Underground Comics: Middle Class Fantasies and Girl Fight

I read a story about a team of scientists bringing the 20-years-dead Superman actor George Reeves back to life in a Frankenstein-like fashion and giving him the powers his character possessed on-screen. While it has been some time since Reeves' death in 1959, I still thought the concept was pretty insensitive and perhaps cruel, which is fitting for an underground comic. We see Reeves' nude body as he's revived and he is promptly dressed in his old Superman costume, which is a little rude since he'd ceased to enjoy playing the character as he aged. However, I can't fault the art style as being unattractive, as it displays good use of pen and ink techniques and gives an unmistakable likeness of Reeves.

The other underground comic I read was Trina Robbins' Girl Fight, which was a feminist counterpoint to contemporary artists' work such as Robert Crumb's. Piggybacking off of iconic figures like Catwoman and Wonder Woman, Robbins portrays her heroines as powerful but intensely sexual vigilantes which team up with feminist groups and stab their male abusers as they get in their way. I thought this comic was fascinating, especially since it dared to show things like lesbian sex in both glamorized and humble, domesticated ways. Robbins' characters seem to me like an important stepping stone in the early LGBT movement, although I wouldn't call them extraordinarily feminist now. There is some unfair stereotypical treatment of the character Fox as she fights crime and returns to her jungle home wearing a leopard skin bikini, showing proof of first wave feminism's lack of intersectionality. However, I still found the themes displayed to be important amidst common ignorance of feminine sexuality, especially that of lesbian sexuality.

Graphic Novels: Blankets

If you want to take a bittersweet walk down childhood nostalgia lane, read Blankets. Craig Thompson illustrates in his novel what it is to look back on your memories and feel conflicted-- have your trials changed you for the better, or for the worst? Who do you love and who do you let love you? How do you move on? In using a non-linear form of storytelling with constant flashbacks and visual parallels, Thompson masterfully allowed me to step into the mindspace of the main character and slowly piece together the reasons for his hesitance and reserved nature.

We follow him throughout childhood and adolescense and watch as he finds his first love and becomes an artist, but are reminded throughout the way of his trauma with both intimacy and self-expression earlier in life. I personally found Blankets to be very relatable and have been thinking about it since I read it a week ago. The religious themes are cutting and honest, which really affected me as I grew up with much the same lifestyle. I also fell in love with Thompson's style, which I thought really adds to the story with raw drybrush strokes and skillful use of white, black, and negative space.

EDIT; I couldn't help myself, I bought a physical copy of Blankets for myself! It's too powerful of a story to forget, and I cant wait to get a closer look at the beautiful artwork.

Comic Books: Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge's Adventures

Today I visited a well-beloved classic which has inspired many, Uncle Scrooge's Aventures. Carl Barks created an entire world for two rather simple Disney characters, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, giving them friends, family, and a colorful variety of enemies, the most prominent of which being the Beagle Boys. Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and the triplet brothers Huey, Dewey and Louie find themselves in a new adventure just about every issue, which usually entails getting back Scrooge's gold from crooks or going on an expedition to find more. Each panel is lovingly filled with excellent expression, dynamic shots and entertaining story, which is why the series was picked up for two T.V. shows, one being made as recently as 2017.

The gags are a step back from Looney Tunes humor, and the jokes a bit more sophisticated, but the endearing thing about these comics is that they dont feel either too childish or grown up to enjoy and satisfy people of all ages. Barks' expoundment of these characters has given many children-- and adults entertainment and a love for the francise that still hasnt died out.

Comic Strips: Hark! A Vagrant

For this topic, I refeshed my memory of one of my favorite webcomics/comic strips, "Hark! A Vagrant". I've been familiar with this strip for years, as screenshots of its mockery of historical jargon and iconic figures circled the internet. Kate Beaton, the strip's writer, artist, and self-publisher is a Canadian artist with a fascination for historical figures, both fictional and not. Beaton's strips show her great knowledge of facts, while also pushing just a little past reality for the joke.

She uses a simple style of cartooning, but somehow manages to strike a perfect comical likeness to the character she is depicting. Hark! A Vagrant, while technically a webcomic, provides readers with a nostalgic simple strip-format, also ususally shying away from color. Being self-published and quite popular, Beaton has also had the opportunity to sell merchandise of her work online and employ guest-artists as well. I have always found Hark! A Vagrant to be perfectly charming with a perfect brush of blue comedy, and since middle school it's helped me to become more intrigued with historical figures; Some on Beaton's strips have piqued my interest in a person enough to go into some late-night web research tangents. I'm always going to enjoy this strip, and I'm probably going to buy some merchandise for myself too.