[ch. 7-9 of Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud]
Since John brought it up, and it still relates to visual media, obviously, here's the Gnarls Barkley video for Crazy:
And yes, I am trying to psychoanalyze all of you, even though I don't know how to properly do so. I think some of the reason I don't stare too hard at the ink blots is because so many of them do look like insects. (I have a grave fear of insects. Not spiders, just bugs. We're talking phobia-level fear, here.)
McCloud is still his wacky and crazy self for this section. I have to say I feel bad for his wife (and child!) in the last panel, though. It's like, seriously? That's kind of sick. It looks like he's neglecting his family. Also, toward the end, he experiments with a manga-type style. I honestly like the manga style; I've barely read any, just what my friend(s) have forced on me, but it's prettier. It seems more well done than a lot of "realistic" American comics. Maybe I just like how're they actual books more so than comics? I'm not sure.
Showing posts with label understanding comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label understanding comics. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
[chapters 5-6 of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics]
Scott McCloud giving a presentation. His PowerPoint is more interesting than me talking about his book. Funnily enough, it's also more interesting than the book.
A mock interview with "Scott McCloud." Around 1:45, the fake!Scott talks about people using Understanding Comics in classrooms. "He" then goes on to talks about why comics and graphic novels are important for people other than kids. It's pretty base knowledge, but it's interesting. (And Lovecraft is mentioned! I've read some Lovecraft adaptations, and they're pretty sweet.)
In chapter six, though, it gets a little cool, I have to admit, because he talks about showing vs. telling. As a Rhetoric/Creative Writing major, Cinema Studies minor, I'm pretty damn used to hearing "show don't tell." Of course, that means, with creative writing, that you're still writing, but you're showing how John is angry, not just saying, "John is angry."
Chapter five discusses the "art of the invisible" and images being able to provoke emotions. I don't know what to add to that, but there it is.
Scott McCloud giving a presentation. His PowerPoint is more interesting than me talking about his book. Funnily enough, it's also more interesting than the book.
A mock interview with "Scott McCloud." Around 1:45, the fake!Scott talks about people using Understanding Comics in classrooms. "He" then goes on to talks about why comics and graphic novels are important for people other than kids. It's pretty base knowledge, but it's interesting. (And Lovecraft is mentioned! I've read some Lovecraft adaptations, and they're pretty sweet.)
In chapter six, though, it gets a little cool, I have to admit, because he talks about showing vs. telling. As a Rhetoric/Creative Writing major, Cinema Studies minor, I'm pretty damn used to hearing "show don't tell." Of course, that means, with creative writing, that you're still writing, but you're showing how John is angry, not just saying, "John is angry."
Chapter five discusses the "art of the invisible" and images being able to provoke emotions. I don't know what to add to that, but there it is.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Blankets & Understanding Comics
[Blankets, by Craig Thompson; chapter 1 & Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud; chapters 1 and 2]
Thompson's Blankets is a little heartbreaking. It's the kind of thing I inevitably read, whether it's assigned or not: all soft but cutting underneath. "Cubby Hole," the first chapter, tells the story of Craig (the author) and his brother, Phil. They say the first sentence of any piece of writing is the most important to the reading of it. Thompson's first sentence fits the mode, saying, "When we were young, my little brother Phil and I shared the same bed." Being three years apart feels like a lifetime when you're a child, and Craig explains the gap he felt and sequentially made wider between his brother and himself. The only time they were (felt) close was in drawing and in exploring a forest behind their home.
Craig is bullied at school, even through secondary levels, and tries to escape through drawing and dreaming (shown below). When he's older, though, he reads, "A profusion of dreams and a profusion of words are futile. Therefore fear God," from Ecclesiastes. He interprets this (wrongly or not, I don't know) to mean that "dreaming & drawing [are] the most secular and selfish of worldly pursuits." He burns all of his childhood drawing, and he tries to burn his memories with them. The chapter is bookended with Phil being locked in a hidden closet (the “cubby hole”) by their father, Craig unable to do anything about it (shown below).
