Week 5 Thoughts

The article on Rick Griffin has been my all time favorite thus far. What an amazing story! When I first began reading the article I was beginning to wonder where it was going with the constant "Click..." but I kept reading and thank God I did. I remember growing up and my dad having saved some of Rick's Murphy cartoons, and having my dad show me them. Reading this article gave so much more history to them! Griffin as a "frustrated rockstar" turned Christian is definitely an interesting theme, but because of his accident and acid trips, I guess one could believe it. The Murphy cartoon represented  much more than just a cartoon a high school surfer drew, it represented an entire sect of the baby boomer generation who were lost in between middle class suburbia and what they truly wanted to do, surf. I like that Griffin decided to "kill" off Murphy and replace him with himself instead. Through his comics, Griffin was able to give readers the "under the table information" they wouldn't be able to receive anywhere else and it also served as a timeline for his own stories and adventures. It was also fun to read how Griffin's psychadelic experiences crept into his newer cartoons and the people who shared those experiences with him saw the same things, thinkng that Griffin had "nailed it". The experience he shared with Ida and his new baby are exactly what Mexico is to me, surfing, sleeping, beer and tacos. It's sort of funny and pretty familiar to me, the fact that he just kept stumbling onto things that would take his life on new adventures, with no real plans, thats exactly how its worked for me thus far.