The Tortoise and The Hare by Gary Hallgren

The Tortoise and The Hare by Glen Hallgren was a trip from start to finish. Alright for this week I read as many underground comics as I could while listening to the full playlist of songs that was given to us. I read a lot of underground comics in that playlist worth of minutes. This story however was the one that stuck with me the most. Simply because the actual tortoise and the hare story is a fable cartoon that most of my generation grew up with. This comic however is NOT that story, or better yet it's the story after the original story. It just paints the wholesome morally charged story with the deviousness of actual human living. There is sex, crazy trips, drugging, and deceit. Honestly I really enjoyed it probably more so because this comic wasn't just a smut comic like some of the other underground comics. I took this story as a behind the scenes look at athletes and their secret lives. As a kid you see these crazy fit athletes that run incredible races and win a bunch of medals. But as a kid you aren't aware of the backstage depravities. Now a days all adults know that when an athlete isn't running or whatever they're probably getting neck deep in drugs and plowing through more snatch than Denzel Washington; and that's why adults love athletes. So I feel like this special relationship of knowing the fable story and its message as a kid and then growing up and reading this underground version mirrors what growing up in society is like now. You idolize athletes or heroes or whatever and then when you get to be older and more experienced and you see your idols for who they really are. Or someone just got super blasted and decided to make these characters fuck slutty rabbits and smoke a lot of hash for fun. Either way I thoroughly laughed and enjoyed it. 

Also I love the old slang, I will now refer to sex as "balling" and drugs as "shazam".

Contract with GOD by Will Eisner

A Contract With GOD by Will Eisner was such a great read. The text did not overshadow any of the images; everything works seamlessly with one another. Truly a masterpiece and a great work in the graphic novel genre. Will Eisner's style of rendering and the use of text in the drawings are superb, they fuse with the drawing themselves and give the scene a more cohesive feel; which allows for a much more immersive experience. I want to say that one of the reasons why this is so easily read and immersive is because of the use of simplified characters. Scott McCloud explains this in his Understanding Comics book, even though I obviously wasn't around in the 30's Bronx town I was able to connect with the narrative through the characters and their storytelling. 
After the first "chapter" or story I began to realize that these stories were more or less a way of using real life events and turning them into fiction to teach people morals. I will admit I am not very good at deciphering messages out of text and it's quite hard for me to pick up on secret meanings to readings. The way I interpreted the graphic novel was such, the stories begin somewhat wholesome or at least they seem normal enough with no devious tones. Only after you're introduced to the characters and their situations does the story dive deeper into their background and reveals something not morally sound. For example in the first chapter we have was a man of faith who then challenges God because God "broke" their contract, he then falls from faith and only when its too late does he wants to repent. To me that read as a message of discipline, the man had a good life up until he challenged God and then afterwards he did have riches but he wasn't happy and only when his life was closing did he want to make a mends with God. But if he had stayed true to his contract with God it would have been different; I believe God was testing his faith and unfortunately the man broke. Mind you I'm not a very religious person and my relationship with faith is strange. I do believe there has to be something greater than humanity out there but I'm just not sure what has been shown to us is true divinity. I may be wrong but I still try to live my life with morals and discipline because I believe it’s what right. So the message I picked up from this novel is that every time something seemed immoral it was met with a just consequence. Which truth be told is a big factor on how I live my life. 
I honestly really enjoyed this work of art and it helped to remind me to stay disciplined and live a wholesome and humble life.

