Homework 4 - The Comic Strip: Mary Marvel

While looking at the comic resource page, I was surprised to see the female character of Mary Marvel among Batman, Superman, and Black Panther. I hadn’t been aware that there were any comics from the 1940s besides Wonder Woman that specifically had stories to appeal to women, let alone with a character that had a prevalent role in upholding justice against male criminals. I was excited at first to see a female superhero in the early ages of comic books until I realized that she had been announced as the sister of Captain Marvel. This introduction of a girl character as a similar unit to a previous male character seems to follow a common trend, where when a successful male character has been developed and resonates with an audience, the creators would create a female counterpart to try and engage the young woman demographic. However, it doesn’t appear that this achieves the desired success, as perhaps it is not the gender that appeals to women.




Speaking as a woman, it is impossible to speak for 50% of the population, but even my friends and I have different tastes in media and characters that could be difficult to categorize. My theory is that if a story appeals to someone, they would likely engage with it despite the gender of the protagonist because I believe that in storytelling, people connect with characters’ decisions and personalities more than anything else. Not to say that gender has no effect on the connection between reader and story, but it is one factor among many. I’ve known many of my male friends who love Laura Croft, Shuri, or Tank Girl while I’ve known female friends who’ve related to Deadpool, Bojack Horseman, or Doctor Strange. I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Marvel’s adventure to defeat the criminal who reversed his age but could never really relate to modern-day Supergirl. If it was evident that women weren’t engaging with original “Superman” comics, would changing nothing but gender really prove to be a solution for 50% of people? I think as time goes on, creators are learning that people need more than just gender to engage with in media, though it may be the first step to appealing certain groups of people.

Class 3 - Personal Response

During our tour of the comic strips in the library, there was a particular book titled “Lil’ Abner” that caught my eye. It immediately captured my attention because of its striking style similarity to Archie comics, yet I’d never seen it before. Upon reading the first few pages, it really felt like a mashup between “Blondie” and Archie comics with a pinup art style influence, which led me to wonder why those two titles had lived on to modern day while Lil’ Abner isn’t published any longer.

After doing some research I discovered that Lil’ Abner had been distributed until 1977, where it had been wildly popular and even translated into other languages for 43 years. It even had a variety of live action, movie, and stage adaptations until 1989, where suddenly projects involving Lil’ Abner were dropped. This felt even stranger to me, as from what I saw in the story showed that it had a similar “formula” approach as Blondie and Archie did with a goofy or clumsy male protagonist that a beautiful woman pined over. Stylistically and content-wise, Lil’ Abner was following a trend that succeeded for Blondie and Archie yet failed to make a comeback in the post-2000s world. Admittedly the latter two had continued to be published and adapted for a younger audience, so likely that was the key reason why the two lived on; they were able to adjust the language and art style to better suit new, younger generations whereas the stopped publication of Lil’ Abner robbed it of the chance to continue its story. I personally think that its charming style and likable characters would have made a unique, fun story in the modern world, where a homey country character would have stood out among Archie or Blondie. Maybe it wouldn’t have resonated with younger audiences as much as Archie or Riverdale, but nevertheless, if an adaptation of this story was released, I’d definitely check it out.

Homework 3 - The Comic Strip

One of the comics we read this week that really spoke to me was Little Nemo, for its unique and beautiful art style combined with an almost comedic nature. When I first opened the comic, I had a completely different interpretation of what I thought I was going to read, and didn’t expect to outwardly laugh at some pages. At first glance, a reader might interpret Little Nemo’s story to be serious or poetically symbolic due to its highly detailed art nouveau style, and while the story definitely has those elements, once you start reading the story you realize how funny and silly the comic actually is. Every page ends with Little Nemo waking up the real world, usually with a little comment about how he eats strange foods before bed, with the foods themselves getting increasingly more strange. At one moment in the story, Little Nemo is dreaming about the real world and his house floats right up into the air. In response, his father takes the gun and peers out the window with a disgruntled expression. His calm and seemingly annoyed response to something so whimsical really amused me and I couldn’t help but laugh at the juxtaposition.

The characters featured in the comics are also unlike anything found in typical art nouveau pieces, with large clowns, circus animals, and large, goofy men. All of these themes led me to wonder if McCay had intended for these pieces to be primarily art or entertaining jokes, or if the entire story was created to be a blend of the two from the beginning. Up until this point, it almost seems that influential art had been created solely for serious purposes (commissions, religious recordings, historical documentation), and it was refreshing to see such a beautiful take on a silly world.

Homework 2 - Understanding comics

Before reading Scott McCloud's "understanding comics", I was reading sequential art with only my intuition to lead me through the stories, as most of us do. McCloud’s careful and profound understanding of this art form lead me to realize just how much comics rely on and expand upon the human psyche.
One example of how comics are intertwined with psychology is pointed out by McCloud while he discusses the way that cartoon faces are registered in our minds. The reason we are capable of seeing characters as humans is due to how our brains are hard-wired to find faces in everything, such as the examples he showed with can lids or car bumpers. There is almost a beautiful nuance in the way that comics encourage us to understand in the most human way possible; as reading just words requires a strong logical comprehension of language, and film provides sounds and a specific time frame for us to engage in. Yet comics free us from the necessity of understanding and invite the reader to visualize meaning from carefully structured panels, creating an experience where the visually focused aspects of our brains are satiated. Perhaps this is the reason many children can identify with comics so intensely, as the format of these stories is tailored for mental development. Growing up with bilingual parents, there was a period in my life where I could not read in either language at all. During this time, comics were one of the few books I would willingly engage in because despite not understanding all the words, the visuals provided an experience where I could actually engage in a story and its characters.
The fact that McCloud can break down and explain what appears to be second nature for humans to read only proves further the relevance that psychology and human nature has in comics.