Skip to main content

The Smithsonian Collection: Buck Rogers (4 Points)

 One of the comics strips that I found interesting among all of these newspaper comics was the Buck Rogers comic. To me, it felt more like a page out of a comic book than something that belongs in a newspaper, which is why I think it stood out to me from the rest. There are a few key factors that made the comic feel less like it was from the newspaper and rather made it feel more like a comic book. I think the art direction, the panel diversity, and the thought-out story work together to make this comic strip stand out from the rest in newspaper comics. The art direction shows that the creators put a lot of time and care into the comic. There are a lot of unique designs for outfits, characters, and worlds. Additionally, the color choices, while very saturated in some cases, help to differentiate the background and foreground well. The panel diversity also assists the comic to feel different from the rest. Few panels in the comic break themselves from the traditional square column-row format that most newspaper comics follow. Some panels jump in and out of others, while others are rectangular and do not follow a strict line of where to begin and where to end the sides of the panel. Furthermore, the story in Buck Rodgers is more than just a jump to the punchline. Many of the other comics in the collection rely on quick wit and humor or offensive dialogue in order to attract the attention of their audience. Buck Rodgers, however, relies on world building and in-depth story telling to captivate their audience. Additionally, it does not seem to fall into the sexists tropes, but rather it gives the women in the comic intelligence and authority. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The History of Comics: The Loss of Ownership (3 Points)

 One trend that I felt was interesting, albeit upsetting, was that with the incentive of making money by creating comics, the lines of ownership of the artist's creation seem to blur. Of course, other factors lead to the uncertainty of giving credit where credit is due, such as having multiple people working towards one comic. However, I feel that when comics became more mainstream, companies valued the income that comics made over the treatment of the artist that created them. In particular, on pages 109 and 110 of The Comic Book History of Comics that Marvel allowed for the continuation of Stan Lee as the sole credit of their comics for quite some time, leaving artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby unhappy with their lack of recognition. Marvel (and Stan Lee) made profit off of Stan Lee's rise to fame, practically letting people believe he was a genius for creating such works by himself. In actuality, talented artists were drawing and plotting the comics while Stan sometime...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Favorite Thing is Monsters (6 Points)

For the week that we read these, we were asked to discuss whether the comics we read should be considered literary or not. My first reaction was to break down what made something 'literary'. I was inclined to say that as long as something had words and was telling a story with some amount of depth, then that was what I considered literary. However, I realized while talking with team members about this question that I had a new consideration of literary comics. I like to think of comics the same way I think about art, and that is that anything can be art. I do not think that we have to tie down the constraints of what is and is not literary because that can put writers who just want to create into a bubble. Whether I used my old definition or my new definition, I think My Favorite Thing is Monsters is definitely a literary comic. It masterfully uses its media to tell a fantastic and relatable story. Everything about the comic felt real and was very engaging, the art felt in sync...
Post a Comment
Read more

American Born Chinese (3 Points)

 I read American Born Chinese about two years ago for the Asian and Asian American Diaspora LMST Class, but I did not quite remember everything that happened, so I decided to read it again. While there are seemingly three story lines, they all merge into one at the end, which caught me off guard again the second time reading it. I definitely think this fits into the category of literary comics. Not only does it have great writing, it tells a compelling story that really makes the reader stop to think. While I cannot say that I relate to this story in the same way, I can see how this story could be relatable. I feel like this is an important novel that everyone should take a second and read. I also really enjoyed the pacing of this novel, both in the sense of the three stories coming together as one and in the panel by panel framing of the scenes. The writer understands well how to use blank panels and pages. 
Post a Comment
Read more