The Crypt of Terror - The maestro's hand

 

The Crypt of Terror- The Maestro's Hand I believe written by Russ Cochran and illustrated by Al Feldstein simply put is the reason why I never quite enjoyed older comic books. I stated this in my last post where I talked about Little Nemo, I do not like older comics because the drawings aren't to my liking. Unfortunately I don't have a strong love for older comics even on a nostalgic level. I always avoided these comic books because somewhere along the line of me starting to read comics I found a comic book from this era and it left a sour taste in my mouth. The sour taste came back after reading this comic book story. I understand that all comics are considered art and I whole heartily agree, but some art isn't suited for some people. I realize that all old comics aren't like these but first impressions are very important.
Let me briefly explain why I don't fancy these old titles. First off the art just doesn't appeal to me, I grew up in the 90's and I was used to the cartoonish looks of nickelodeon and cartoon network. I really loved cartoons and the only shows or characters I loved more than cartoons were superheroes. Yeah I loved everything about the hero archetype and the style of drawings in comics from the 90's to now; these styles feel like home for me. So when I first saw an older comic I immediately was put off by the old style of drawing, with accurate but static depictions of people. I know it’s not always about the drawing quality so I read that comic book anyway to see if the story would hold up. As you might of guessed already, I didn't love it. They story, which I can't remember today, was just bland and predictable. There were rarely any funny bits like in my cartoons and there weren’t overwhelming actions like the superhero books I read. I just feel uninterested when reading these old titles; I find them to be lackluster in their storytelling and their drawing styles.
Basically that is how I feel about that era of comic books, I don't know much history to know if it was because of the time that influenced these stories but they simply aren't for me.

Little Nemo by Winsor McCay

 

 

Little Nemo by Winsor McCay, where was this when I was growing up?!?! This is so good its ridiculous how long its taken me to find out about this comic strip. This is now my new standard for old time comics. To be honest when I saw the drawings for the first time I didn't know if I was going to like it because it seemed too old. I had a problem as a kid with looking at old comics; basically my young brain didn't like the old cartoons. I was gifted with great drawing abilities since I was a kid so when I saw drawings that weren't to my liking I simply did not bother with them. I always wanted the newer stuff, the edgy super black contrasting lines of Marvel and DC. Boy was I a dumb kid Little, Nemo is outstanding. 

Let me explain why I'm so taken with this comic strip. When I think of old time comic I think of old comic books, not comic strips I didn't know there were old time comic strips when I was younger. I thought the funnies in a newspaper must have been a recent thing because of the style of drawings; obviously I was dead wrong. Even after I saw that there were older comic strips I didn't really care for them because I associated them with old comic books, I simply didn't want to bother with the story if the drawings weren't to my liking. Now I wish I were exposed to Little Nemo back then, the quality of drawing in perfect for the short stories that Winsor McCay would deliver every Sunday. What I loved about reading this was how light hearted the stories were, how beautiful the drawings are, and what surprised me the most was the fact that there is a long spanning story between each week. I'm used to reading the modern comics in a newspaper and usually they don't have long stories, they are one off comics that fit into a narrative background but don't actually tell a continuous story. This is truly a masterpiece of works and I believe it should be read by everyone, young or old.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud in my opinion, is a masterpiece that everyone everywhere should pick up. I have read very few writings that dive so deep into human psychology and explain it so clearly. The ideas that Scott McCloud discusses in his writing, and drawings, are ideas that I believe everyone has thought of at some point in time. At the very least anyone that has read comics has subconsciously been thinking the way McCloud explains. I found that to be astounding because its like a perception filter in Doctor Who, you never notice it there in plain sight until someone or something brings it to your attention and then you are able to see the object. That is how this book affected me; it hit me like a mind melting sci-fi plot twist. Obviously the fact that he himself made the book in a comic format and not a simply research type paper makes all the difference. The reader is going through the motions of reading another regular comic but as you read it the book is describing exactly how you are reading it and why you read it that way and its incredible to see how the human brain is such an individual thing but we all do these things so similarly.
The most interesting part for me is how we all can associate ourselves with the representation of a human face in a cartoon. It is only when we reach uncanny valley that we become disconnected from the character we are looking at and start to see the character and not ourselves. This was also a hard choice since this book has such great ideas, the way he describes how there are different levels of an artist was mind blowing. Simply because I feel as if I already had all the information in my brain just floating around and McCloud was able to piece all the background workings of the brain and put it in this book.