Blankets Craig Thomson

Blankets by Craig Thomson is a beautiful story which portrays the life of a young man growing up with his brother in Wisconsin. Craig grows up with his lower middle class family dealing with the struggles of growing up. This is a very down to earth story which fantastically emulates what Craig's life was truly like when he was growing up, It keeps this very homey feel throughout the entire novel. The excellent illustration and great dialogue really pushes this story forward making it an easy read which you don't want to put down. Not only was the story very well concluded, it nods to motifs throughout the course of the story which adds a very satisfying element to what you read.

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Mr Natural - Robert Crumb

Mr. Natural is a classic Crumb comic about the titular character: the wonderful guru Mr. Natural. As having already been familiar with Crumb's work I felt particularly drawn towards his work, and Mr. Natural is no exception. I very much enjoyed reading this along with other Crumb works I was very happy to even get a chance to read these comics, as always Mr. Natural gets up to his antics and is either being a real nuisance or giving sound advice you never truly know what to expect from him. There were definitely some issues with Crumb's work which make it a bit more on the insensitive side, however I believe what Crumb does for the underground comic movement is vitally important as well as really imbuing a striking confidence in his female characters which I believe certainly helped some women with their body image, considering that is what one of his wives once said. All around Crumb may have been curmudgeonly and crude but as a comic artist he was so important, and truly was...

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud was a phenomenal read, it offered wonderful insights into the creation of comics and the lives of comic creators. There was much and more to learn from this comic about comics. While reading this I was able to immediately recognize the love for comics that Scott has, and felt throughout the entire thing. Scott's points on trying to define comics was a particularly interesting topic to cover, because it does in fact seem to be a somewhat difficult thing to discern from other sequential media. There was so much that i was happy to learn about from this comic I especially enjoyed what he said about the space between the panels being figured out by the brain as opposed to simply showing every second we are able to gather enough information to get a complete picture. Another topic that really piqued my interest was the differentiation between perceived and received information and how as you get closer to the middle of the scale you get very simp...

Contract with God By Will Eisner

Contract with God was a wonderful comic which tells the harrowing tale of Frimme Hersh and his contract with God. The story really seems to lend it self well to the artist's style and the atmostphere of the piece feels very personal. Seeing all the cityscapes within the story really reminded me a lot of back when I was living in New York. Frimme Hersh experiences loss quite early on in the story and this makes him quite bitter towards the world and God. As Frimme continues to gain more wealth he continues to stay bitter and cruel to his wife until the inciting incident which sends him to the synagogue to try and write up another contract and as soon as he gets it, he dies. The story continues on to show us the lives that continue on at the very same address, most all of these stories still ending once again in tragedy. This was a wonderful read and the art is astounding with incredible line quality and beautiful inking.

Lit. Comics - Emory Widman

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