Contract With God by Will Eisner - Review

Will Eisner's Contract With God certainly took me on an interesting ride through such complex, yet simple short stories of the people living in the tenements. The first thing that hit me while reading this is how overall depressing and tragic each of the stories are. I believe three of the four stories ended up with the main character dead. Parts of the comic almost brought me to tears because of how sympathetic I felt for these characters. What made them feel so real perhaps is how human they act; the way they show their feelings is terrifyingly relatable. None of the characters were perfect, and the way Eisner drew them especially reflects that part of them. There was the young, thin, and beautiful flapper woman who had an unquenchable thirst for sex and money. There was the chubby, nagging housewife that lived with a grumpy cheater of a husband planning to leave his children for his mistress. So many characters were cheating on one another's lovers and so many of them had no other feelings other than the want for more in their life. The first story followed a good man who slowly turned corrupt with money. Another story followed a landlord who gave money to get a peek at a little girl, who stole all his money and killed his dog, his only best friend in such a dark world, which only resulted in his suicide when he was confronted by the police. What really hits hard the most is how all of these stories were claimed to be true. This comic displays the people as animals living in the dark zoo of the tenements.

Tintin by Hergé - Review

What I loved about Tintin in Tibet by Hergé was how filled with plot the comic was. It was very long, but the story was so interesting to me that I didn't want to stop reading. This comic follows Tintin on his long journey to find his friend Chang, who supposedly died in an plane crash in a very dangerous place in the mountains. Reading this comic felt like like an adventure from beginning to end, I almost felt like I was watching a movie. Even though every panel simply has the characters interacting with each other, there was a good amount of intensity sprinkled onto their situations in their journey that heavily develops the world building and the characters' personalities. In terms of art, what I found very odd was how cartoony Tintin looks compared to a lot of the other characters in the comic. Many background and side characters have more humanlike features like various noses and hairstyles, and then you see little Tintin with his cute round face, dotted eyes, rosy cheeks, and orange tuft of hair. A part of me feels like he was drawn this way to put emphasis on him, or perhaps create an attractive main character so you can't help but root for him during his adventures. The latter is definitely one main reason why I thoroughly enjoyed reading the comic. Seeing him surrounded by seemingly normal human beings almost makes me think of him as a foreign character to them, or everyone else is foreign to Tintin, but I may be overthinking it a little bit.

Peanuts by Charles Schulz - Review

For as long as I can remember, Peanuts has landed a huge impact on my life, as well as many other kids in my generation, and hopefully more to come. I've grown up reading the strips in the newspaper and it's a tradition for me and my dad to sit down and watch the holiday specials. Schulz really nails the experience of childhood in his strips with such relatable characters with how they interact with each other, even down to the deeper thoughts that kids would have, such as being afraid to grow old or worrying about what other people think of them. Peanuts is one of the only comic strips that I can truly understand because it has a simple sense of humor that I could get in on, even if I was still a kid. It has this sort of strong nostalgic charm to it that really brings me in and wanting to read all the strips for hours. The essence of childhood causes me, as a young adult, to reflect and think about how pleasant and carefree, yet how terrifying growing up is. What makes these strips so successful in that concept is how Schulz implements a part of his childhood life into his comics. Childhood is something that a lot of people share, and it can be such a sweet thing to talk about. And that's one big word I can describe Peanuts with. There's something sweet about the comics and that's what makes them so lovable to me. They're like a small slice of life that everyone can connect to.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud - Review

As someone who spent a lot of my time reading comics and graphic novels since forever, I never would have looked at reading them in a different perspective if I never read this book. Would it even be considered a book? Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud took me through such an entertaining form of education by discussing so many in-depth concepts hidden between the panels of comics. What I loved so much about this book is how it uses visuals in the style of comics to provide clear and concise information. The topic the book talks about that really stood out to me the most is when it starts to dig deep into the idea of pareidolia in comics. In other words, how every reader is capable of identifying faces and expressions despite them not really being there. I honestly thought it was mind-blowing when I noticed that we see two dots and a line in a circle and immediately see it as a human face, despite it having no nose or intricate details that imply that it is a human face. It's incredible how comic artists have took thought into a psychological phenomenon just to tell a story for entertainment. It's almost as if art has turned itself into a type of science. Another thing that I found interesting in this book is how the author explains how cartoon styles cause the viewer to see themselves in the characters they see. It's because of how we see other people in realistic faces and our childhood fascination with cartoons that people see characters this way. The author really nails this explanation by showing a side-by-side comparison of his cartoon persona and a realistic portrait of himself, asking the reader if they would listen to what he's saying if he looked real and less stylized. I love how the author really gets in on the psychological aspects of comics and the book as a whole is extremely self-aware since it's drawn as a comic itself. After reading it, I feel like I have a whole different perspective on comics and graphic novels other than them being a form of visual entertainment.