Week 3 - The Comic Strip


This last week, I had the pleasure of looking through a whole bunch of comics, including the wondrous realms of Little Nemo, Peanuts, Krazy Kat, and Calvin and Hobbes. I have never read Little Nemo in Slumberland before in my life, but I can say that I was astounded by what I had come across. The comic is nothing short of beautiful, creative, and full of life. It shows us that the comic medium has absolutely no limits and each page I’m constantly asking myself what crazy new adventure are we going on. It also makes me a little jealous cause I feel like Little Nemo’s dreams are WAY cooler than my most recent dreams, especially the Walking Bed, the gigantic elephants, and the gravity-defying palace dream sequences (all from 1908).

I grew up on classic Peanuts home videos and animated specials, but I’ve never actually sat down and fully read the comics. They were almost exactly like the videos, with one of the exceptions being that you could see Snoopy’s internal thoughts. I wouldn’t say the Peanuts cartoons are laugh-out-loud funny, but they are very charming and sweet.

I think Krazy Kat by George Herriman was my least favorite of the bunch. Now to be fair, I understand that this was a very early comic, but I thought it was pretty unappealing. The drawings and dialogue are almost very hard to decipher and each comic has the same dang punchline: Ignatz the Mouse hits Krazy Kat with a brick. The situations in which this occurs vary and it’s very obvious that Herriman doesn’t run out of ideas, but for me, I just couldn’t get into it.

Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes was by far my favorite of the comics I explored this week. The humor is very witty and never fails to make me laugh. The protagonists have a very strong bond and utilize the importance of friendship. The back-and-forth between Calvin’s perspective and everyone else’s perspective of Hobbes is what makes this comic ten times more relatable. It brought me back to a time where I would bring my stuffed animals everywhere I went and acted like they were my best friends.

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