TinTin/Barks/KrazyKat

TinTin in Tibet

TinTin as a character is very clean in almost every sense. He’s drawn with very smooth clean lines; his coloring is very pure and solid. Even his personality is clean. He doesn’t swear, smoke, nor drink. The latter, on the other hand, is a favorite past time of the Captain. As a character, the Captain is a bit more interesting than TinTin; he is a bit more human be cause of his alcoholic tendencies. But those tendencies are ridiculed within the strip itself. TinTin chastises Snowy for getting drunk off the Captain’s whisky and that if it happens again, he wouldn’t bother saving him (which almost goes against Tintin’s usually cheerful character). Though what bothered me was that he didn’t say anything to the Captain who brought enough whisky with him on the hike to drowned an alcoholic.

The only think I really enjoyed about this comic was the idea that no one is evil. Everyone that has the potential to be either good or evil, and in the comic, even those who seem evil from out point of view are proven to be in fact good in the end. For instance, the Sherpa at first refuses to guide them to the plane crash for fear of his life. Then he changes his mind after the Captain talks to him again (shows both a kinder side of the Captain and the Sherpa). The Yeti is the best example of this though. The general public fears and shuns him. That fear, hatred and such is then taught to TinTin and the Captain. Yet, Chang knows the Yeti in a different way. The Yeti saved him, and cared for him. At the end of the comic, I felt more for the Yeti, than I ever did for any of the other characters.

Donald Duck and The Old Castle’s Secrets

The art style was very simple, much like TinTin. The characters themselves each had one identifiable characteristic, with the exception of the Triplets; they were basically all one person. Upon the mention of possible ghosts, all the ducks respond with varying degrees of fear, which reflects the general publics reaction (which in turn allows the readers to connect with them emotionally). Most of the storyline is spent trying to escape and find the villain. And I kind of liked how that was different from so many other stories. And also, everything in the story had a reason or explanation. Like with the ‘ghost’ was only a skeleton shadow since the criminal couldn’t spray his skeleton with the invisible spray like he did with the rest of his body. Although the logic is rather off, it is interesting. What I also found interesting was Scrooge McDuck with a gun. Its nothing you would see now, so I found it enjoyable.

Krazy and Ignatz

The overall story seemed very simple to me. Krazy is inlove with Ignatz. Ignatz throws bricks at him. And the Cop tries to arrest Ignatz fro throwing bricks. Maybe I just didn’t get the strips I read or something. I felt the brevity of the strips to be rather off putting, it may be because I’m more accustomed to longer series with more complex characters with incredibly long storylines. I understand its supposed to be something infinitely more complex than how i saw it, and that theres much more to it as a whole. Yet I felt as if I wasn't meant to get it. Like as if I was lacking the basic foundation of the subject matter. It seemed as if the comic wished to keep it that way. I just couldn't get into the comic, and maybe thats why.