Understanding Comics

Despite owning Understanding Comics, I had never actually gotten the chance to read the book all the way through. Scott McCloud is a wonderful writer and comic artist, and it was good experience to read through his comic. I really enjoyed all the talks of time, closure, and emotion. I've realized those elements were there, but have never had a formal talk about the gutter, the closure and imagination that it required. It speaks a great deal about the formal elements of imagination in a comic or book that is lacking in a movie, which is an argument I tend to get involved in. The idea that the gutter represented the time between the frames, both in so much that we fill in the gaps during the gutter, but that the size of the gutter gives us an idea of the pause between the frames.

I feel that the approach that comic isn't accepted as art has slowly faded over the past decade. Though my point of view may be skewed from the aspect of being an art student, I feel as though the world has begun to realize that all the elements of comics make it an art form as much as any other recognized form. That in fact, it draws on more disciplines than most art forms. I look forward to getting and reading Making Comics. Though as a Graphic Design, I never planned on pursuing comics, I have found that in my personal work, I've been commissioned for comics and feel that some education on the elements of building and making a comic would be both worthwhile and entertaining. Granted, my storyboarding education during Computer Animation has established a fair number of the elements mentioned in Understanding Comics.

I like his talks on the elements of time both within a panel and between them. The way our eyesight travels along the page and the time it takes to read represents the motion of time. It was interesting to hear him talk (or not talk, since he's not making sound...) about the fact that composition is a dangerous field in comics due to the nature of the eye and time. I had never really thought about it that way, but it's true that the orientation and direction of the composition has the ability to break the flow and clarity of the panels.