McCloud gives us a brief introduction to comics, spanning the background and different kinds. He also tries to come up with a definition. Staring with “sequential art” (shown below), he works off the two words to try to make comics something definable. He has trouble, in the form of a comic himself after all, and concludes that comics will always mean something different to everyone, every culture, and even every generation.
In Chapter Two, “The Vocabulary of Comics,” McCloud discusses icons and how they are used in comics to universalize the images (shown below). Humans are set up to recognize them/ourselves in everything around us-- to see faces and mouths when there art any; this is why there's a Man in the Moon. McCloud also addresses the relationship between writing a comic and drawing one. An artist and a writer must bridge that chasm to create an effective storyline. He presents an equilateral triangle, its base angles being "reality" and "language/meaning," and its peak being "the picture plane." Art is effectively the peak, nature the lower left, and "ideas" on the lower right. Artists and writers must find some feasible way of blending the three to create a comic without separating the words and pictures.
[pg. 5 from Understanding Comics; visual examples of sequential art and what they represent/what we read from them automatically]
[pg. 46 from Understanding Comics; how we arrive at iconic images from photographic/real ones, and how that also makes the image "universal," "subjective," and "simple"]
[Blankets, by Craig Thompson; chapter 1 & Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud; chapters 1 and 2]
Thompson's Blankets is a little heartbreaking. It's the kind of thing I inevitably read, whether it's assigned or not: all soft but cutting underneath. "Cubby Hole," the first chapter, tells the story of Craig (the author) and his brother, Phil. They say the first sentence of any piece of writing is the most important to the reading of it. Thompson's first sentence fits the mode, saying, "When we were young, my little brother Phil and I shared the same bed." Being three years apart feels like a lifetime when you're a child, and Craig explains the gap he felt and sequentially made wider between his brother and himself. The only time they were (felt) close was in drawing and in exploring a forest behind their home.
Craig is bullied at school, even through secondary levels, and tries to escape through drawing and dreaming (shown below). When he's older, though, he reads, "A profusion of dreams and a profusion of words are futile. Therefore fear God," from Ecclesiastes. He interprets this (wrongly or not, I don't know) to mean that "dreaming & drawing [are] the most secular and selfish of worldly pursuits." He burns all of his childhood drawing, and he tries to burn his memories with them. The chapter is bookended with Phil being locked in a hidden closet (the “cubby hole”) by their father, Craig unable to do anything about it (shown below).
[pages 42-43 from Blankets; Craig using dreams as escapism]
[pg. 65 from Blankets; Craig listening to Phil cry in the "cubby hole"]
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[pg. 65 from Blankets; Craig listening to Phil cry in the "cubby hole"]
McCloud gives us a brief introduction to comics, spanning the background and different kinds. He also tries to come up with a definition. Staring with “sequential art” (shown below), he works off the two words to try to make comics something definable. He has trouble, in the form of a comic himself after all, and concludes that comics will always mean something different to everyone, every culture, and even every generation.
In Chapter Two, “The Vocabulary of Comics,” McCloud discusses icons and how they are used in comics to universalize the images (shown below). Humans are set up to recognize them/ourselves in everything around us-- to see faces and mouths when there art any; this is why there's a Man in the Moon. McCloud also addresses the relationship between writing a comic and drawing one. An artist and a writer must bridge that chasm to create an effective storyline. He presents an equilateral triangle, its base angles being "reality" and "language/meaning," and its peak being "the picture plane." Art is effectively the peak, nature the lower left, and "ideas" on the lower right. Artists and writers must find some feasible way of blending the three to create a comic without separating the words and pictures.
[pg. 5 from Understanding Comics; visual examples of sequential art and what they represent/what we read from them automatically]
[pg. 46 from Understanding Comics; how we arrive at iconic images from photographic/real ones, and how that also makes the image "universal," "subjective," and "simple"]
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