Pretty much the first comic book i ever read

"The Filth" was a fun read for me probably because it had a lot of pictures haha. Nevertheless it wasn't just the pictures that caught my attention, the sexual and graphic pictures quickly made me understand that this isn't the kind of comic I would let little brother read, until he was at least 16 or so.

I remember some body asking in class about the main theme throughout the comic and someone else mentioned that it was love. In theory that does sound great by the only place i found love in this book was the love of Greg to his cat. On the other hand it is that love that throughout the book moved Greg away from his alter ego as Officer Slade, so maybe love does have something to do with it. I guess that love in this comic is also rather depressing and dark because it involves a lonely old man and his cat, not quite love novel material, yet this kind of projection of love goes quite well with the dark, disturbing, overly sexual mood we see through the rest of the book.

The author of this book like the author of any other book has the power to manipulate the characters in any way he/she sees hit. In this case the authors of Filth made superheroes and villains who comment throughout the book about the cruelty of the manipulation they have undergone, as if they had minds of there own, now independent of the author. We mentioned in class that people admire superheroes but also seek to find superhero like people in the real world. For example the case of Miley Cyrus how in her show has an alter ego as a pop singer, or something like that. So people admire having alter egos like one that can be relatable to them and then one that has some kind of awesome power/skill. This i think gives the rest of the people hope that they also can reach great things since they can relate to one of the later egos.

Like we saw in the case with Greg and Officer Slade the question of which identity is the real one comes up. This is interesting because it also reflects how people act differently in different situation with different people, and then the same question comes up, how do you know the true identity of a person if he/she constantly changes. I don't think it is possible to ever completely know someone, even yourself for that matter, but having an alter ego lets you explore life by acting out new interacting with different consequences. Furthermore Slade found out that the Hand could easily make copies of any of its officers with its resources. This made me think about the loss of identity and how so many people strive to be like each other, for reasons of acceptance or popularity, while not realizing that the more you become like someone else, the more of yourself you loose.

When i mentioned that authors have the power to manipulate the actions of the characters they write about, i came to the thought that each person is an author if his/her own life. In the sense that we make ourselves do all kinds of wacky, silly, even stupid things by our own will. Furthermore we can decide to manipulate our emotions, like pretending to cry, in order to get a desirable response from another person or group. On the hand you can look at it as an advantage because if you know you are the author of your own life that gives you the power to "write" your own story however you want it. Its similar to how people who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them then those who don't. So realizing that you are in charge of your life is empowering.

Finally i was thinking about why the Filth wasn't as disturbing to me as the Ticket. I came up with some different ideas. First of all the Ticket was the first book we read that was so graphic and complex in its detailing and structure. Therefore after reading the ticket the graphic images in the book just didn't seem so disturbing. Another issue was that in the Filth the fact that I had pictures limited my imagination on the subject, while the Ticket let me image all the events taking place which is more disturbing because it lets the mind freely wonder to all the dark places. Last but not least is that the highly sexual scenes in the filth all include male and female interaction while the sex in the Ticket is always between men and other beings. This shows the level social influence on the way we perceive things, like in this case where society tells us that straight is the way to be, we group up having to learn to deal with other forms of sexuality, by either excepting it or rejecting it. Some of the negative reactions to the Ticket i think are coming from these phobias.

I think both the Ticket and the Filth were great book to read because they moved be out of my shell of easy reading. It made me understand that reading something challenging is more fun, and that even very graphic comic, which i would probably never read on my own, have a message one can get by reading them.