Gasoline Alley

Week three: the comic strip

Gasoline Alley 

Created by Frank King, distributed by Tribune Content Agency 


Defining characteristics and personal interpretation 

This comic is sophisticated yet simple with its content and visuals. There are occasionally full page spreads with a complete scene that is broken up into separate panels. Another one of the many things that makes this particular comic interesting is how the characters age in real time with its audience. This allows the reader to mature along with the characters, making it more relatable throughout the continuous story.
The art and character design is very charming, which is what originally attracted me to the comic. There is a wide variety of scenery and backgrounds, which are explored through either travel or the imaginations of the characters.
The whimsical and sweet style continues beyond the art and into the personality of the adventurous characters. While reading this comic, I focused mainly on the young boy named Skeezix and his Uncle Walt. Their dialect is meant to sound uneducated, as shown through spelling and word choice, similarly to John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men.' For example, Skeezix says "nudda bug, unca Walt!"

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