Pawee's Strip Log

Comic strip and comic book have two sides of pros and cons which can turn readers into the negative criticism or the positive reports. Comic strip and comic book are an expression of the society from a creator’s point of view and they published through many eyes. They are the humorous illustrations with ironic text lines to entertain the readers about the current society and sometimes to offend some readers. This is the most challenge for the creators to engage the religion and the society’s censorship in the science fiction comics and to see the reaction of the readers. In the contrast, William Gaines and Al Feldstein, they were thinking of their science fiction comics which were special and could reach the group of intelligent readers. They both met at William’s office and developed into friendship quickly because they had the same creative dreams to introduce their new concepts of science fiction as comic book series which could be said that it was deviant. Their comics were a little out of society norm. Weird Science and Weird Fantasy were their first comic book series and were a couple of 1950’s comics in science fiction that were published by EC (first known as Educational Comics, later as Entertaining Comics) as new as a reflection of social problem that needed to solve.



The ideas that these comic books would cause us social deviants, they are small when to comparing of what the impact for these book series that could help us better human beings. There was escapism available in science fiction comic books, such as Superman and Captain Marvel comics. These superheroes have their powerful strength that give them to take over the world but then they use their power for good reason to save the planet and would rather to be kind and act like a normal as a human. These are remarkable to the young readers because they wish they could have been with heroes or share the power with them. The science fiction titles were considered impressive to have entertainment and the ideas of blending in the treatment to cure society problem. According to society problem, science fiction comic books are also open to the readers’ eyes and see the possibility of a solution by the power of technology. That is what superheroes could symbolize the technology that people were waiting to pull them out of society problems at their previous age.



In this week’s Adam@Home, Adam can be a hero for social comic strip. It is similar to the hero of science fiction comic book series, like Superman. Unlike the previous hero whose people always believed to have the power, these days, the meaning of heroes do not have to be a super human who could be able to use his powerful to strength and save the world. Adam in this comic strip is just a usual human like us and he has no power. However, to some readers, he becomes a big hero to them. Adam inspires them to understand their situation of being work-at-home dad and live with it. This shows is the expert of how Brian is to create Adam who has a lot of problems in common same as the work-at-home readers. This is a key of Adam becomes attractive. The readers could be a dad who stays at home and feels lonely. They have the repetitive burden to feed children, clean the house, wash the clothes and they have to take this whole responsible everyday. But they do not have a chance to socialize with a lot of people. They are exhausted and they are eager of the new task. Light comes to them, Adam appears to give them the humorous ideas and useful entertainment on how to live with being a work-at-home dad. The readers find the same type of problems Adam has, they really like this character and respect him as their hero. Today, Adam could be a next generation of a mundane human but he is an incredible hero to some readers who look up to him.

It has been said that genders disparity not only appeared in the broad commerce in the past time as an industrial labor which most women got the pressures, but also in these day of comics business; not many female cartoonists have been successful. It has been based on comic politics and the social reactions to women that women should do what common women do such as clean the house, feed the children. Subtext in the article “Women In Comics” written by a cartoonist of Jane’s World, Paige Braddock states that some women out there in US are barely found as a creator of comic books because it has been found that female characters in the comic strip will not be humorous if she has a big nose, big feet and sticks around the comic strip. She did not joke at it but found it true. Unlike, male characters, which can be doctors or Tarzan and they still can make people laugh, women are considered to have to be cute, charming with a slim shape and a great hair, these women will glow as a shining idol on the comic strip and that is the fact no women can refuse in today.


As Brian works on his comic strip for many years through the transformation of modern society, he was showing the readers the happening in the previous history had a mass of effects to change the present during his adulthood, but he did not show much about the gender disparity. From what I found in his biography, he has a family and he gives all his heart to his two children and he loves his wife as long as he is married. Brian possibly creates Adam to represent him as a male character who tries not to change much from the old time but reflect his thought through the comic strip of what his experiences in his old time looks like. He does not only show how big outcome from the current society affects his family, but he also shows his large burden to protect his family from getting worse from the outcome as he is a male leader. Adam for example, sits with his daughter in her bedroom at night and shares the bed story with her. Once his daughter mentioned about “Jack and Beanstalk” and “Howard Schultz and Bean Stock”, it seems she hears too much information and can misunderstand if her dad does not explain to her. This is why Adam tries to educate his children before they go in the wrong path of filthy society. This is the profit of being the work-at-home dad who can monitor his children.



