I took a look at Art Spiegelman's Jack Cole and Plastic Man and realized that I had seen this character before. I was first introduced to plastic man in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold on Cartoon Network. He was actually a reoccurring character on the show and appeared in quite a few episodes. The show was famous for using characters and villains from the silver age of DC comics. So I assumed plastic man was a DC character from the earlier years. However, after looking at this book I realized that DC did not originally create Plastic Man. Originally the comic was published by  Quality Comics in 1941, but In 1956 when the company shut down DC comics picked up most of the characters including Plastic Man, incorporating him into the DC universe. Plastic Man has also had several short animated short stories and a saturday morning cartoon show. The comics themselves are obviously meant to be comical as the character's personality certainly reflects. Our class discussion also made me remember the Duck Tales cartoon that premiered on the disney channel when I was a kid. However, the show focused more on uncle scroodge and the kids with little to no use of donald in the story. The show had the catchiest theme song too and to this day it is almost impossible not to hear it without having it stuck in your head for the next week and a half. Another thing that I found interesting is the fact that they never seem to explain who these kids are. They call Donald uncle but back then that was simply used as a form of respect to a family friend and not just and actual uncle. But either way its never really explained who their parents are or what might have happened to them. disney in general seems to do this a lot. Having parents out of the picture for no reason at all. A good example is Goofy, who has a son named Max. However, Max's mom is never really brought up in any form. We're just supposed to put the pieces together ourselves. Most of the time we can just assume they've died but why not just say that? I know these stories are meant for kids but kids go through death just like the rest of us so there's no reason they can't give a little back story.

Calvin and Hobbes in my personal opinion is absolutely one of the greatest comics of all time. I never read many books as a kid because I found them boring, but I loved comics. My favorites were Garfield and of course Calvin and Hobbes. I would read books after books of those two sometimes more than once. Calvin and Hobbes is one of favorites because the characters and situations are not only charming and most often times absolutely hilarious but they're also incredibly relatable especially for kids. It dives into the world of imagination through the eyes of a young boy and his stuffed animal. The adventures this kid had were amazing and inspiring, what he lacked in brains or social skills he made up for in creativity which was, I'm sad to say, very relatable in my case. The obvious positives about Calvin and Hobbes is that it is funny for practically any age. the jokes and adventures stand the test of time and to this day are a strong reminder of what it was like to be a kid, to have the whole world to explore. However, the comic also had its deep moments often depicting very real and often very emotional situations seen through the eyes of a young boy. Calvin often acts tough and out of line and a lot of his adventures are extreme and exciting so at times you can forget he is just a kid, but there are moments where he even cries or goes to his mother and we are reminded that yes he is still a kid and he deals with tragedy like a kid. The range that this comic had was endless, showing perspectives from different characters and seeing the world through different eyes. Thats what is so great about comic books, Its one thing to describe something someone is imagining but to put that vision down on paper is another thing entirely. We get to dive into impossible worlds and even as adults when we can read these comics we feel something even after all these years our imaginations take over and we go back to the world we knew before growing up. That is why Calvin and Hobbes and comics in general will stand the test of time itself.

After taking a look at Understanding Comics I was surprised to find that I already knew most of the information being given. I wouldn't consider myself the biggest comic book reader or any comic book reader at all for that matter (although when I was a kid I Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes like it was my job) but I still found that most of what Scott McCloud was saying was common knowledge, or at least to me. However, there were several points in his book that did grab my interest. The first of which was the fact that he teaches you about comics with the use of a comic. I know we touched on this a lot in class but it really is the option that makes the most sense. Some people, myself included, learn better either by doing or with the help of imagery. One point I found interesting was the way McCloud broke down different comic book styles in terms of realistic to abstract. He had a whole pyramid dedicated to showing this. He also showed a diagram in which he takes a realistic looking drawing of a face and breaks it down piece by piece showing the different stages in between realistic and abstract. Another point he made was that the general or basic idea of a human face in its most abstract form can be found in a lot of everyday items such as an electrical socket or soda can. It just made me think just how much humans build and create things in their own image. One other topic that I actually found very interesting is the discussion about the gutters in between each panel. I never would have though of using them as a gateway to fill in time between each panel. Knowing it now it seems obvious but I always just saw them as a way of breaking up the images without getting them mixed up or canceling one another out. But the example in class about someone aiming a gun at someone in one panel and having the guy shot in the next leaves us to fill in the image of the person with the gun pulling the trigger almost like we are the ones responsible for his death. That is really deep and it dives into an idea that will forever change the way I view comics.