The Comic Book Response

The Comic Strip Response

Little Nemo served to be a fantastical delight to read and observe. The use of colors and patterns, the unusual characters and the posturing of them was very interesting. Reading it made me feel a bit younger automatically, which I think it sort of crazy of a thing to happen, as I watch cartoons all the time and don't get that exact relation. The style is very consistant and you know what to expect- except you don't.  It's so whimsicle that you don't even know what to sense exactly, and that's okay. You let the comic take you for a drive and it's all about the experience it creates for you. 

As for the other comics, it was really disheartening to find a lot of offensive blackface, yellowface, and redface. I found myself floating around books uncomfortably and unable to enjoy the content as much as other students. And then whenever I would found something I could appreciate and enjoy? Bam. Here's another terrible character. It hurts because it's true, I was never the intended demographic/audience in mind when these artists made their comics. I'm thankful to be living in a more accepting and inclusive time, though we still have a long way to go, we have made impressive strides since then. I was thankful to see Krazy Kat though, as it gave familiarity. It wasn't perfect itself, but it was neat to see a brother out here and giving people to look up to.

Underground Comix Response

After hearing a fair warning of the Underground Comix' content about it's obscenity- I figured it would be something along the lines of Family Guy and cartoons of that nature. What I found instead reminded me immensely instead of "incels" on the internet and other unusual subgroups of the dark internet. I guess I could see why people read them. It was more so for whatever was happening versus something visually appealing- or you could say that was a style in of itself. I could talk all day about how it made sense, but in my utterly honest oppinion- I can't support that in any way. No matter what time period you are in, nothing will stop something from being problematic, despite it being "culturally acceptable" or not- and we know it wasn't. The reason being because you would never find this in a semi-professional enviroment, it's clearly taboo. Topics like these help make people rationalize and relate to obscene characters who aren't meant to be idolized- but when being read by a younger OR an older audience, people are going to fantisize either way. Which is beyond disturbing to me. The comic I read was on drugs, and though I didn't know it was from the perspective of real heroin addicts, to me it still came across as stigmitizing versus being less aggressive with it's tellings and warnings of the drug and it's addicts. I feel like it could be a self fufilling prophecy if you are already heading down that road self destructively, what is to stop you from just accepting this as a truth? My perspective is different, but it's from someone who has a friend who has recently developed a heroin addiction and dependency. She has the mindset of "my body is ruined, I'm going to die young anyways", so she's more concerned with being a dirty kid and glorifying homelessness in the punk scene that she knew she would eventually come to this point and accepted it. That's why I personally can't agree or rationalize the decision making of these comic writers and publishers.