Brian also draws their mother whose kids need the most. It is his female character that runs on Adam at Home comic strip, but she does not have a lot of play on his strip. According to Braddock, Adam’s wife is just a help-mate at home who makes sure the kids are fed and the laundry got done. However, Brian’s strip is different from the others at this time because Adam will do all what the common wives do at home. He will be certain that his kids are fed, the house is cleaned and the laundry gets done. On the other hand, Adam’s wife goes out to work. This is a new form of society that women and men may choose themselves because they want to change the thought of old gender disparity.

As I review a several page from page 86 to 98 in Arguing Comics book, the several authors are arguing that there are so much change in the difference between today’s comics and the past comics. In the old style of comic strips, the drawings, characters, dialogues, places, and actions are free to speech and do not tackle the terrible war with serious thought. The old comic strip always drew people the sense of amusement and made people laugh. The old comics were always remarkable to those people in the previous days. Unlike the old comic strip, the new styles are more dramatic and turned people into naturalistic of teasing. It is believed that the major influenced that impacted the new comic strips is the movies. Manny Farber said that “Today comic strip tries to be as much like a soap opera as possible.” It is somewhat telling the people that the readers in the previous age were interested at this entertainment of comic strip through pen and ink rather than thinking of the new introduction, movies. In the old day, people’s heroes of representative of an anarchist like Krazy Kat or Jiggs were full of violent behavior of creatures and yet in manner insulted the government that worked unfair to people and wanted to eliminate all forms. People became inspired of the art’s free sketch to the appearance of creature moving on the strip. Also they were inspired of the art’s intelligence to have dialogue that impacts to the big organization such as government.



But these days, comic strips are not exactly much funnier than the past. The name of dead US soldiers from Iraq war occurred across six panels in “Doonesbury” on Memorial Day. The style, backgrounds and actions in the comic strip have been refined more and more so it turned out the look to be less amusing, more respectful and more critical thoughts. They think more carefully of the outcomes that will not offend the others or lead to take the action of legal. This causes the comic strip in these days to have less free of speech. This is why some people notice today’s comics strip turned out the drawing to be more realistic as camera image. Since the time changes and people get more high education, they are aware at the result of massive damage from World War II which occurred long years ago. They realize they do not want to see the severe damages from the result of war again as it are repeating from World War II to Iraq war. They draw the comics to reflect the pain of the modern society. The comic historian, Bill Blackbeard said the artists are mad about the war now.



After World War II finished, men became available labors, and this impacted them into the change of society. They had to find a job and got married. Later on, the society opens the available works to hire people to work to raise their livings, and there are many works that turn on as an option. This work at home position, therefore develops into an alternative and soon will be considered to the parents who agree if they need more time with their children. Brian therefore focuses on showing people the advantage of being husband housekeeper by publishing it through the comic strip. Thus, Adam at Home comic strip grows into more naturalistic and well-mannered to symbolize the social movement of male workers these days.

This week, in Inge’s book page 131-144, he speaks of how the image and text occurred to work together and were powerful in technology of making a publish the comic book in the end of the era of American Industrial Revolution. There were the succeed images of stories should be published, the product of color press should be invented, the desire of hero should be found, then the comic book would bring them together in the image in writing through the changes of technology and traditions in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century. It was technological development of the illustration publishing that brought the pictures and words to begin making the book as a fiction series. As many comic books and texts were published since the past of the history, the artists and the writers were aware that the drawing and the writing have commons in the communication between the readers and the authors. This effective argument was from a master artist Leonardo da Vinci’s idea who said that it was a necessary to draw and described in order to the art become more attractive and effective. The comic books, therefore are growing faster as a form of development with the full images and understandable words.


In this week April 16 to April 22, the cartoonist combines the images and the words to describe his characters in comic strip. As Adam works at home everyday, he knows his duty, and he has to manage the time so he can complete his duty. He has to clean the house and do the wash before his wife comes back home. Sometimes, Adam has sarcastic idea such a terrible wish. For example, in April 19, Adam cleans the house and vacuums the floor. Also, Adam’s big challenge is to take care of his 3 children. Perhaps, some parents have their children more than 3. They do not give their dad an easy time during their childhood. This negative effect can help parents to balance the numbers of income and kids early to prepare their future before they have kids. If the parents plan to have kids more than 2, they should be aware of the major key that they have to push the stress away and learn to be patient with their kids. The cartoonist does not show us only what Adam does indoor at home but also he wants Adam to represent the men at home who go outdoor to entertain themselves.


