Maus

What made the graphic novel Maus so memorable to me was its honesty. What stood out to me immediately was how natural the dialogue was. It even captured Vladek's unique way of speaking and felt authentic, like I could really hear him speaking to me. I wondered how the Art was able to do this. Then I got to the part where Art was shown using a tape recorder. I feel like it should've been obvious to me, but for some reason I thought Art's memories and note taking were so well done that he could remember exactly what his father said. I wonder if other graphic novelists have used this technique of recording conversations and using it as dialogue in their books. It would certainly be easier to do today with the ability to record someone immediately with your phone.

There are parts of the book that were most likely embellished by Art and not recorded, such as the fourth wall breaking part where he and his wife are speaking about whether she should be portrayed as a frog or a mouse, and the parts where he is hounded by reporters about what he is going to do now that the first Maus was such a success. This still contributes to the sincerity of the book, though, because Art was being honest about the emotions he was going through. It was surreal to be able to hear an author's thoughts on the book they are writing as you are reading it. I especially admired that Art was willing to depict not only his father's bravery, but his flaws as well. He voiced his own fears about depicting his father as a miserly Jewish stereotype, or as someone with prejudices against other races, but still put these details in the book anyway. It made the book feel all the more relatable. Even though I'm not Jewish, I could relate to struggling to connect with an older relative, and struggling to wrap your head around their past trauma.

Underground Comics- Zippy Stories

What I noticed first about the Zippy comics was that I really like the page layout and size. There are usually four panels to a page along with captions and large text. A lot of underground comics I've read can get very overwhelming with complicated art styles and too much tiny handwritten texts. Of course, sometimes those comics are meant to be complicated and crude. Zippy felt different to me because the art style looks very traditional for a comic. I was able to read each panel and page easily, so the pacing flowed much better. However, the subject matter and writing are very unconventional. It feels like a comic that was written in a stream of consciousness way rather than being planned out. The characters move from strange location to strange location very quickly without much explanation.

The section of the comic that stood out the most to me was the one where Zippy visits Disney World. The comic wasn't afraid to explicitly call it Disney and use Mickey characters instead of making a parody of Disney World that you might see in another comic. Underground comics tend to have more guts to critique on "untouchable" parts of society and culture. This is probably because the writers didn't have to worry about pleasing a publisher of a big company. The characterization of Zippy also allows the writer to critique society, because he is an outsider. He can look at something everyone else considers normal, like Disney, and question it. We can learn from characters like this to question our own beliefs about what is and isn't normal.

Blankets by Craig Thompson

Blankets really struck a chord with me and I was crying a lot while reading it. I love when a comic can do that. I think what appealed to me the most about it is that it is a work about the beauty of life but it is unafraid to be honest about the disgusting, humiliating, and harmful parts of life as well. I have noticed that I like a lot of stories with that theme. Movies like Eternal Sunshine, American Beauty, and Swiss Army Man are really fascinating to me because of this.

When I thought about comic books that have that kind of tone, I thought about Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Marbles by Ellen Forney. These books also deal with sexuality and are autobiographical, like Blankets. It's amazing to me that graphic novelists can be so fearlessly honest about their own lives. Even more so than novelists, because they can draw themselves in the situations they experienced, even if it's a humiliating or traumatic experience like masturbating for the first time or being sexually assaulted by a babysitter. I love that Craig Thompson can not only capture the action of what is happening in his life, but can use gesture and linework to capture the emotion as well. What makes autobiographical graphic novels so impactful to me is that since they are able to get so explicit down to the finest detail, you can breathe a sigh of relief that you're not the only one to experience that kind of shame or humiliation. 

I am curious about what it is like for a comic artist to publish something so intimately personal for people to read for decades to come. I wondered if Craig Thompson's parents and brother have read the comic, for example. I'd like to read interviews with Craig Thompson to learn more.