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Date: 00 May 2003.
Medium: Pencil on paper. The only homework in the Multicultural Literature class Marie and I took over the Summer of 2003 was to read a couple of books, five of which resulted in us doing reading responses. The first book we had to do a response for was The Watsons go to Birmingham, by Christopher Paul Curtis. It was a cute and clever novel, filled with everything from a cantankerous grandmother to a snide brother who plays a game called "Nazi Parachutes Attack America and Get Shot Down over the Flint River by Captain Byron Watson and His Flame-thrower of Death." I had difficulty coming up with my reading response to the book. It wasn't until nearly 10:30 the night before when Marie suggested a comic, which is what I did! It took me nearly three hours to do, and I was in bed around 2. In the story, the main character of Kenny Watson watches his arrogant brother Byron get his lips stuck to the car mirror. This is pure bliss for underdog Kenny, who laughs that this would make the best comic: The Lipless Wonder. There I had a concept to expound upon. The comic is set in Flint, as was the book. I had fun drawing it, though the lips on page two were a difficulty since I'd never drawn lips sticking out before! It all winds up with a giant mechanical Hitler, obviously inspired by the Nazi jokes that Byron and Kenny told. If you didn't notice, Mecha-Hitler was designed to resemble the Mecha-Stalin from Communism and You. The next day we presented our response projects to the class. All went well at first, and people seemed to really like the concept. Then I mentioned the giant mechanical Hitler and the entire class fell silent. I guess it wasn't their sort of humor. What they didn't know was that there would be another Mecha-Hitler in the near future. |