WP-2 Blogpost 2

Armed robbery has been prevalent in societies since the dawn of time. The United States has experienced this and indeed had it's dark times from the days of the wild west and highway robbery to the modern age where Somalian Pirates overthrow naval barge filled with tanks. In the United States, robbery was from colonial days a felony punishable by death. As late as the early 1960s, ten states made some forms of robbery punishable by death. The punishment was far from theoretical, as twenty-four persons were executed for robbery offenses between 1930 and 1962 (Robbery - The History of Robbery).

Armed robbery and the consequences that accompany it, speak multitudes about what type of person must be committing such a punishable action. Some criminals have been called psychotic, some deviant, yet regardless of a title they must be able to justify their actions and in some instances be cold-blooded in their ways. In the White Ninja cartoon depicted in my previous post, White Ninja is seen attempting to rob the man in the button up shirt. As we continue along through the panels, we learn that this man is a father and attempts to appeal to the White Ninja's pathos by explaining how he has to be the one to provide for them. The White Ninja at this time seems to be caught off guard and taken aback, as is evident in his statement "Oh. . . I never thought my victims might have loved ones." It seems our young thief had done little processing of the actions he was taking and the implications that would follow such as depriving a family of their father's hard-earned paycheck. This White Ninja cartoon does more than just throw around the overdone combination of slapstick comedy and a fart joke, it causes us as viewers to reflect on the severity and means of robbery and whether any of us could carry out what the White Ninja was attempting.

As stated in the Scott McCloud's The Vocabulary of Comics, "But when you enter the world of the cartoon. . . You see yourself". McCloud's book talks about how he believes that the simplicity and childlike features of comics cause us, as viewers, to relate to said characters. Within "White Ninja Attempts Armed Robbery", the White Ninja and his features are much more simplistic than the Father. This is by no means coincidence and was done in order to cause the viewers to place themselves in the place of the White Ninja. Would any of you be able to resist the seemingly sincere plea of the Father in his desperate attempt to save his own life and his family?

The simplicity complex that cartoons employ and provides the core reason that people of all ages can be captivated by them also has an aspect of juvenility. White Ninja also employs such an appeal. At the end of the pictorial, the Father pulls the White Ninja's finger causing him to pass gas. This is indeed childish, yet serves a purpose in the end. This fart effectively affirms the immaturity of the White Ninja as both a thief and a person in general and fills out his character as a whole.