Skip to main content

Week Six: Underground ComiXXX

I really loved how music was integrated into this weeks reading. Both the music and the art styles seemed to twist and flow together in one moment of nonlinear expression. It’s like you could feel the culture of the time, dripping out of its conventional constraints through any and every available crack or gap. The religious experience of Phillip K Dick, was really intense. I've heard a few people talk about his experience before, but had never realized that it was centered on Christianity. I also really enjoyed some of the underground stories and art styles in the Mothers Oats Comix. The pinnacle of this particular reading experience was listening to In-a-gadda-da-vida, while flipping through “The Dope Dealer”. I also really appreciated the diversity of style and storytelling, in “Gay Comix”. It was pretty awesome hearing about different things people had experienced, and seeing the individual ways they wrote about and expressed those experiences.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Week Thirteen: Webcomics

The greatest web comic I’ve ever read – and possibly the greatest web-comic of all time, is without a doubt Steve Lichman by Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren https://rapozacomics.carbonmade.com/projects/5313679 I think Steve Lichman is a great example of why web comics are so successful. The rough linework and simple color palate give it a personal touch, while the relatively short panel size make it quickly rewarding and easy to scroll through. It really feels like someone’s labor of love, that they come home to each night and scribble out when the mood hits. It also looks like something one of your friends might’ve drawn, and I think that makes the comic feel more personal and contemporary. It s simplicity also makes it feel more visceral, like all of its guts are right there on the page for you to see. Another thing that I think makes it so successful is the overall tone, and the humor and wit, that seem to seep out of every panel. It’s freaking hilarious, and I think that the hu...

Week Eight: Stereotypes and Ethics

It was definitely interesting learning about how far we’ve come as a culture when it comes to the stereotypical representations used in early comics and other forms of media, especially in terms of race, sexuality, gender and ethnicity. To me, despite the current cultural climate of dissatisfaction, I think that we’ve come pretty far as a culture in one lifetime. It actually seems like we’re probably pushing the limit for the amount of change and adjustment that some people can make to their worldview in one lifetime, without completely plunging them and the culture into a state of mass anxiety and hysteria. That being said, I wish we would have acknowledged that in class in a more positive way, and approached this topic in the lecture from a more reassuring perspective - especially in today’s current media-fueled maddening political climate. It would have been refreshing to hear about this topic from the perspective that the changes we need to make as a culture, have already happ...

Week Nine: The Wide World of Comics

This topic has special interest to me, because of the particularly nostalgic and poignant time in my life when I discovered people like Moebius and Jodorowsky. I was assigned to do six months in the Beale Air Force base Honor guard, when in my off time I stumbled across a torrent with the entire Jean Giraud archive. Far up north in the foothills of Tahoe, for that entire green and rainy California spring, in between flag folding ceremonies and funerary rifle firing - I was absolutely immersed. There are many incredible things about the work of Jean Giraud; his soft ethereal colors, his borderline mystic line quality and geometrically grounded spirituality, his philosophy on art, his humor, its really hard to pick one aspect of his work to rave about. Ultimately his incredibly detailed and sometimes delicate draftsmanship, mixed with his use of both silent and worded storytelling makes for a fantastically engrossing experience. The only thing more fantastic than being absorbed by o...