to flee the country to go to another place, this world is very surreal. Alien like creatures roam the sky and almost every person owns one as a pet. The main character struggles to understand a new language and communicate with others. It's interesting because the language looks completely made up. It's made up of symbols that don't resemble anything specific. This allows the reader to feel just as confused as the character and forces you to rely on the images even more. There...

       I thought this comic was an interesting read. I was really surprised with what I learned about how comics came to be and how much they were involved in historical revolutions. Comics evolved through a wild ride of rejection, popularity and even an underground market. The pop art movement tested what "art" could really be. This is where I noticed that money became such a large driving force to mass produce images and use them for marketing and products. The graphic look that Lichtenstein and Warhol brought to the art scene was marketable because of the limited color palettes and simple shapes that could easily be re-printed. Then in the 1960's, Robert Crumb showed up with out of the box images that pushed the limits of what was appropriate for the general public to consume. There became an entire underground market for Crumb's comics and it was incredibly popular among hippies and free spirits that wanted to see something crazy and weird to expand their mi...