GRAPHIC NOVELS Understanding Comics

SCOTT MCLOUD’S UNDERSTANDING COMICS: THE INVISIBLE ART

Chapter 1 Setting the Record Straight

Understanding Comics Comic book theorist, writer, and artist Scott McCloud offers up the argument that “Comics represent a harmonious (at best) coming together of words and images” (47-8). Of course, one must also be able to offer up a definition of comics as well, and McCloud does so…

WHAT ARE COMICS? We want to help people see comics in a less “narrow” fashion SEQUENTIAL ART Images taken individually are just pictures. When they are part of a sequence, the image is transformed… Page 5 of Understanding Comics Will Eisner’s term “sequential art.”

Definition is ongoing The definition we are using as given by McCloud is not fixed or definitive. Rather “our attempts to define comics are an on-going process which won’t end anytime soon” (23). It is an ongoing debate

Chapter 2 Vocabulary of Comics

WHAT ARE IMAGES? ICON: Any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea. REALISTIC  ICONIC

Cartooning… He examines “cartooning” and comics “as a form of amplification through simplification” (30)

REALISTIC  ICONIC

Focus to Attention Cartoons and Comics have an incredible power “to focus our attention on an idea” and as McCloud believes, this is “an important part of their special power, both in comics and in drawing generally” (31).

WHAT’S BEYOND ICONIC? WORDS! PICTURES = RECEIVED. INFORMATION RECEIVED INSTANTANEOUSLY. WE SEE IT AND WE UNDERSTAND IT IMMEDIATELY. WRITING = PERCEIVED. INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE DECODED. WE SEE IT BUT THEN WE NEED TO READ IT TO UNDERSTAND IT.

WHAT’S BEYOND ICONIC?  FACE RECEIVED = WE SEE A FACE. PERCEIVED = WE READ THE WORD “FACE.” WE MAKE MEANING FROM BOTH IMAGES AND WORDS IN COMICS.

Reconciling Division …Our need for a unified language of comics sends us toward the center where words and pictures are like two sides of the same coin! But our need for sophistication in comics seems to lead outward, where words and pictures are most separate. Both are worthy aspirations. Both stem from a love of comics and a devotion to its future. Can they reconciled? I say the answer is yes” (49).

COMICS GIVE US PICTURES AND WORDS. WHAT DO WE GIVE COMICS?

IMAGINATION Our imaginations. We fill in the blanks.

THE GUTTER THE WHITE SPACE… BETWEEN TWO PANELS.

CLOSURE The reader uses his/her imagination to figure out what happens in that white space between the panels. Our imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea. There’s nothing there in that white space, but our imaginations fill it in. We connect the images in the panels to construct a continuous story.

PANEL-TO-PANEL TRANSITIONS MOMENT-TO-MOMENT: Very little has changed in the panels. We really aren’t required to use our imaginations very much. Very little needs to be filled in. ACTION-TO-ACTION: The change sticks to one subject and one action in progress. We see step by step what is happening to one person. We have to use our imaginations some, but still not very much. Most common type of transition in comics.

PANEL-TO-PANEL TRANSITIONS SUBJECT-TO-SUBJECT: We stay with one scene or idea, but we switch to different subjects. We go from one person to another. We have to use our imaginations more now. We have to fill in what’s happening between the two subjects. 2nd most common type of transition. SCENE-TO-SCENE: A great deal of time or space is crossed. We have to use our imaginations quite a bit to fill in huge gaps in the story. 3rd most common transition.

PANEL-TO-PANEL TRANSITIONS ASPECT-TO-ASPECT: We stay in the same scene, but we see a different aspect of it. The change is in what we’re looking at within the scene. For example, we may get a close-up on something in the scene. NON-SEQUITUR: There’s no logical relationship between the images at all. The panels don’t go together. However, we still try to connect them. Our imaginations still try to make a story out of the images and figure out what happens in the gutter between them.

Comics is a mono-sensory medium. It relies on only one of the senses to convey a world of experience. --Scott McCloud p. 89

It’s all in the eyes. Within these panels, we can only convey information visually. But between panels, none of our senses are required at all. Which is why all of our senses are engaged. --Scott McCloud p. 89

HOW ARE OTHER SENSES REPRESENTED?

HOW DO WE USE OUR OTHER SENSES?

continued… To be continued…