Smithsonian Collection of Comics

     As useful as the Smithsonian Collection of comics are in preservation of the comic strip dating back to the 1910's, the magnitude involves a lot of time investment. The only downside to this collection, however, is how the strip carried over, the scale likely affecting the font of the dialogue. There were times where I tried to zoom in as much as I could, only to barely make out what the words were. The insight given at the beginning of each chapter before showing the comics of the designated era adds an additional layer of intrigue to the history as a whole. With this established, I could not finish the collection all the way through due to time restraints, but what I could read is interesting to say the least. The fact that there are comics by familiar icons that aren't associated with comics as much alone makes things interesting. For example, Winsor McCay is known for his genius work in animation yet his comic series "Little Nemo" is underrated and even then people might not associate his name to his work, kind of like knowing the actor's role rather than the actor themselves.
     My favorite comic strip I read by McCay is "Midsummer Day Dreams", where he brings up topics of everyday life that is still relevant today. My other favorite comic series is "The Gumps", by Sidney Smith, where the satire of a married couple complimented by dry humor. This made me think how well these comic strips aged, dating back to a little over 110 years ago, and the comics shown throughout the collection makes for interesting insight on the evolution of the comic strip as a whole. Most particularly, the serialized structure comics had in the 1910's and their own stories that carries the narrative shows the thought process of somebody before anybody's time.