Comic Art: The Seduction of the Innocent Essay

In Understanding Comics, McCloud defines comics as, “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (McCloud, 1993, p. 9).

He says that in 1996 the top-ten best-selling comics are all very similar. He says, “The top ten best-selling comic in 1996, primarily issues making up two limited series, Marvel’s Civil Wars and DC’s Infinite Crisis, were all superhero books, and, like the majority of superhero books in the post-Dark Knight, post-Watchmen era, all of them dealt rather grimly, and in somewhat hand-wringing fashion that has become obligatory, with undoubtedly grown-up issues of violence, freedom, terrorism, vigilantism, political repression, mass hysteria, and ambivalent nature of heroism.” (916). He says back in 1996, there was top ten best-selling comic books. He says that out of these ten best-selling comic books two of them were limited series. He says that one of these comic books

When one thinks of comics, who are the first names that come to mind? Many will tell you, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, etc. They are indeed huge names in comics, but are they auteurs? Auteur directly translates to “artist,” and in film, one can see the director’s stamp based on their choices. Comics are no different. One can easily look at a Frank Miller comic book, and know it is by Frank Miller, based on the art style, and dark palette.

Thirdly, is a cartoon called “Patience Monsignor Your Time Will Come.” This cartoon depicts the Clergy and shows the clergy being fat, overfed, and underworked. It demonstrates that the clergy had more wealth in the church than the poor peasants. The people disliked that the church was wealthier than the people and wanted the clergy to be squeezed of all their money. The people of the enlightenment went in and attack the Church, taking as much money as they could. The Catholic's became very offended, but they found themselves to be more afraid of the power that the commoners held. The many different cartoons of this time brought harsh criticism to the Catholic churches. But the depictions of the events helped the people express their feelings

author created was alike a comic book in certain areas of his text. He transitions back to the title

Why are comics not appreciated as much as the dry narratives of novels in the literary world? A comic is composed of symbols to express concepts shared by all people in their own social environment, and provide more tools than conventional art to truly show artistic intention.

Graphic novels have become a large seller in the book category lately. Between 2002 and 2006, comic book sales quintupled from seventy-five-million dollars to three-hundred thirty-million dollars. This is a key clue as to why Lewis chose a graphic novel as his medium. He wanted to help the younger generation understand where racial equality was founded from and the hard work and determination it took to fight for

“Okay, so now you know that I'm a cartoonist. And I think I'm pretty good at it, too. But no matter how good I am, my cartoons will never take the place of food or money. I wish I could draw a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a fist full of twenty dollar bills, and perform some magic trick and make it real. But I can't do that. Nobody can do that, not even the hungriest magician in the world”(7).

Often nowadays characters of well-known stories are at times more well known than the stories they inhabit thanks to pop culture where people recognize faces, but not their origins. The Sandman, a comic published by DC Comics, has taken various comic and Biblical references and incorporated them into its own universe. These allusions to other works helps the reader easily identify characters and their roles in the story, especially if they have a wide enough literature background. Some simply reveal something about the universe they inhabit. Understanding this makes the book much more satisfying to read and appreciate the thought put into the book.

“I wanted to sort out the fragments of what I’d experienced from the media images that threatened to engulf what I actually saw, and the collage like nature of a newspaper page encouraged my impulse to juxtapose my fragmentary thoughts in different styles” This quote from the author enables the responder to develop further insight into Art’s reasoning behind how he has structured the comics, and why he chose to create them. The time period after September 11 in which the comic was devised and then published was the beginning of a very invasive media presence. The way in which the media dramatized its information, and bombard its audience with it, made it very hard for one to distinguish between the facts of events, and the images the media would present us with. This is very much evident in Art’s somewhat satirical and cynical representation of the media.

Through the illustration of innocent victims, Nast’s cartoon reveals the Democratic party’s desire to further degrade the African American community. In the middle of the cartoon, a black man, wearing a Union military uniform, is being pinned to the floor by three Democrats [see fig. 1]. The Union military uniform connotes his dedication to the nation. Furthermore, Nast uses intricate details, such as the black man’s childlike features, to portray the man’s innocence. The cartoon illustrates angry-looking Democrats, prepared to stab and beat this soldier for attempting to exercise his right to vote. Their prevention of the soldier from voting creates an irony; the soldier “earned the right to vote through [his] participation in the war” but

As someone who loves bright, colorful visuals and dramatic design, graphic novels and comic books are some of my favorite things to read. Web-comics are one of the more accessible types of comics, since they are generally free and can be read entirely online, and they usually take the same form paper comics have taken for years: images arranged in a grid on one standard size page. While this layout of comics is perfectly fine and has been for decades, it doesn’t take full advantage of the web format. Coded webpages present a nearly endless number of ways to manipulate the images, allowing artists to tell their stories in new and exciting ways, and yet most people stick to the same format that’s

Pop art is an art development that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late 1960s in the United States, which was inspired by consumerism and communal culture. (Raimes, Renow,2007)

The history of art dates back to ancient times. Artwork can be, and was, found around the world. What makes art interesting is that it can be created in any way, shape or form with any materials. It seems that the artwork can also tell us a lot about the artist. Art seems to be simply, a direct, visual reflection of the artist’s life. Therefore, one can assume that an artist’s life experiences and beliefs directly influence their art. If we look at examples from different periods of art we will be able to see the connection between the artist and the art.

From an early age I loved to read. At just two years old I would beg my mother to enroll me into school. I watched as my older sister meticulously picked out her outfit each night in preparation for the next school day. At such a young age I somehow knew that this thing called “school” was the answer to something spectacular. My home was chaotic and reading became an escape and helped distract me from the unpleasant family dynamic.