Understanding Comics - The Invisible Art: by Scott Mccloud
Understanding Comics - The Invisible Art: by Scott Mccloud
by Scott McCloud
This is my summary of some of the Key Ideas in Scott McClouds definitive text:
The earliest words are in fact STYLISED PICTURES. With the invention of
printing, the written word took a great leap forward but at the expense of
pictures. By the early 1800s Western ART and WRITING had drifted about
as far apart as was possible
Through the combination of words and pictures COMICS have become firmly
identified with the art of STORYTELLING, and indeed words and pictures
have great power to tell stories when creators fully exploit them both
When you look at a photo or a realistic drawing of a face, you see the face of
ANOTHER, but when you enter the world of the cartoon, you see
YOURSELF. The cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness
are pulled. We dont just observe the cartoon we BECOME it
A simple STYLE does not mean a simple STORY (see Maus for example)
In learning to read comics, we all learn to perceive TIME spatially, for in the
world of comics TIME and SPACE are one and the same thing
From its earliest days, the modern comic has grappled with the problem of
showing motion in a static medium. The commonest of these is the MOTION
LINE - or ZIP RIBBONS as they are sometimes known
SOUND in comics breaks down into two sub-sets: Word BALLOONS and
SOUND EFFECTS
Unlike other media, both PAST and FUTURE are real and visible in comics
wherever your eyes are focused is NOW but at the same time your eyes take in
the surrounding landscape of past and future
Comics are able to make EMOTIONS visible because we bring the full power
of our own experiences to bear on the world our eyes report. In the end, what
you GET is what you GIVE