Comic Books

For this week I read through a few of Carl Barks' Donald Duck comics, some stories in Weird Science, portions of TinTin, Captain Video, and Jon Juan.

Starting with Donald Duck, the first thing I noticed is that like the comic strips we were reading there is a main cast of characters that stay constant. With this longer format, they are able to switch out the situations and other primary characters very easily. Barks also really plays up the ridiculous factor in his scenarios. I enjoyed that although his nephews were capable of causing him torment, that wasn't their primary purpose in the story. A lot of the time it looked like they ended up being merely observers of the ridiculous things that Donald was doing.

Weird Science was not exactly my cup of tea, but I can also appreciate the way that it operates as a series of short stories. Each story starts with a conflict, finds a resolution, but of course that resolution is not something that really lasts forever. It's always interesting seeing how people in the 50's thought life would be in the future. Some of it is very standard fantasy of flying cars and time travel, but sometimes they do have some basis for how they feel like will play out. Specifically, they mention history repeating itself. In that sense these comics act almost as a warning or reminder.

I read through portions of Explorers on the Moon, which kept itself interesting by having the characters feel completely unfamiliar with space travel and how that affects them. I found their reactions to the gravity shift to be really funny. The whole denial of even being in the situation they were in was key to this. The whole idea of being thrown into a situation and having to figure out how to cope with it on the fly seems to be the basis of this particular comic.

Captain Video and Jon Juan shared qualities of the superhero. Predominantly there was the obvious build of the characters, and the very "take charge" attitude that they both possess. I felt more drawn to read through Jon Juan, and found that his character really does resemble all qualities that men are expected to desire for themselves. He's extremely strong and charming, he escapes all of his obstacles, and he has all the women fawning over him. More to the point, he's labeled as "The World's Greatest Lover". Although completely unrealistic, it's setting a standard. Most men want to be seen as attractive and strong. Jon Juan seems to embody both of these thing to an excess. However, his situation is still more normal than what I can remember from reading standard superhero comics. Rather, he doesn't have any sort of superpowers, he just happens to exist and be better than you.