blog post 4

  I thought the illustrations in "Adventures in Depression" were very amusing because of the fact the caricature has the same face in most of the drawings, even when a situation is being described. The visuals definitely add to lightening the way in which we are perceiving the depression that's being described. They add some comedic relief to what can be a very intense subject. The comic-book-like telling of depression also helps with our perception of the characters struggles, and makes it a little bit more relatable for those of us who have depression and deal with it through humor and making jokes.

“How to Ruin Everything” also provides the same sort of sense of humor and comedic relief as “Adventures in Depression,” especially relatable to all of us as we are college students. The scene where the camera pans between the student activity committee members was especially funny to me when he says they all are wearing shirts that say “CAB” or “SAB” or “ask me what I’m doing tonight.” Especially because I’ve thought the same thing before when seeing advertisements for things happening in the MUB and wondered what the hell “CAB” was and why everyone in other adverts were wearing matching cringey shirts (no offense).

“My Father Out to Sea” was the one I found more relatable than the others, especially when Coffin says he kept asking himself when he was older “why did my father leave me?” My biological mother also left when I was young, when I was 9 she never came to pick my sister, my brother, and I up from school and now it’s been about 12 or so years (I have no interest in reconnecting, unlike Coffin). I like how Coffin describes his complex and complicated feelings about the situation, and how when he reconnected with his father he saw things in both of them that were both similar and different. His piece feels very human, more so than the others because he doesn’t glaze over the ugly feelings and things that he dealt with and tells them honestly.