A Reading Pile Special: Understanding Comics Day Five

Understanding Comics: Chapter Four - Time Frames
By Scott McCloud

In this chapter, our intrepid author talks about time and how it is utilized and conceptualized in comics.

It is a whole lot of theory. To be honest there is nothing super revelatory in this one. To anyone who has read comics for as long as I have, this is old hack.

It is interesting to see that the lingering moody panel is relatively new to western comics. As was his discussion on how the box of a panel can change time completely - its shape, size, content, and lines can be powerful indicators. The rest is all conceptual talk about composition. It is extremely important to anyone who may want to create comics in the future, but not very interesting for talking philosophically. It is hopefully just a breather after the beast that was Chapter Three.

A Reding Pile Special: Understanding Comics Day Four

Understanding Comics
Chapter Three - Blood in the Gutter
By Scott McCloud

Wow. Stunning. While I found chapter two a little hard to digest, Chapter Three exploded with information.

Here, McCloud describes “the gutter.” That space between panels which can take up seconds, years, or no time at all. He breaks down the types of transitions that occur in graphic narratives. I won’t bore you with those details, they are in the book if you are truly interested. Through these methods he notices trends in comics. What is most surprising is the fundamental difference in how Eastern and Western creators craft their stories.

The West tends to be concise, balancing what is needed with what can be left to the imagination. However, in the East, more emphasis can be placed on panels that relate the same point in time, creating a more detailed portrait of a moment. Most often this is used to evoke a sense of mood that can be missing in our traditional comics.

He also discusses a work’s length and abstraction on its effect to synthesize panels. His final conclusion is that the magic of the gutter is what raises comics above the level of some bastard child of visual art and prose.

It is the single most enlightening thing I have ever read about comics and explains many of my own preferences. In Manga, it explains why I enjoy the atmospheric nature of Vagabond over the more dense and Western DragonBall. It is key in understanding why I enjoy Jason and Seth, finding more meaning in their minimalism than in the static realism of someone like Alex Ross. Don’t get me wrong, I like Ross, but am more likely to appreciate a panel individually over the sequence of art as a whole. Most telling is why someone like Bendis, who I enjoy thoroughly, for other reasons, drives me mad with his penchant for confusing panel layouts.

So much of why I enjoy the comics I do is illuminated in this chapter. I feel spent. With six chapters left. I fear for my tiny brain. At this point, a pantomime strip will be a different experience for me. Already McCloud is shaping my opinion and view of my favorite medium. It is revelatory; and to be honest, a little frightening as well.

A Reading Pile Special: Understanding Comics Day Three

Understanding Comics
Chapter Two - The Vocabulary of Comics
By Scott McCloud

In the second chapter, McCloud tackles a much more complex topic. It is deceivingly simple at first, but builds to a problem that is harder to express.

Here, he starts out talking about the medium through its two major components - namely, pictures and words. The bulk of this part is devoted to pictures, or to be more precise, Iconography.

McCloud defines an icon as "any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea." The discussion then moves to the simplified abstraction of cartooning. He eloquently states something that I have been struggling with in my reviews for two years. The emotional power of an artist like Jason over that of one like Alex Ross is what is ultimately the foundation of this concept. The universally identifiable abstraction of a cartoonist is more relatable and more real than the detail of the photo realist.

Of course, with comics, it is necessary to examine words as well. They are at once more simple and abstract than a regular icon, but they are reliant on outside information. They are infinitely more complex because of the process which is needed to perceive their message.

This is all followed by a lengthy discussion of the various combinations employed by different artists. He is looking for a single vocabulary to describe the synthesis created by the received information of iconography and the perceived reality of prose. He is successful in as far as stating their iconic importance and differences, but the true complexity of the subject means that his final analysis is not as clear as he would probably like.

It is not that he doesn't express his idea well. He does, but it is difficult to understand exactly what he is getting at. This is due to the headier nature of this topic, it is not as readily coherent as the first chapter. Abstraction is always difficult to define and his effort here is both valant and borders on the sublime. It is like Pirsig's struggle with the notion of quality, it is unattainable as the safe end to his motorcycle journey. It is a necessary step in McCloud's own philospohical journey and despite its awkwardness, it will enlighten the reader on why they may prefer Herge over Jim Lee (or vice versa).

A Reading Pile Special: Understanding Comics Day Two

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Chapter One - Setting the Record Straight
By Scott McCloud

McCloud begins his journey into the deeper world of comics in a unique way. He starts by poking a bit of fun at them. The writer was not initially enamored with the medium, even though he would grow up to change the face of comics through his work.

In the Eighth Grade, his good friend Kurt Busiek truly introduced him to the world of sequential art. Scott’s world was changed forever. He sensed something deeper in comics, but was met by scoffing of a familiar sort about these feelings. This set his motor running.

Why did people think comics were kid’s stuff, silly superhero books with bad art? So, the first order of business is to define comics. Partly to do away with the stigma, partly to open the discourse of the book.

The simplest definition would be Will Eisner’s. He defined comics as “sequential art.” Unfortunately, McCloud thinks that definition might be a bit too broad. So he comes up with a more detailed definition:

com-ics (kom’iks) n. plural in form, used with a singular verb. 1. Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.

Using this definition, the author proceeds to look at the history of comics. He reaches past Yellow Kid and the onset of modern comics and talks about Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Mixtec Manuscripts, the Bayeux Tapestry and more. He doesn’t attempt to pinpoint the genesis of the medium. History is not his goal here.

His goal is to get the narrow perception of comics recognized as the bunk it is. This is a medium that goes back centuries and has produced a Pulitzer Prize winning tome. It is not Kid’s stuff.

McCloud throws the gauntlet down from the very beginning. He is going to explore the qualities and possibilities of comics in depth. If what you it is all Superman and Spider-Man, he wants your biases out of the way fast. An open mind is going to be needed, cause he intends to expand it.

I hope you will join me tomorrow for day three of this special look at Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

A Reading Pile Special: Understanding Comics Day One

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
By Scott McCloud

Okay, so today, I came to a special book on the Reading Pile. One that is remarkably different from any of the other books I have discussed thus far. As a result, The Reading Pile Special is born. In this, hopefully, recurring feature, I will take a deeper look at a book than any normal review can entail.

The first book being covered this way is Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. This book is considered a touchstone in comics. It’s a comic about comics. Not the history of comics (although there is a very impressive one of those, Comic Book Comics). No, this book starts with a definition of the word comics and then goes into detail as to what comics are and what they as a medium mean or are capable of.

I’m excited to read this book. It’s analysis is supposed to be profound and it is regarded as a game changer. Garry Trudeau said, “When the 215 page journey is finally over, most readers will find it difficult to look at comics in quite the same way ever again.”

So join me, as I spend the next nine days look at each chapter in detail. I’ll probably write a more traditional review at the end, but no promises.

A word of warning, even though Understanding Comics is itself a comic book, I will not be criticizing McCloud’s art in these pieces. I will probably rarely, if ever, mention the art at all. I am more concerned with the content and the theories of this book.

I hope you will be here tomorrow for the discussion on Chapter 1.