BurbanBlog

This one was a bit hard to read in all honesty. Let me just start by saying, I never fully understood the weight that could be created through comics. So reading Blankets, A Contract with God, and now Maus, has been a real heavy eye opener. This one hits very close to home through family and people I care about. This comic dealt not only with the holocuast, which is in instead, a stupid heavy subject, but it also dealt with the mental health of most of the people who came out of the concentration camps. From leaving the gas on in the stove because the cost is included in the rent, to compulsively straightening everything anyone touches because it’s so important to have some sort of control, the mental pain of the people who survived was suffocating. What is amazing is the mental stress that was passed on to his son as well. Someone who never even was close to the events, walks away from his fathers narrative unable to comprehend or mentally handle the event. Can you even imagine how he

Well let’s put it this way. Never did I think I’d be permitted, even encouraged, to read such literature. It was certainly interesting, not even because of the subject matter specifically. Because they were made in a time when comics were especially frowned upon the style of artwork went from more refined, to much edgier, harsher, almost a more homemade sense. Since there were so few regulations to keep comics in check what or who was to say that artists couldn’t do, make, or write whatever they wanted in them. This brings us to the subject matter. Oh the subject matter. Put aside the fact that there was sex galor, the comics were rebellious, wild, untamed. This reflected the time period they were created, the hippy 70s. Era of flower children, rebellion against the system, and complete and utter backlash against the rules and regulations finally crumbling from the 50s and 60s. The wide array of styles and unusual subject matter just goes to prove the pendulum will always swing from on

WEEK FIVE; Contract With God This collection of stories were interestingly raw. Something about the graphic novels, they never seem to hide any of the earl raw emotion they are feeling. The very first story is about an elderly gentleman who feels God had betrayed him. In a time when life was so hard, what a genuine raw, brutal truth. It’s something that we can relate to even today. When we loose something, a child, we question how it’s possible that God would let such a thing happen. Such a collection of stories, from a drunkard who beats his wife, to people excited to go on vacation after a time of such little extravagance. It is raw, genuine, so truthful that you can’t run from it. It is not something you read to forget about the realities of life, more to find the humor in reality.

WEEK FIVE; Blankets This week was a very special week. It was unlike anything I’ve read this semester. It was emotional, it was heart felt, and very, very, forward in the questions it asked. Growing up in a similar situation, he vocalized a lot of the questions I felt growing up. Questions I never knew how to formulate. Questions I never felt I could ask anyone. There was something different about his narrative though; the way it depicted love was very unique. It wasn’t an idealic depictions with fairies and magic. This depictions was real. It showed an innocent love, it should a siblings love, it showed a selfish love. It showed the love from parents to child, from friend to friend, and a lustful, passionate love. It showed how we can often abuse love in different ways, each way differing depending on the type of relationship and love shared in that relationship. It also showed how love changes as we grow older, how we change with it, and how it never really changes that much, just

Week Four; Carl Barks, what a legend. Being a Disney Nut getting to read some of his work was a lot of fun. They are to the point, humorous, yet serious and each came with their own little truth. But they aren’t like the Peanuts, they are almost more aloof less from memory or experience. There is the formula of a story, beginning middle and end. They establish the setting and who will be in it, what the issue is and soon get to the point of remedying it. What was something so appealing about reading Barks comics was how clear his drawings are and how little he relies on diologue to drive the story. He would push the art and boil it down to the simplest, most concise form making it easier to read especially for children. However when it came to the story, going along with his more serious tones he would become extremely serious, in one instance discussing why people enjoy being cruel. This is an incredible deep level of thought for a children’s comic and yet there it was. Beautiful. I