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Understanding Comics - The Invisible Art: by Scott Mccloud

Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics explores the key elements of comics as an art form. Some of the main points discussed include how comics combine both words and pictures to tell stories through closure, the phenomenon where readers fill in the gaps between panels. The book also examines how comics use icons like symbols to represent ideas and characters, as well as techniques for depicting motion and sound. By leaving aspects open to interpretation, comics allow readers to personally engage with the story and characters on a level that other media cannot achieve.

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Eric Kartman Lee
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272 views2 pages

Understanding Comics - The Invisible Art: by Scott Mccloud

Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics explores the key elements of comics as an art form. Some of the main points discussed include how comics combine both words and pictures to tell stories through closure, the phenomenon where readers fill in the gaps between panels. The book also examines how comics use icons like symbols to represent ideas and characters, as well as techniques for depicting motion and sound. By leaving aspects open to interpretation, comics allow readers to personally engage with the story and characters on a level that other media cannot achieve.

Uploaded by

Eric Kartman Lee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Understanding Comics The Invisible Art

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

CREATOR and READER are PARTNERS IN THE INVISIBLE, creating


something out of nothing time and time again. The dance of the VISIBLE and
the INVISIBLE is at the very heart of comics through the power of
CLOSURE

CLOSURE is the phenomenon of observing the PARTS but perceiving the


WHOLE. Some forms of closure are deliberate inventions of storytellers to
produce SUSPENCE or to CHALLENGE audiences. In an incomplete world,
we depend on closure for our very SURVIVAL

The CLOSURE of electronic media is continuous, largely involuntary and


virtually imperceptible

In FILM, closure takes place continuously - 24 times per second in fact as


our minds transform a series of still pictures into a story of continuous motion

The language of COMICS relies heavily on ICONS images used to represent


people, places or ideas. SYMBOLS are one category of icon, and pictures are
icons too

PICTORIAL ICONS sit somewhere on the spectrum betweenREALITY and


ABSTRACTION. Words are totally abstract icons. That is, they bear no visual
resemblance to the thing they represent

The UNIVERSALITY of CARTOON IMAGERY is part of its special power.


The more cartoonya face is, the more people it could be said to describe. By
stripping down an image to its essential meaning, an artist can AMPLIFY that
meaning in a way that realistic art cannot

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

Storytellers in all media know that a sure indicator of audience involvement is


the degree to which the audience identifies with the storys CHARACTERS

A simple STYLE does not mean a simple STORY (see Maus for example)

In COMICS, the GUTTER or space between the panels is where the


human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a
SINGLE IDEA. If VISUAL ICONOGRAPHY is the VOCABULARY of
comics, closure is its GRAMMAR

Most panel-to-panel TRANSITIONS in comics can be placed in one of six


categories (read the book to find out what they are!)

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

MOTION in comics also breaks down into two sub-sets: PANEL-TO-PANEL


CLOSURE and motion WITHIN PANELS

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

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