Maus by Art Spiegelman - Review

Art Spiegelman's Maus was quite an entertaining and immersive read that focused on a widely historical concept. I think it was extremely interesting how cute and appealing anthropomorphized characters were used to tell a story about the life of being Jewish during the Holocaust. What I like about this is how it made reading the comic much more enjoyable, like how Scott McCloud talked about in Understanding Comics on the simplified cartoon style causing the reader to want to listen to the speaker in a comic, rather than detailed drawings of people. I feel like the cute characters also made me feel a lot more emotional towards their suffering, much like how a lot of people tend to cry more towards the death of a dog rather than a human.

Something that stuck out to me while reading the comic was the transition from the characters being mice with human bodies to humans having mouse masks. I noticed that Spiegelman changed the appearance to that when he was speaking from within himself, rather than telling the story. I see it as kind of an artistic intermission and I feel like it made the comic more engaging and refreshing from reading so much about Vladek's stories from being a captured prisoner.

In terms of the movie Barefoot Gen, I think both stories really nailed the personal experience of war through a character's eyes. Gen Nakaoka experienced himself the bombing of Hiroshima and the movie emphasized the solemn struggles of the time period, much like how Vladek told his stories of his and others' imprisonment. Some points of both stories showed very harsh scenes happening to innocent characters, which really caused a heavy emotional response from me. In Barefoot Gen, when the bomb hits, there's just a whole montage of watching peoples' bodies melt and burn from the impact of the bomb, showing some disturbing images that could really impact some viewers. The animation of it was also helpful in showing the effects of the bomb, since there was so much detailed included. The same goes in Maus, but a bit less disturbing, as you see the mice characters take off their clothes in a shower soon before you see a scene of them being gassed by the Germans. In comparison to a movie, it feels less emotional since it isn't animated, but I still understand the message it gave off. War stories are experiences that should be told to everyone, even today, because of how powerful their messages are, and I think using artistic media is a good way to accomplish that.

Mr. Natural by Robert Crumb - Review

Reading the Mr. Natural comics at first felt very anti-climactic with the idea of the underground comics being supposedly very offensive. For the first few strips, I thought they were simple little comics that just touched on a lot of young adult humor, that is, until I continued reading. Eventually I get to some parts where that cute little Mr. Natural has his penis hanging out like it's nothing, such as one part where a large, adult-like baby starts blowing him. I thought of it as pretty odd, but it honestly wasn't as surprising as I thought it would be. Today, there's plenty of adult comics that have well-known cartoon characters doing inappropriate things like in Mr. Natural. Most of them are all over the Internet now, so I can see these comics being released in print as an issue, but it's nothing really new to me. What I found rather especially interesting was the page in the middle of the comic that showcased the winners of the Mr. Natural drawing contest. Most of the entries were from a younger audience, one of the drawing I recall being submitted by a 13-year-old boy. I'm sure nowadays, a lot of parents would be complaining and causing hell over something like this. In summary, Mr. Natural was pretty open about being extremely inappropriate and offensive, but to be honest, I have definitely seen worse.