Rebel Visions - 5pts

    These comics are very disturbing and definitely stretch the ideas of social norms, what's acceptable in society, and dark humor. I can see how some of the content in these comics would stir up trouble with the police and be unacceptable to the general population at the time. I'm even having trouble reading it comfortably in a Starbucks right now... Definitely not the kind of thing you would want someone seeing from over your shoulder. Although I like the explicitness of their ideas and opinions, they aren't afraid to expose the dark sides of the human mind. The most interesting to read about was the Rolling Stone magazine and how Rick Griffin's rock and psychedelic inspired style was featured on the cover of the magazine. He was the one who created the original lettering for the Rolling Stone logo. You can see where in the lettering the logo is inspired especially when compared to Griffin's work in Zap Comix. A lot of these comics poke fun at the classic design of Mickey Mouse, one of Griffin's comics refer to him as "the boss". This is probably playing at Disney's monopoly and how they represent America's capitalism in a way. Another Zap comic uses the phrase "Luna Toon" which clearly is referring to Looney Toons. I enjoy the sarcasm in a lot of the comics. One by Robert Crumb basically says, you don't need a therapist, you need to get stoned! 

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