Underground Comics Collection (3 points)

 After reading a couple of comics from Girl Fight and Tits and Clits I could definitely spot a theme going on with both the storytelling and the artwork. Ranging from a mix of single artists to multiple artists, I found that women artists, much like their male counterparts, deeply embraced the ideals of a free society (especially with what was going on in that time period). For example, I could clearly see the support for the “let it all hang out”/resist self-censorship type values. I observed that most of the illustrations I read from were drawn quite crudely, and I’m not quite sure if that was really on purpose or because they were rushed. Disfigured proportions, messy backgrounds, and even just general lack of art knowledge seemed to be rampant in most (but not all) of the comics I read in Tits and Clits, though this also differed from one artist to the next. I suppose it annoyed me a little, but then I started to come to an understanding that the art was not really the thing I was supposed to be focused on. The storytelling, no matter how short, I believe was the real selling point of these stories because they did feel very honest (even if some were set in a fictional fantasy land and whatnot). What I see that sets these stories apart from others that depict similar mature themes is that these stories all seemed to have some sort of personal background to them, as if the author/artist was trying to convey a message to them without feeling too unrealistic. The balance between a fictional setting and a realistic/relatable message was kind of interesting to see, and not at all what I was used to seeing within comics at all. In fact, I believe that if I read some of these comics as a younger teen I might have even felt a little embarrassed. But I guess the point of all of these comics is that they felt shocking to the reader, but not necessarily the characters. From what I read, most of the characters embraced sex, drugs, and violence as a part of everyday human nature, showing just how much of a barrier our society has placed upon these themes. The blatant acceptance and unwavering attitude of these characters kind of made me rethink all the times where it might have been funny or embarrassing to see these kinds of things before in my life and yet not really understanding why I felt that way towards them. If anything, these comics really let loose and I could really see what kind of mindset society was shifting between during these times. I guess if I did have any complaints about these comics of the time, it would be that they were extremely hard to read. Maybe it’s because I’ve become so used to reading the standard neatly constructed comic books of the modern era that I realize comics can also be loose and chaotic. With some panels/stories, I felt like there was little to no flow, and the focus was very hard to pinpoint because there was so much going on within the art itself. Some stories felt like full illustrations themselves, and most stories included handwritten dialogue that was either too messy or too small to even fully read.