Emma's Comic Blog

I think it’s appropriate to talk about stereotypes in regards to comics, as comics latch on to what’s the most iconic/recognizable image and when a comic artist wants to portray a member of a marginalized group, they’ll go with a depiction that most people know: the stereotype. Not to mention the impact and reach of political comics, which people will take as fact. It was interesting to talk about Gamer Gate in the classroom. When I was in high school, I didn’t really appreciate Anita Sarkeesian’s analysis, in one part because it was told too dryly for my hyperactive attention span, and in another part because she discussed an episode of the original Powerpuff Girls that she argued negated all of the feminist ideals of the show. The episode in question, titled “Equal Fights”, was about a female villain named Femme Fatal who would hold the fact that she was a woman over the main characters so she could escape from crime scenes unpunished. Femme Fatal is an obvious strawman stereo...

Maus by Art Spiegelman is interesting to read in today’s current political climate. I am aware that while this comic was being created in the eighties, there were Holocaust deniers and documentation of this event was necessary. With today’s rise of Neo-Nazis, we are reliving this issue. In Volume II, Spiegelman’s therapist ponders if we need a “bigger Holocaust”. That’s crazy to me: what could be a bigger tragedy than the Holocaust? The only way this message could reach everyone is if aliens enslaved all of humanity. Even still, if humans were marginalized or exploited by an “other”, there would still be racism as evidenced by Vladek still having prejudices against black people for no reason.             As Vladek is telling Art his story, we also get to see their father-son relationship. The first novel even informs the reader that Art is not very close to his father and hadn’t seen him in a fe...

The Underground Comics I read this week were Tijuana Bible and Tits and Clits . Needless to say, both were very sex-oriented, but both were very different angles. Tijuana Bible , which was written by men, have more of a carefree approach to sex. All anyone wants to do in these stories is have sex, it’s what their lives revolve around. Tits and Clits, on the other hand, is written entirely by women and actually isn’t all about sex. While that is obviously a major theme in the works, the stories could feature serious stories about self-image, rape, and sexual orientation. It’s not sensationalized or for the arousal of other men. Tijuana Bible was also way more graphic in its depictions of sex. Tijuana Bible was made as a male fantasy while Tits and Clits was more of a commentary on real life.