Thoughts on Zippy stories (A nation of Pinheads) by Bill Griffith

Zippy Stories is a comic following the adventures of a very strange man with a pinhead and a polka dot robe. He is oblivious and easily persuaded. In this book he is used as a metaphor for the average everyday consumer who are described as mindless sheep. A frog man in a suit appears to be the one in charge of what the public is consuming, he describes what he is distributing as useless and dangerous products like motorized skateboards and automatic doors. I enjoyed reading this comic, I especially enjoyed how the illustrations looked. Very crude and at times not very pleasing to the eye but it adds to how ridiculous the story is. Definitely intrigued with how surreal and weird these stories were.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maus and the legitimation of the graphic novel

Image
Reading Maus really opened my eyes to how prejudice and its normalization in society could potentially turn into something devastating like a massive genocide. Vladek's story held no punches in regards to how real and honest it was. With the depictions of Americans as dogs and the polish people as pigs, Spiegelman didn't care about being politically correct and he wasn't trying to be offensive either, he simply recounted what happened to his father thru his own father's perspective. A very black and white and full of stereotypes point of view. I'm kind of afraid of how the political climate is looking now a days and this story is a scary reminder that racism in any shape or form in a collective and the slow acceptance of it could lead to something  horrible. Overall Maus was a scary read and I'm not really sure if could come back to it but I really think it's a necessary read.
Read more

Manga and the Japanese comics tradition

Image
For this week a read up on some of Phoenix and Buddha by Osamu Tezuka. I gotta say his art style really appeals to me, which is weird because usually i'm not really fond of cute looking art but his holds so much expression and character movement that it's hard not to like it. I remember reading some of Black jack when I was a kid, which was more of an episodic type story. But all of these stories kind of perpetuate the importance of life in all forms. It was crazy to me when I heard Osamu Tazuka had a medical background, something that seems so practical with no opening for creativity. I'm glad he didn't stick with medicine, overall I really liked these stories, and I was surprised to see that even though they're kind of old they don't seem dated at all.
Read more

Eisner and Thompson

Image
For this week I read Blankets written and illustrated by Craig Thompson. I really enjoyed how at the beginning the story portrayed what it felt like to be an average middle schooler. Struggling thru school trying to go unnoticed while still wanting to be popular. I really liked how the illustrations looked kind of scratchy and how some of the characters proportions and sizes were exaggerated to look more intimidating or submissive. I really enjoyed the art of this book overall. 
Read more