Week #6

Underground Comic

-Mr. Natural / Tits & Clits Comix-

Although I was warned that “many of these comics are sexually explicit”, those comics were way more explicit than my expectation; in fact, I expected the contents including sexual innuendo, not the actual depictions of sexism, racism, and so on. 

The first underground comic I tried was Mr. Natural by Robert Crumb. To be honest, I was pretty uncomfortable reading it. I was especially shocked by the story of Mr. Natural with an overgrown baby; not only sexism but pedophilia is explicitly depicted. The interesting thing is that I find those sexism in cartoony style more offensive and disturbing than those in realistic style; I think it is because I have a perception that cartoon is more toward the younger audience and thus the contrast of adult contents and cartoony style is odd for me. 

I also read Tits & Clits Comix; I chose this comic because I was interested in the fact that it is an anthology contributed by female cartoonists to counter the male-dominated, often misogynistic, works of the underground comics. It was less uncomfortable for me since it is depicted by females’ perspective. One of the differences from other underground comics is that the female characters’ proportion in Tits & Clits Comix is often more natural. For example, a pastoral interlude by Roberta Gregory depicts female characters in pretty realistic proportion though the details are simplified; as a result, I was able to see their feelings more than those comics in stimulating styles. 

Although underground comics are not my cup of tea, I am glad that I was able to experience reading them because I did not even know about them. In fact, I respect the history of underground comic wherein the artists pursued the creative freedom and developed the adult storytelling in the comic books.