6: Underground Comix

Crumb by Terry Zwigoff

This week I’m choosing to write about the film Crumb by Terry Zwigoff and a comic because I believe it is one of the best Documentaries ever made and it is deeply influential to my work. I love Robert Crumb’s work and I’ve read a lot of comics made by him and of the time period and I love it. I find it very self reflective, the artists are just being so honest with their audience and really seem to be drawing from their subconscious rather than trying to build any sort pre arranged narrative. Say what you want to say about them whether that the work is bulgur, violent, sexist blah blah to me it’s still art and I hold it in high regard because it takes a lot of courage for an artist to reveal themselves to the world in that manner and the bravest of them all is Robert Crumb. The film tells the story of Robert Crumb, his brothers Max and Charles, and an American childhood that looks normal in old family photos but truly conceals some deep wounds and secrets. It is the kind of film that you watch in disbelief, as layer after layer is peeled away, and you begin to understand what has kept Crumb alive. What kept him alive was his art I look at him for reference not because I want my art to look like his but because I want my art to be as honest as possible I never want to sell my talents to a corporation and be stuck for the rest of my life. It makes me look at my art and really ask myself why I chose to do this. So yeah…I love this film.

5: The Emergence of the Graphic Novel

Will Eisner's A Contract With God

This week I chose to read Will Eisner’s A Contract With God I never read this but it has always been on my list of must reads and for some reason I chose to neglect it. I’ve always had respect for Will Eisner as a name in the art world and I know of his influence on modern comics I mean for god’s sake he has an award ceremony for art named after him. But for some reason I think I shied away from his work because I was a bit afraid that it would bore me considering the time period it was written in but as always… I was wrong. A Contract with God is a deliberate attempt, the first attempt actually, of using words and pictures beyond the realm of fictional strips and comic magazines at the time to tell a story of human conditions on par with any great literary works hence he is the father of the "Graphic Novel." It was solely printed in book form and it was meant to be read that way. Semi-autobiographical, he told stories of the Jewish slums of New York around the time of the Great Depression and the amazing thing is that I not being either Jewish, nor from the East Coast, nor even alive during the Great Depression was completely able to relate to the characters and conflicts that took place. It stands the test of time because if I weren’t told when this novel was written I could of never guessed it was the first graphic novel because it’s as cohesive as any modern graphic novel I've read. It was entertaining, addictive and enlightening and I can honestly say that I am a better comic book fan and artist for having read it.

4: The Comic Book

The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé

I personally fell in love with the Tin Tin series in this section of the class and I loved it because they were simply just very fun. I’ve always known about Tin Tin thanks to my uncle but I never really delved into it I never quite got around to reading it. I always knew it was a very important comic to the illustration community but I never understood why? And now I can honestly say “I understand” to my uncle. The many adventures of Tin Tin take you around the world solving mysteries and looking for adventure and it’s great I was always smiling when reading. I read a lot of contemporary graphic novels so I’m well versed in the world of comics but this truly felt like the literal evolution between strip and comic. It has that expressiveness, simplicity and slapstick found in your typical strip but it has the engrossing narrative of a “comic.” On top of that, Herge constantly throws in political satire and a bit of history to make the story just a bit more interesting. It’s just great I got my hands on Tin Tin: The Blue Lotus because I heard that issue was an important issue and let me tell you for me it was visual eye candy. I love the pacing of the stories it made me feel like a kid again. Tin Tin truly stands the test of time and is now a huge point of reference for my future works.

3: The Comic Strip

Krazy Kat by George Herriman

I personally really seemed to be drawn to the Krazy Kat comics by George Herriman this week. I found it much deeper than its slapstick exterior led most to believe it was. To me Krazy Kat was art and I feel like Harriman really tried to draw jazz in a way, it’s a bit hard to explain but the strip feels like jazz. The way the characters speak in this sort of creole accent or yidish makes it feel so alive. The overall plot is quite simple if you really want to analyze its goals. It’s a strip about a mouse that wants to throw a brick at a cat and a dog that wants to stop them. But to the intellectual mind it is so much more than that. Politics and romance somehow get rapped up in this conflict between cat and mouse without it ever truly admitting to its intensions and that’s why it’s amazing. For something that is so simple on an exterior level it holds within it the complexities of life. Krazy Kat to me is about love and love is as complex of a problem as we are ever going to find. Anyways I read it and became a fan.

2: Understanding Comic Books

Understanding Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud

I like to take things apart and figure out how they work. In "Understanding Comics” Scott McCloud not only takes apart comic books, he puts them back together again. Certainly comics are a neglected art form. Talk about Superman and Batman and big names like Stan Lee and Frank Miller will get kicked around, but nobody really talks about how comics work. Part of the problem is the conceptual vocabulary behind comics: we can explain in detail how a scene in a film works in terms of shot composition, montage, blah blah but that sort of conceptual vocabulary really does not exist in comics and McCloud takes it upon himself to pretty much create it from scratch. That, of course, is an impressive achievement. On top of that McCloud's knowledge of art history is so expansive that we can visualize the beginnings of comics. Topping all of this off is McCloud's grand and rather obvious conceit that his book about the art of comic books is done as a comic book. This might seem an obvious approach, but that does not take away from the fact that the result is a perfect marriage of substance and form. "Understanding Comics" works for both those who are reading pretty much every comic book done by anyone on the face of the planet and those who have never heard of Wil Eisner or Art Spigelman.