Smithsonian Collection - 4pts

 I found some of the typeface and text hard to read from these comics. I think also that comics had pretty dated ideas and concepts. A lot of them I couldn't find the punchline in or I saw it funny for a different reason. For example there's one comic called Midsummer Day Dreams on page 59 of the pdf where a couple is trying to have a conversation while the wife keeps seeing dogs around their table that continue to grow in size. The original punchline is suppose to be how she is day dreaming all the dogs and is unable to pay attention to the conversation because she is falling asleep. I found it funny because this women is continuously pointing out this giant dog which the man continues to ignore or refuses to notice. So I saw it as the man was the one being ridiculous and was ignoring her, not that she was the one in the wrong. The man is also talking about himself the whole time and being incredibly self-centered. I thought the Polly and her Pals comics had a very appealing style. I like the bold blocked colors and big black shapes. It's also a comic I have a better time understanding and I can understand the humor more. I also recognized more of the Popeye comics mostly because of the slap stick comedy which there was a lot of. The Mickey comics were surprising to me, I knew about the style of them but I didn't know they were so well done and they had longer storylines that lasted a few pages. I was also surprised by the alternate characters that were used that I wasn't as familiar with. Overall I enjoyed reading a lot of the ones I understood and were visually appealing. My favorite styles are the more simpler ones that have a resemblance of the Peanuts comics.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Phoenix - 9pts

I've read a lot of manga but this is the first I'm read that had this sort of style. It took me a while to get into the correct tone of this comic because I was mislead by the very cute style into thinking it would be more innocent and carefree. But then a character dies and I was confused by the storyline right off the bat. Less importantly I got confused by the gender of a few characters, I thought the younger boy was a girl. Then the tone would switch from something very serious to very carefree almost instantaneously and I would lose the character's goals. I forgot about the phoenix for some parts of it as well and had to remind myself of the original plot of the story. There definitely a lot of plot twists though. I think maybe the translation ended up getting me lost sometimes perhaps. Phoenix Future was even more confusing to me, maybe because I was used to the prehistoric timeline from before but I became confused by this. It was a completely different style than th...
Read more

The Dark Knight Returns - 4pts

 I found the style of this comic very interesting but I found the TV interview segments a little confusing and harder to follow. The most appealing and eye opening panels to me were the ones filled almost entirely with a black shape. I liked when the black shapes took up most of the panel and surrounded the characters.  I think the integration of batman's backstory works really well in this way. I found the large lettering for the sounds very effective in the storytelling. In one panel they used the lettering as the frame for a bolt of lightning which was pretty ingenious. Also using the lettering to surround the car tires screeching really helps the sound be in the audiences mind while reading. The lettering surrounding the characters also helps to fill the space with that sound. Overall this story was very eye catching and did a great job of keeping the audience entertained. 
Read more

The Illustrated Comic Strip - 2 pts

Reading Prince Valiant , I can already tell that these comics differ in style with including color and is narrated by an outside voice. I find this format hard to connect with the characters and it gives them a lack of personality. It makes the main character definitely seem like a hero but makes it hard to become a part of the world. I also feel like the comic shouldn't have to be narrated because the audience should be able to tell what's happening by the illustration. It's sort of redundant. As the story continues this tends to get better and the comic starts to break out of its restricting format of only box framed images although they have to number the boxes so that the audience knows which to read next. The later comics solve this problem and improve on the use of the narration. They also succeed in making Prince Valiant more relatable and an iconic character that doesn't get lost in the other characters. Terry and the Pirates , although it is in only black and w...
Read more