comics > poetry

After reading Art Spiegelman's In The Shadow of No Towers and the beginning of David Rees' Get Your War On, I think it's safe to say that a comic strip allows a much different form of satirical representation of September 11th...than say an inspirational poem. While Rees' comics are certainly not artistic genius, the literary form permits him to say much more through the voices of his bland, benign, and banal cubicle characters than he would as an essayist or poet. Rees employs stoic clip-art characters to say anything and everything he happens to be thinking about the politics, controversy, and hypocrisy going on in America post 9/11. In fact, he may be exaggerating profusely, but he includes content that many people think and feel, but choose never to admit out loud.
While Art Spiegelman's comics are more profound artistically, both he and Rees take advantage of the flexibility and dimension of representation through comics. Spiegelman uses images to help portray his 9/11. His personal account is penetrating because he is able to express it with emotional as well as visual representation. David Rees finds advantage in exploitation; he displaces his own sentiments and criticism onto his clip-art characters, who speak in constant sarcastic exclamation.
I guess poetry allows people to say how they feel and what they think, but in comparison to a comic strip, it is more simply a compilation of words that are attributed to the author than a full expression or representation afforded by other media: In comparison to an essay, a poem has limited room for commentary or explanation; in comparison to a song, a poem doesn't have accompanying music; in comparison to a movie or photo, a poem doesn't have visual attachment. I appreciate poetry, but I like dimension and I find it inadequate as a representation of post 9/11 culture. I also don't think satire fits well into poems; it belongs in stand-up, fake news, or a comic strip.