Stuck Rubber Baby deals with both racism and homosexuality. Although it was published in the mid 90's subjects such as homosexuality were still not entirely accepted. Even today certain books are being banned because they discuss homosexual issues. So to see a graphic novel tackle this is a powerful thing and I applaud Cruse for giving it to us. However, being an artist I feel as though I have to talk about the art used for the book...It wasn't very good or at least in my personal opinion, pleasing to look at. The characters were poorly drawn with proportions and faces that looked warped as well as and overuse of dots to show shading. The women characters and men characters seemed to blend together to the point where everyone just looks like men in drag. I know to most people it is the story that is important but when you are reading a graphic novel the pictures are just as important and if your readers feel as though the art is disturbing they are less likely to keep reading regardless of how good the story may be.

Maus Was one of the best comics I have ever read. The art was simple and sometimes a little rough but the story was amazing! It was so personal and had such meaning to it. The story told to a son by his father. And the animals were a very clever idea. When you really think about it the story itself is so simple. A son sits down with his father and asks him about his life. Its like a biography in the form of comic book where all the people have become animals. One of the weirdest parts is the animals don't really ever bring up the fact that they are animals. which kind of makes you wonder why he drew them that way. Yes it is an artistic choice and it does have symbolism behind it but it doesn't exactly serve a purpose to the story. The animals could have easily been replaced by humans without even changing any of the dialogue. Don't get me wrong though I love the fact that they are animals but i still have to wonder how and why he came up with the idea to draw them like that. The idea that his father went through all of this is amazing. It is a story that could as easily have stood on its own as an autobiography.

I'd like to discuss the animations we watched in class recently...I am pretty sure I will be having nightmares. I can't remember the name of one of the animations but I do know that it was the weirdest piece of animation I have ever seen. Parts of it actually made me look and go... what? I mean the old man was having sex with a horse woman! Other weird ones were Quasi at the Quackadero and Make me Psychic. Although these two were not as bad they were still pretty freaky and uncomfortable. However, Yellow submarine was of course classic and I loved watching every minute of it!

Sorry this post is a tad late things have been real busy. Anyway After seeing the interview in class between Stan Lee and Will Eisner, which was absolutely amazing, I decided to take a better look at will and his work. Specifically the Spirit. I may not exactly read a lot of comic books but I do consider myself a superhero fan, if I don't read all the comics I at least make it a point to look up information on the ones I enjoy the most. The spirit is one of the only superheroes I know who's identity is mentioned very rarely and who is basically given permission to fight crime. Yes I do know that batman and commissioner gordon have an agreement but as portrayed in "year one" and plenty other comics, gordon does all of this under the table. However, during the time the spirit was introduced there was less realism in superhero comics. Superheroes were still praised in their comics even if it was technically breaking the law. Another thing I found while searching the spirit was that they made a live action movie based off the character in 2008. It received pretty poor reviews from critics and fans alike claiming that Frank Miller, who directed the picture, was simply using the same theme from his last movie "Sin City". It also apparently had bad action scenes. I have not seen it yet but I would like to soon!