Underground : Mother's Oats Comics

This week I went in a very different direction and read strips from Mother's Oats, an underground comic.

The comic surprised me right away with its cover page (above). The cover features a mother swearing at her child and smacking him across the head, while her other boy curses as he looks on. Although this scene is made out to be comedic, it is very disturbing. Even the child abuse by Craig's father in Blankets--last week's post--was not nearly so blatant.

The shocking cover was a good indicator of what was inside Mother's Oats. Nudity and blatant drug use abound in the comic. In one strip, a character even shouts that he "Musta O.D'd". In another, two faucet spouts have sex.

Mother's Oats is not only about shock value, however. The comic also frequently jumps into political theory tirades in the middle of its insane adventures. One character, for example, discusses his "theory of perpetual ignorance" to his friends. The booming counterculture of the time must have loved this kind of dialogue.

Reading Mother's Oats definitely helped me understand how underground comics affected mainstream comics. With such extremes as the disturbing Mother's Oats and the extensively censored Marvel comics existing at the same time, the work coming out of this period was bound to land somewhere in the middle.

Comments

European Comics: Blacksad

Today I read the first book of Blacksad , an edgy French comic written by Juan Diaz Canales and illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido. The comics follow a panther detective through a series of anthropomorphic noir mysteries. I really enjoyed Blacksad . The story is a fairly standard mystery, but Blacksad's voice is engaging and authentic as a noir narrator, and the artwork is amazing. I felt that the art style was especially effective because it helps immediately establish character personalities--the criminals are rats and scaly creatures, the sheriff is a border collie, etc. I also tend to find that in noir movies or comics all the characters tend to look the same (all the men are square-jawed and serious, the women attractive and curvy) and the style of Blacksad helped prevent this from happening for me. Guarnido also does a fantastic job at using different shot angles and engaging acting within the panels. I enjoy this kind of visual storytelling much more than flatt

Contemporary Lit: Asterios Polyp

This week I re-read Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli. I read the Asterios Polyp for the first time almost by accident--I was waiting for someone in a library and grabbed it to pass the time, and was very surprised at what a great work it is. I enjoyed re-reading it with a more analytical mindset. One thing I found unique about Asterios Polyp is how well Mazzucchelli visually shows the psyche of characters. When characters fight, they begin to become more visually different and more in their own worlds of thinking the less they are in tune with each other. Without the narrator expressly telling us, we understand how the characters are feeling in relation to one another. This way, the writing and art can work together to keep us very engaged because we are not being told the same thing twice--we're learning something new from both the writing and the art. Showing the raw lines of the characters helped nail down the existentialist nature of the comic as well--people are visual

The Arrival : Shaun Tan

Welcome to my blog! For my first post I read The Arrival by Shaun Tan. A silent graphic novel, The Arrival puts a surrealist spin on the immigration experience, inspired by Tan’s own experience immigrating to Australia. Tan’s mastery of illustration and research of real immigration stories come together beautifully in this compelling novel. Though The Arrival is marketed as a children's book, it takes a mature and eye-opening approach to its subject. The protagonist, an immigrant leaving his family to start a new life in an unfamiliar country, must navigate an unfamiliar place without knowing its language. The Arrival puts its reader in the same position--we must navigate the book without words. Instead of language, Tan uses character acting, panel setup, and the details he chooses to focus on to tell the story. For example, at the beginning of the novel Tan shows a montage of different objects around the immigrant’s home--a child's drawing of the family,

Lauren's Literature of the Graphic Narrative

Search This Blog