Week 5

For this week I read A Contract with God by Will Eisner. The comic consists of multiple stories based on many stories from his life. The mod poignant story that stuck with me was "A Contract With God". The story is based on the real life death of his 16 year old daughter and his struggle with his faith after. He wrote this story in order to cope with her death. I enjoyed this comic because the use of art to express difficult feelings is not usually so prominent in the world of commercial media, like comics. The story is raw and open to his dealings with his faith and his anger at god for taking his daughter away. The character in the novel seemingly lives well until this moment, showing that life can take a drastic turn at any second and be unfair and unforgiving. I feel this is great because many do not consider comics to be serious enough or versatile enough to take on this type of a heavy subject. My other story of choice from this novel is "The Super". this story was difficult to gauge the meaning or intentions behind it. I feel it might be that being ignorant and bigoted will come back to bite you later in life. Additionally, I read Blankets by Craig thompson. It is another quite personal work based off the artists own life growing up in an extremely christian household.Throughout this comics course, I'm surprised to say that I have never actually thought of the abundance of autobiographical graphic novels or self-inspired personal stories that there is. I think it is good that the class exposes us to these works because it puts comics on a different level to be expose to the wide variety of subject matter. The story was interesting, as someone who was raised catholic and is not catholic, some things resonated. Being pushed into religion often forces people to reject it, which I could see in this story. The story is similar to A Contract with God in it displays a loss of faith over time as a result of hard times during life. Faith and religion is also another subject rarely discussed on such a level in comics. I enjoyed both, however Eisner's was really poignant because a lot of it's subject matter.