WEEK 5 assignment : Will Eisner, Contract with God

Contract with God was an almost satisfying reading experience to me. In comparison to Superhero comic I read a week before, I’m more fond to the way humanity was portrayed in this graphic novel. Characters tend to express their mind and emotions more naturally in this series. Although, I still find transformation within characters a little too rush and could be more subtle overall, the work successfully convinced me that they have feelings and have grown to some degrees. 

What I appreciate the most in this work is the sense that the environmental world itself resonated emotions in harmony with characters. Small alleys and cityscape vibrated some kind of restlessness and bitter serenity just like life stories of characters living in it. Heavy rain in the first chapter for example did not portrayed as just a natural occurrent but part of the character’s being and his state of mind, so as the alleys and people of the place that seemed to shape each others. I think these places and people wonderfully expressed a strong sense of imperfection, weathered and unstoppable rhythm of time.

Beauty that I found in this work was clearly not in the perfectly decorated mind, their appearances or well refined world but in the ability to communicate subtle flaws that were always part of continuing spiritual journey. I think this is the charm of slices of life genre. They’re able to end in a manner which the story slowly depart from audience leaving continuing time for us to reflect upon. 

What I think would make the story more satisfying to me would be a sense of triumphant and self awareness. As the story went on, most characters tend to sink deeper into delusion than being elevated from it. This pattern is common in many chapters. I don’t think that the story should end happily or the suffering should be eliminated but as a reader I would like to depart from the story with more detached and elevated mind, which I could obtain from observing anomalies like elements of hope in a generally sorrowful plots. However, the fact that the story always remain true to the author’s world view is respectable.