Week 5: Eisner and Thompson

A Contract with God by Will Eisner:



A Contract with God was not a happy read in the slightest and at times, I even found it all a little comfortable. However, I found it to be very captivating at the same time and I am glad I read it.

I especially enjoyed the first few stories of the novel, A Contract with God, The Street Singer and The Super... However, it wasn't really the stories themselves that really made an impact, but the feeling that I felt when reading it. There is something really biblical about it all, which comes as no surprise given Eisner's strong Jewish heritage and beliefs.

From the reassurance of heavy rains (god manipulating weather), to the unsavory character ( the books are filled with these) and the communication with god. There is something epic and old testament about these rather mundane and un-epic stories. It is really only present when you read them all woven together as they are intended to be... Whereas, if I read them individually, I don't think I would have felt the same about them.

The other thing that I really appreciated about Contract with God, is the art. Like Windor McCay, Will Eisner proves he is a master with the pen. The character/art style is also extremely unique for the time and given the amount of times I have seen a similar style pop up nowadays, I can really appreciate the impact he has had on the comic and art world.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 13: in class assignment... Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow Reaction to the story? My initial reaction to the text was one of surprise. I think that the twist at the end was a little predictable by modern standards but the tone of the comic was one that I was not expecting. I enjoy the unconventional and dramatic story that was present but I also was surprised by, and not exactly expecting it to retain a comic book/campy vibe that felt like a classic comic to me. I really enjoyed that dichotomy and would not have expected that from what I have experienced from Alan Moore in the past. Connections made with the story? I was able to connect that Lois's current husband is actually Superman pretty quickly, just because I think that kind of twist is a little stereotypical by conventional standards. However, that is not to say that it isn't executed really well, which I think that it is. It also was probably more of an unexpected surprise at the time it was ori...
Read more

Week 12: Fun Home

Image
Fun Home is an interesting graphic Novel which i would not really describe as my "cup of tea". However, by the end of reading it, I respected it for how deeply personal it was. Even when compared to stories like March and Persepolis, Fun Home give you an insight into the world of the writer like few other pieces of literature have. The whole novel has a "Dear Diary," sort of tone to it, to the point where you realize this is Bechdel's way of getting out some personal demons, troubles and questions... many of these questions never having a clear answer presented the reader. I think this need to get it off her chest is what makes this read engaging, hard to swallow and even unsatisfying (in a weird satisfying way... If that makes any sense). The story is filled with characters (most obviously Bechdel's dad) that are confusing and hard to understand. This works tot eh novels benefit because that same sort of confusion is exactly the way Bechdel feels about...
Read more

Week 10: Astro Boy

Image
What I found most interesting about Astro Boy was the fact that it is an early example of Japan's love and embrace of robotics and robotic culture into their popular culture. It's interesting to see what is probably the first example of this, when all my life robots have been engrained into their pop culture, especially within anime and manga media. What is even more interesting about Astro Boy (and something I wasn't expecting) was how human Astro Boy is as a character. He feels less cold and less, ironically, less robotic than some of the robotic characters I am used to from anime/ manga I love like Ghost in the Shell. Rather than getting the intense, cold and dark sci-fi feeling i got from Ghost in the Shell, I instead felt something more akin to the feeling I get watching a classic Disney movie.
Read more