Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud's TED Talk about comics really helped me understand the thought, proces, and hard work of creating a comic. I've always been interested in comic strips but comic books, not too much. This year that has changed a bit because of this class.

Scott McCloud is a comic book artist and cartoonist. A lot of what he has to say is very relevant and important to any artist out there whether they are a comic book artist or not. He helps one understand the shape of the future. He talks about there being three types of vision: vision based off on what one cannot see vision of the unseen and unknowable, vision of that which can be already be proven or that of which can be ascertained, vision of something which can be, which maybe based on knowledge, but is as yet unproven. The last vision is where the artistic and scientific visions lie. We all have these ideas and theories of visions, but most haven't been proven.

McCloud also speaks about there being four basic principles to follow: learn from everyone, follow no one, watch for patterns, work like hell. The third is where we can identify new ideas and learn to understand them. Four different ways of looking at the world and the world of comics are: classicist (beauty and craft), formalist (trying to understand how it works), animist (pure transparency of content), and iconoclast (authenticity of human experience and honesty). Watching and listening to him talk about understanding comics hasn't just opened my eyes to reading comics, but my perspective on the world as well. How people think. What to look for. To create a sequence of images that won't break the magic of the imagination.

"Comics are a visual medium but they try to embrace all the senses in it. Comics give you a vision to see what's in the panels and something to imagine what is between the panels. Sequence is a very important aspect of comics." Example of other sequences are hieroglyphics. Most of the early comics have simple line drawings without tone, but they work because of the clarity in the sequence of events. "Each of them has a single unbroken reading line, as you move through space you move through time." This quote was my favorite in the video. The fact that he figured understood that if we viewed the monitor as window, it won't break the continuous reading line in comics or stories. Pretty darn cool.

He has a lot to say and I enjoyed every minute of it. If anyone is interested at all in comics, storytelling, illustrations, or art in general; then this is the video for you.

TED Talk- Scott McCloud