Week Six: Underground Comics

For this week I read Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy’s Cat, Zap Comics, and Tits and Clits. My favorites were the Zap Comics and Tits and Clits because some of the stories were hilarious. In one comic from Zap, people were getting hit with meatballs and it was the best. I also enjoyed the surrealist comics that seemed to be ads for Mr. Peanut and Camel Cigarettes among other things. A couple of comics from Tits and Clits featured a woman who had abnormally large breasts that she would beat men up with, the stories were really funny and was my favorite series of the comic. All of the stories were about women taking charge of their own bodies and what they did with them. In other comics its more what men would want to read and the man having control over a women’s body and using it to their own needs. Personally these kinds of comics are a bit to crude for me and some of the art (mostly all) makes me cringe due to the offensiveness, bad anatomy and some really ugly people. I wouldn't be surprised if the artists on SpongeBob were influenced by these comics because the art reminds me of the horrifying detailed close-ups of some of the characters and environments.

Week Five: Eisner & Thompson

For my reading this week I read Eisner's Contract with God and Thompson's Doot Doot Garden. I enjoyed the first story in Eisner's Contract with God about the man losing his daughter and breaks his contract with god that he made when he was young, then after breaking the contact becomes rich from lying and stealing and tends to only the needs of his own instead of others like in the past. He then realizes that all the money and his new mistress can't fill the emptiness inside of him that he once had with his daughter and most importantly the contact he had made between god and himself. After realizing this he repays what he had stolen and gives up his rights to the buildings he owns and strikes a new contact with god thinking to start over and have a new life and family that he once had only to suffer a heart attack and die. This story is ironic in the way that he leads a good life by god only to suffer but when he breaks the contract and leads a selfish life it seems he has it good and everything is going his way. Although he suffers he finds happiness with his belief in God and that is better then any material items he can ever acquire.

The other stories I read were a bit much with the violence and didn't enjoy reading them I stopped at maybe the 3rd story because it just wasn't my cup of tea. But one another note i really like how moody his work is and when there are parts where its rainy and wet I can put myself in that moment and feel what the characters are feeling. I could really feel Hersh's frustration with life and the conflicting emotions within himself. He is a truly relatable character and the subject matter of his inner turmoil with his religion is an issue that is also common for many people. 

Thompson's Doot Doot Garden was super awesome, I laughed the whole way through. I really like his cutesy style with undertones of crudeness. None of the stories really made sense but they were cute and had real life situations like friendship and loss, but not the chocking on a turd part, I'm quite sure that is not a common issue and at least I hope not. Anyway it was a really good read and would defiantly like to read more from him in the future.