During the 1960s, the United States was involved in conflicts in Vietnam. On United States soil, protestors flooded common areas of colleges and city streets. These protestors were the ones who formed the hippy movement in the United States. These times were all about peace and war was far from what any one wanted. Drugs became extremely popular during the hippy movement. This can be seen in the comic books of the late 1960s. Comic books became a big hit and were now created at an underground level. These comic books were not required to be checked by the comic code and comics such as Fritz the Cat featured sex that had not been featured before in comic books. These underground comic books were very representative of the rebellious times. Also the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man featured drugs in them as Peter Parker's best friend begins taking drugs in order to ease the pain of his girlfriend Mary Jane coming on to Peter. This is another aspect that had not yet been featured in comic books that is socially relevant in the 1960s.
To begin with, I really do like the idea of reading a comic about comics. I think it's a great idea and it's very well executed. As I was reading the first two chapters, I was surprised at how many examples there were of art in recent (and ancient, in some cases) history that are variations of "sequential visual art" and thus the foundations of modern comics. I'd never even thought about it before and it was hard to believe how many different kinds there were. I also love all the discussion about how our human brains automatically interpret certain images in a specific way, how we see others constantly but we identify ourselves when we look at cartoons, and how inanimate objects automatically becomes extensions of our bodies. The pyramid of styles was very interesting too as a way to conceptualize and almost graph or "place" a specific art style in comics. In Comic Book Nation , I enjoyed reading about the evolution of early comics from "funnies...
Comments