Trash Mountain by Kelton Sears
Trash Mountain by Kelton Sears is a contemporary webcomic series presented in long GIF format. It seems to be surrounding the mental and spiritual journey of environmental loss, and its consequences.
This was easily the most abstract and strange comic I have read from this class so far. I think it cleverly utilizes the modern technology that older comics didn't have access to such as the moving image format and the use of audio tracks on the website to provide a really immersive and unique experience. The main character, having lost his natural home to construction and urbanization workers, retreats to the deep woods in his rawest form and experiences new society. I believe this is a story about how society impedes on the natural form of living. You can see it right at the beginning when the character smashes his phone for waking him up with an alarm, and you can see its a persistent problem because its not the first phone he's smashed to pieces. Then, when the construction workers tear his home and the surrounding flora apart and replace it with sludge pipelines, tainting and destroying the natural habitat, the main character flees, climbing up and down a mountain, and removing all of his clothes, his last remnant of society, baring himself to the raw of the nature, and meets new society in the mountain. Lastly, you get a glimpse of the result of the urbanization. A city, flagrant in phallic imagery and technology, and most importantly, garbage and sludge and gray sickly skies.
It's a really strange webcomic, but upon further inspection, there's a really dire situation Kelton Sears addresses that he abstracts into pure feeling rather than the traditional logical approach, and while I struggled to catch on the first time, I can really appreciate the method and making the most out of contemporary resources to make his point come across.
This was easily the most abstract and strange comic I have read from this class so far. I think it cleverly utilizes the modern technology that older comics didn't have access to such as the moving image format and the use of audio tracks on the website to provide a really immersive and unique experience. The main character, having lost his natural home to construction and urbanization workers, retreats to the deep woods in his rawest form and experiences new society. I believe this is a story about how society impedes on the natural form of living. You can see it right at the beginning when the character smashes his phone for waking him up with an alarm, and you can see its a persistent problem because its not the first phone he's smashed to pieces. Then, when the construction workers tear his home and the surrounding flora apart and replace it with sludge pipelines, tainting and destroying the natural habitat, the main character flees, climbing up and down a mountain, and removing all of his clothes, his last remnant of society, baring himself to the raw of the nature, and meets new society in the mountain. Lastly, you get a glimpse of the result of the urbanization. A city, flagrant in phallic imagery and technology, and most importantly, garbage and sludge and gray sickly skies.
It's a really strange webcomic, but upon further inspection, there's a really dire situation Kelton Sears addresses that he abstracts into pure feeling rather than the traditional logical approach, and while I struggled to catch on the first time, I can really appreciate the method and making the most out of contemporary resources to make his point come across.
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