Underground Comics

Reading various Underground Comics took me on a wild ride. Amongst the crazy character designs often complete rip offs of legitimate Disney characters. These primitive designs lack any of the life (movements) that the characters they are based off of. These scary, surreal characters are expressed with abstract vocabulary and wild actions that left me in disgust afterwards. While reading underground comics for the most part I tended to lose interest mainly because of the insanity and blatant disregard for any consistent character proportions from panel to panel. I think the biggest folly in Underground Comics in general is the lack of character development. These comics rely to heavily on lollygags and crude humor and don’t give any real insight to the characters motives.

But to critique the positive aspects of Underground comics they give a new rebellious perspective on what a comic can be. I never really new what was around the corner while I was reading so in that aspect there was something in it that kept it fresh and unique. I enjoyed the application of the squash and stretch principles and how the characters followed some of the principles of animation when they had a thought, performed and action and then they had a reaction, which was over the top. The characters are very anima table they have odd proportions that allow them to perform the extreme antics that are shown seem possible for any given character. When I first read Underground comics I think I was only reading into the surface value, but now that I have explored the world more I understand more of what is being explored and I think I will use them as reference for animation ideas for my characters.

So to sum up my experience reading Underground Comics I think overall I was repelled by them, but with all of the vulgarity and insanity I managed to salvage a weird inspiration source, that I don’t know if I will ever really understand or ever really want too.