The Comic Strip : 'Krazy Kat'

In this particular section of the class, we had the opportunity to flip through several old and entertaining comic strips compiled into books. Some were very simple and direct, some included optical illusions, and all drawn differently in their own stylized manner. What all of these books had in common was they were all in the form of comical strips - sequential drawings arranged in interrelated panels , often times displaying humor in short, horizontal narratives. I specifically enjoyed the intelligence in the humor and the cleverness of the stories and wording. Though they were mostly about kids or adolescent interactions, and were drawn in an entertaining way for kids to enjoy, the morals and messages of the strips were written in such a way that only an adult could understand or relate to. 

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo, George Herriman's Krazy Kat, and Charles Schultz's Peanuts are examples of some of the pieces we went over this week. 

Krazy Kat was definitely one of my favorites (Of the stories I had never heard of or seen prior to this lesson). I was very familiar with Little Nemo and have, since the beginning of my time, been in love with all of the Nemo comics. What I most enjoyed about the Krazy Kat stories is the dynamic of the cat, the mouse and the policeman. The carefree, simple-minded cat named Krazy is of indeterminate gender and is referred to as both "he" and "she", is in love with the grumpy mouse named Ignatz.  Ignatz despises Krazy and is constantly scheming against the cat and always attempting to throw bricks at Krazy's head. At the end of most strips Ignatz is locked in the county jail.It was very reminiscent of the dynamic between Whiley Coyote and Roadrunner. I noticed in a lot of the older comics, police are heavily depicted as the general and easily relatable 'authority figure' and come up a lot in simplistic representations. Like, "if you mess up, the cops are gonna getcha". I found that even thought the stories in the strips were so lighthearted and silly, they represented a lot of greater, adult issues. 

The Comic Book - Tin-Tin , Blueberry & Hellboy

My father introduced me to comics as a young kid. French comics of course, because that was what he grew up on. One of the first I can remember reading and loving was The Adventures of Tin-Tin , created by Hergé. At a younger age this comic really appealed to me. Tin-Tin was a relatively average, intelligent young boy, a reporter, accompanied by his trusty terrier, Milou. His outfit is the same almost entirely throughout the comic, and has very memorable characteristics, like his hairdo and facial expressions. Tintin's iconic representation enhances this aspect. Scott McCloud has said that it "allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world."

 As a child I only enjoyed the adventures for the idea of adventure, but never really understood some of the underlying themes and messages within the stories/surrounding his adventures. Propaganda and publicity stunts were often promoted through the comics. I also never realized some of the more controversial themes like racial stereotypes, animal cruelty, colonialist, violent, and fascist portrayals of nonEuropeans. As we discussed in class, this was justified by Hergé as simply being a product of the bourgeois society that surrounded him. Despite all of these corrupt, underlying themes, I loved the simplicity of Tin-Tin and the positive morals and values he represented as a young hero.

 

Anyway, as I grew out of Tin-Tin, my father introduced me to a different kind of adventure comic. Also a french one, "Lieutenant Mike Blueberry" by Moebius. This was probably the last French comic I avidly read before being introduced to American Comics in the US. I loved the Blueberry stories and the more characters in American comics I have been introduced to the more respect I have for Blueberry as a 'hero'. He never expected reward or acknowledgment for his good deeds or his savings. Blueberry is an atypical western hero, not a wandering lawman who brings evil-doers to justice, nor a handsome cowboy who "rides into town, saves the ranch, becomes the new sheriff and marries the schoolmarm." In any situation, he sees what he thinks needs doing, and he does it. I loved this about him. I was so attracted to this character for this reason. 

I love how honest the back story for Blueberry is. He starts as a dedicated racist (being a product of his family), and is one day saved by an African American, making him a total enemy of discrimination and racism altogether. He fights against the confederates and protects the rights of the Native American people. He was like a western Hellboy for me. I also just really loved the change of artistic style. The complexity of Moebius' artwork and line drawings. His hatched inking style and western colors were so exciting at that age for me. It was like every Blueberry comic I read, felt like a western film, and I wouldn't put it down until I finished reading it. Then onto the next one. It wasn't until I discovered Hellboy in America that I had ever felt that way about a comic. (I will probably talk more about my love for Hellboy in a later post... trust me.)

