The Anatomy of Comics - Part 1

A few quick comments about the author of the book I'll be taking notes on, Scott McCloud:

From Wikipedia: Scott McCloud (born Scott McLeod on June 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium. He is most notable for his non-fiction books about comics, Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, for which he has been called the "Marshall McLuhan of comics." ...He is best known as a comics theorist or as some say, the "Aristotle of comics",[6] following the publication in 1993 of Understanding Comics, a wide-ranging exploration of the definition, history, vocabulary, and methods of the medium of comics, itself in comics form.

And a few separate comments on the book, Understanding Comics:

From Wikipedia: "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art is a 215-page non-fiction comic book, written and drawn by Scott McCloud and originally published in 1993. It explores the definition of comics, the historical development of the medium, its fundamental vocabulary, and various ways in which these elements have been used. It discusses theoretical work on comics (or sequential art) as an artform and a communications medium. It also uses the comic medium for non-storytelling purposes."

Notes from: McCloud, Scott. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 2-59.

McCloud, Scott. (1993). Understanding Comics: The
Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 9.
Retrieved from: motleyvision.org

• While stories told in picture form have been around for thousands of years, it wasn't until printing was established that the medium could be enjoyed by everyone and not just the wealthy (p. 16)
• McCloud gives credit to Rodolphe Topffer as the father of modern comics, defining them as using panel borders, cartooning, and interdependent combinations of words and pictures
• Goethe criticized Topffer for choosing a "frivolous subject" and ignored is works as anything worth potential (p. 17)
• A useful definition of comics: "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in a viewer." This means that single panels are CARTOONS, and not COMICS. (p. 20)
• Cartoons = "an approach to picture-making... a style"; Comics = "a medium which often employs that approach" (p. 21)
• An icon is "any image that used to represent a person, place, thing or idea." (p. 27)
• Pictorial icons are variable in the sense that they differ from the real life appearnce in varying degrees (p. 28)
• McCloud asks the question, why do we respond to abstract/simplified icons as much - or more so - than the drawings which are more realistic? He suggests that with simplification the artist is able to amplify characteristics that might otherwise be lost in a more complicated, life-like image (p. 29-30). Cool, right?!

McCloud, Scott. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 30. Retrieved from: idrawdigital.com

• Cartoons allow us to focus our attention on a idea, and have a universal characteristic (the more cartoony a face, the more it could look like a greater number of people) (p. 31)
• Also incredible is our ability to see faces in the most non-human structures (picture an outlet!) - what's better is that it's almost impossible NOT to see faces in inanimate objects (p. 32)
• When we converse, we have an awareness of our own face even when looking at our speaking partner - however, it's a much less detailed image - more of a "sketchy arrangement... a cartoon"!! So when we enter the world of cartoons and comics, we see ourselves. (p. 36) Is your mind blown? Mine is.
• When less realism is in the drawing, then the message becomes more important than who/what it's coming from (p. 37)
• Cartoons hold an advantage of breaking into pop culture due to the degree of audience identification, an indicator of audience involvement (p. 42); furthermore, the background has more latitude in how real it appears because we do not identify with brick walls or landscapes. "This combination allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world. One set of lines to see. Another set of lines to be." (p. 43)
• The total "pictorial vocabulary" can be defined within a triangle, the vertices being reality, language and object/picture (p. 51)



McCloud, Scott. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 51.
Retrieved from: xradiograph.com

• An artists values can be extrapolated from where in the triangle their art lies: nature = lower left (reality), art = top (object/picture), ideas = lower right (language) (p. 57)
• Mention of Marshall McLuhan - to be researched! Quick peak on Wiki describes him critical in the study of media theory (p. 59)

I haven't yet figured out how to add pictures to the blog using my mobile app yet (yay, iPad) - but as soon as I do I'll come back and make this a little more fun, especially since this is such a visually-oriented discussion on comics.

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