As always, stay tuned here on !comicstrips@lemmy.world for a slow trickle out of Jucika comics, but if you want to find more, here’s a good post with a large collection that /u/JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social posted last year: https://piefed.social/post/1258520
**Also, check out some Jucika fan art! https://piefed.social/c/eurographicnovels/p/2128207/the-best-of-jucika-fan-art-12-pieces-with-two-videos
**You can find more Jucika content in c/graphicnovels by using this search
Best one so far.
Jucika celebrates pretty privilege, strip #387.
I’ve debated in the past ’what exactly Pusztai was going for in his Jucika comics?’ That is, is it just the idea that drawing a pretty young woman with the simplest of gag setups is enough to get favorable audience reaction? Was he actually trying to exercise any real creativity on his part, or was he just cynically milking his little cash cow? (if he was like Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame, then evidently the answer would be yes!) …
This comment got too long, so I turned it in to a post, here:
https://piefed.social/post/2412018(if he was like Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame, then evidently the answer would be yes!) …
But Jucika is actually funny
LOL
I have to admit that I (along with millions of other numpties) was amused by Dilbert, back in the day. It really did seem anti-corporate and progressive.Turns out: 1) it was just a schtick, and 2) the users were sending in the best ideas, via AOL!
To me it’s kind of like a caricature of men going very far out of their way to help a pretty woman. If they have ulterior motives, they get thwarted in some way. I find it amusing in a faux innocence kind of way.
That’s what it feels like for me too. I think you’re right on this one.
It’s just a strip, people should really just relax
People want to dig deeper into something they like. Why not let them?
I don’t recall anyone here getting hysterical.
And it’s a Euro comic, which is my specialty. Easy game.
Intent doesn’t really matter. What matters is what the comic actually does. Whatever the author does in other strips is immaterial.
As a comics producer, intent is always involved. Strips don’t just magically invent themselves. There’s always a design process, and it’s usually a lengthy, borderline-stumbling process at that.
Whatever the author does in other strips is immaterial.
There’s almost always some relationship, and I for one find it fascinating. Sometimes it’s very adjacent stuff, and sometimes it can be wildly different. Again, fascinating to me.
The question, “What did the author intend?” is largely unanswerable and subjective, but “How does this comic operate? What does it actually do?” is objective and discoverable.
We’ve stumbled into an old literary criticism debate on the death of the author. Feel free to look into it. Lindsay Ellis has a good video on its origin and its current state of play.
The idea that the author’s intentions are unknowable but that the effect on the reader is somehow objective seems crazy to me.
“The effect on the reader” is also, of course, subjective, but we have as a starting point the comic itself, aka, objective reality. Reader response criticism gets into all the details of that.
I was also thinking you wouldn’t be looking so much at an individual comic, as the whole series, maybe dividing into things like categories. So, how many of these comics operate on the implied horniness of men? Right, like, I don’t think that’s a crazy thing to intuit in these comics without the mind-reading powers of Mesmer.
Now there IS interesting stuff about the culture–being right after all the political shennanigans, censorship, etc., that I would have to look outside the text for, but it could be an interesting experience.
As for the author’s intent, it is indeed unknowable, or at least you’ll never know if you’ve known it. Science has shown that people’s unconscious will decide for them, and then their conscious will COME UP WITH A REASON regardless of the true motivation. An example is cutting the bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. You can instruct one half of the brain to pick up an object, independent of the verbal half of the brain, and the person will almost always come up with a plausible reason for them having selected that object. The stated intent has as much value as an AI hallucination.
Fair enough, but as someone who’s been immersed in the comics and arts process for a long time, I can’t say that a philosophical proposition / debate on the process of intent interests me overmuch. People who want to can debate that all they want, and note that “intent” was your statement, not mine.
In my expanded comment (the linked post) I was moreso getting in to specific ideas, admittedly without knowing much about the author’s life & process, leaving the comment --YES-- speculative, and even a bit philosophical, not unlike a puzzle to unravel. And I happen to enjoy puzzles. With other comics creators, I know vastly more about what their process, ideas and intentions were.
With my own art pieces, many of them reach a sort of unfinished state in which I get a bit stumped about what I’m really trying to go for. I usually need either a bit of inspiration, a new idea, or a more cognitive process in which I attempt to figure that out. In fact I view the whole creation process as being informed by multiple thoughts, techniques, and experiments. But I’m something of a weird artist who gets bored quickly and likes to move on after a couple studies. Others will stay in one genre / set of styles and just hone away on them. But I digress…
I’m a horribly uncreative person myself, but I do find it partially delusional how so many creative people take ownership of their entire process. I feel like a lot of that stuff happens subconsciously and it’s more like having a waking dream than designing a bridge.
That’s why I itch when people discuss intent (whether or not they use the word): because even the authors stated intent might be truly authoritative. That is to say, if someone lives in a sexist society, and derives a sexist plotline, then they can’t wiggle out of it by saying, “I didn’t intend to be sexist” or “But I’m absolutely not sexist!” In today’s Twitter-connected culture, people bypass reading the text and just read the authors tweet; that’s how the Matrix was established as an undisputed trans allegory you have to be mentally deficient not to recognize.
But if I were a creative person, I think I’d be more interested in how the art worked independently of the author, though certainly it would be fun to see how an authors work develops. I would ALSO be interested in the author’s creative process, but it would be based around how different processes create different work.
Edit: And, I would, I admit, if I had an attraction to an author, use the work to try to understand them better … but that’s a tertiary concern for the public.
Toxic social media aspects FTW! :D
Well, I agree with you that the creation process is indeed somewhat mysterious, and indeed subconsciously inspired. And childrens’ art is some of my favorite art.
On the comics side, I’ve learned almost universally that design, intent, craftsmanship and similar are almost exclusively the working method. One of the articles that I’ve perpetually been meaning to get out the door is about how George Gately went about it, the originator of Heathcliff. Inspiration would play a part for him, yes, but it was also a torturous process, trying to top his previous work and needing to produce ~6 comics a week. My hat’s certainly off to folks like that, but it would probably drive me mad.
She’s not bad she’s just drawn that way.
No no no. In the real world (especially at this time) the man is single-mindedly trying to get in her pants. Countless women have thought the man was being chivalrous only to have him stick his hand down her shirt as soon as they are in private. Sex is always the punchline. In Jucika, she always leaves happily at the end without the man getting what he was expecting. Women reading these in this era would breathe a sigh of relief at the end.
It’s a classic subversion of expectations
That was a classic kind of gag / theme I liked in Jucika comics. I expand on what some of the other themes are here:
So the bus… kinda just drove right in to her home? oO
Also, I like the way her hair creates cat-like patterns around her face. I can’t quite remember seeing that before.
You could say
( •_•)>⌐■-■
The bus driver came inside
(⌐■_■)
I’m not sure if that’s a joke or a solution.
She seems ok with now having to repair her entire front door and entryway area
Edit: I guess that could have been a hallway area outside her apartment
no no no no. she will never learn her lesson. she needs to learn how to read the weather report. she is absolutely not wearing the right clothes, that rain was definitely in the weather report
Hey, @the_picard_maneuver@lemmy.world, just a heads-up: I just added a new Jucika post (mostly analysis) at my place, also linked in comments.
Obviously it’s your call, but I’m thinking that within the extra info you add to these posts, you might update it to something like “for more Jucika content, including strip collections, try HERE.”
I’m happy to link to that!
