I recently stumbled upon “Calamities of Nature”, the website of a comic with the same name that “focuses on topics of social commentary, religion, science, politics, and just plain silliness”, and now I’m hooked.

Here’s a sample of one of his best comics.

As you can, though cast in a homrous light, simple but deep issues are tackled leaving you to do your own thinking. Whoever thought comic strips are just for plain stupid laughs is the stupid one.

As the synopsis to the book “Comics as Philosophy” states, “Through the combination of text and images, comic books offer a unique opportunity to explore deep questions about aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology in nontraditional ways.” The book is a collection of essays on comic books of varied genres but the quotation above holds just as true for “mere” comic strips.

Just like in the making of novels and short stories the shorter work is actually considered by many writers to be a more difficult task since one has to be concise yet still be able to drive ones point and do is in a manner that will capture the readers imagination. I believe the same might be true for comic strips. To be entertaining, thought provoking, and relevant all at the same time requires exceptional talent, brains, and skills – and I have to say that Tony (Calamities of Nature creator) sure has all of those.

Originally posted on September 30, 2009 @ 10:51 pm