 

"Understanding Comics", By Scott McCloud

Prior to this class, I hadn't been introduced to Scott McCloud's 'Understanding Comics'. I honestly wish I had been because it could have been VERY useful to my own production of comics much earlier on. A few of the topics addressed in the book that really left an impression on me, were the Transitions, and Time Frames. Of course the Vocabulary of Comics was important and helpful to revise, but in the Transitions and Time Frames chapters, I learned a lot of things about pacing and passage of time in the way that panels are placed and constructed on each page's composition. After going over Shaun Tann's "The Arrival", my mindset had already been in the thoughts of pacing and transitioning panels and pages. I forgot how masterfully done it was in that novel and in so many others. 

McCloud presents the idea of Six forms of Transition:

1. Idea or purpose – The impulses, the ideas, the emotions, the philosophies, the purposes of the work… the CONTENT.
2. Form – The form it will take... will it be a book? A chalk drawing? A chair? A song? A sculpture? A pot holder? A comic book?
3. Idiom – The school of art, the vocabulary of styles or gestures or subject matter, the genre that the work belongs to maybe a genre of its own.
4. Structure – Putting it all together... what to include, what to leave out... how to arrange, how to compose the work.
5. Craft – Constructing the work, applying skills, practical knowledge, invention, problem-solving, getting the “job” done.
6. Surface – Production values, finishing the aspects most apparent on first superficial exposure to the work.

Using a medium or artistic form/structure to properly and successfully tell a story is exactly what these steps made me realize. I have always loved telling stories through comics, but never entirely understood what went into it. A valuable lesson I learned in McCloud's 'Understanding Comics' is also how important the words are, and how along with the drawings and pictures, the words serve as visual elements in representing the story. They serve as design elements like many of the drawings. 

1. Word Specific- pictures illustrate but don’t significantly add to a largely complete text
2. Picture Specific- combinations where words do little more than add a soundtrack to a visually told sequence
3. Duo Specific- panels in which both words and pictures send essentially the same message
4. Additive- combination where words amplify or elaborate on an image or vice versa
5. Parallel- combinations, words and pictures seem to follow very different courses without intersecting
6. Montage- where words are treated as integral parts of the picture
7. Interdependent- where words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea that neither could convey alone

(Page from my Graphic Novel)

"Compression - To stop the bleeding"

Week of Kindness or The Seven Deadly Element - Max Earnest

Panel 1

A witch casts a spell on chickens eggs

Panel 2

Birdman and chicken look upon dying girl

Panel 3

Chicken man hides girl bellow floor board

Panel 4

Chicken hides baby, kills woman

Panel 5

Chicken man kills woman with joy, other chickens look upon

Panel 6 

Chicken man stares at dancing woman

"The Arrival", by Shaun Tan

It is not obvious, entering this wordless graphic novel, what the story is actually about. The title itself is so powerful and carries so much weight throughout the story. It is depicted in an imaginary world, and uses representative imagery to describe the journey of a man crossing over from one place to another. The panels are so cinematic. Each page is designed and paced like the story boards for a film. The small, squared panels, side by side, move my eye quickly through the page, as my eyes would move in unvarying or fast-moving scenarios in real life (ie. dialogue between two people, taking a vegetable and displaying the motions of chopping that vegetable, panel by panel). The splash pages and larger spreads take significantly longer to process and digest.

I love that about this story. With no words, I am able to visually piece together an entire journey, and as the story unfolds, I realize what it is actually about:

Immigration.

I am not originally from America, and though my transition from Lebanon to the U.S. was completely personal and different from the character in 'The Arrival's experience, I could relate on so many levels to the foreign imagery he encounters. I think the book was intended to empathize with both immigrants and inhabitants of any ambiguous country or place. For those transitioning into a new world, it is intended to show their struggles and to express a possible feeling of loneliness, alienation and confusion. For the inhabitants taking in a foreign immigrant, I think Tan's intention is to remind them of the compassion and acceptance they should have toward those people. The ambiguity of this world he depicts, and the lack of descriptive details and color helps the reader understand and possibly relate to both ends of immigration, the traveler and the receiver. It is so powerful and has greatly influenced the visual story telling in my own comics, with or without words.