Each daily comic strip of Adam at Home has such a vivid images and easy-going text to read. It is modern of art that how the artist uses a frame or more in strip and a few dialogues to communicate with the readers of seeing the movement in the society. Also, it shows us that the artist has a lot of full mature thoughts as he is an expert father. Even though the strip shows the images and the dialogues, it hides a lot of description and can lead us to misread the artist’s concept. It is the image that the artist can draw it unrealistic. It is the expression of the artist how he sees the society and he may want to see how the society reacts to his modern art. For example, the artist shares his feeling how he thinks of cleaning the house. As the following picture, we may interpret his meaning of ‘clean’ that he wants to clean the whole of messy house and leave nothing but the blank strip. He may try to tell us his wish that sometimes, he wants to forget everything at the moment. He got a stress from his responsibility as many as he owns his roles to play in the busy society; for example, at the same time he is a husband, he is a good dad to his children, or he is a social person to the people at the public, and he is a friend with some shop sellers. He leaves many meanings of the story with us behind these images and if without the text lines, perhaps we may be lost interest in his comic strip. The text lines in conversation are the major role in the modern comic. It has the purpose to make the story understandable and affective for the readers.

In April 9th to April 15th, “Adam at Home” comic strip presents dad Adam’s daily schedules of what he is doing when he does not work. Dad Adam is reading a newspaper with his wife and the children are eating their breakfast in the morning. Next strip, Dad Adam drives his kids to school then he comes back to order the coffee for his work at home. He might hear some humors, gossips, or news of what is going on around him while he is waiting on the line for his order, he hears a chit-chat between a seller and customer that the trend of black coffee is not that popular today. During the weekend, they play hide and seek in the house. They just have a normal life like the others of American family.

Regarding to Krazy Kat as American Dada Art, Dada is a name of a group that appeared after World War I. Dada movement was at its height at that time.
Dada artists were studying an American popular culture, especially the motion pictures, newspaper, and magazines advertisement, which they were considered as carriers of tradition. Krazy Kat by George Herriman was a cartoon that began to break the folk way of America art and was passed around the states until it was becoming very popular as well-known as example of “pure American Dada humor.” For example, the animals can act, walk and talk like human and this was Herriman’s cartoon which guided the other cartoonists to create many live characters of animals later.

This could be big possible that Dada art influence Adam@Home comic strip from generation to the next generation to be a modern American Dada art. Brian Basset, the cartoonist of Adam @ Home possibly has Dada art skills inside of his heart. It seemed he studied American popular culture as well and considered to use his study, which applies his comic strip to be more intellectual attitude, a spiritual conviction, and life style. For example, he creates dad Adam playing hide and seek as a game between dad and kids because he might see this game can be a choice to get relatives closer and this is very important to today’s American society since most parents have work to concentrate and cannot spend much time with their children. It appears the lack of attentions that parents can give to their children in today. This becomes very concern in the future that these children will grow and abandon their parents to become loneliness. This is what the cartoonist might be concerned and wanted us to understand his art. He possibly offers us to change our thought of old tradition of industry manual labor to work at home if it would be a better choice for the parents who do care about their kids. Adam@Home is the image in some people’s hope that will be accepted the broken folkway of society.

Besides, Brian’s free of use English language is similar to Herriman’s which creates his character to become an effective hilarious comic but sometimes the language in the dialogue could be unstable and leaded to misunderstanding rather than effective conversation. This is what Herriman showed us pre-cautious to use the free language.

He knew there was a difference between what we say and what we mean in the comic strip. The comic strip can disorient the viewers and turn them to get the wrong idea. This caution becomes aware to many cartoonists and as Brian’s comic strip shows us a hilarious today and we laugh with his art because we do not misread his strip. He knows this tradition of using proper language in today’s comic strip.

Although Mr. Herriman has created his comic strip Krazy Kat to be well-known to every readers at his time during WWI, and when he reaches a top of achievement in art, which no one else has approached. Similarly, Brian’s hard work on his comic strip Adam at Home is being published to many readers and he is giving the thoughts of working at home can profit parents who have kids or people with cripple. He could become a successful cartoonist in the future.