I wanted to reflect on the blog about the article "Understanding Comics" because it made me think about how this past time I enjoyed so much as a child can be deconstructed and viewed at a higher level. Garfield, Charlie Brown, and the rest of the gang used to show up at the breakfast table on Sunday morning and I'd start 'reading' them as long as I could stand, until asking my mom to tell me what they meant.
The icon known as a cartoon differs from pictures yet still pulled me in, engaging me every Sunday in similar ways I was obsessed with watching The Wizard of Oz film ravishing every time Dorothy walked from the bland black, white, and gray world of Kansas, into the colorburst filled mystery land of Oz. My attention was focused on Garfield's problem of the day, frame by frame gathering more that helped me be led to the bunch line. But did I actually see MYSELF in these characters. Hmm. Hard to remember what my 4 year old brain thought. It serves as a reminder how visual images (film, photographs, television, magazines, drawings, paintings, sculptures, bio lab cell images, all of it) can take us places (comics do it by showing us realistic backgrounds that are 'near-photographic' in which cartoon characters travel about), give us experiences we may not physically have, by extending our minds, helping us grow our identities.
I think, after reading the comic on "Understanding Comics", that what makes them so engaging is that they create a universal face that welcomes all.
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