Understanding Comics Improved

I believe that Will Eisner’s description of comics as Sequential art fits very well as a simplified way to describe comics. In Scott McCloud’s comic book, Understanding comics he defines comics as, “Juxtaposed static images in Deliberate Sequence”, which he later uses to Segway in to words. This is definition is very specific, as a definition should be, but as he explains this can also be seen as the definition of the written word.  Such a definition I feel left me unsatisfied as a specific definition for comics, because this definition could in someway be used for almost all visual forms of communication. It just simply sounds too vague and general, but I understand his point. 

Understanding Comics provides an enlightening and refreshing take on the graphic medium through the very use of the medium it is trying to explain. I tried to imagine what reading this same information in a textbook would have been like and I don’t think the same message could have come across.  One point that I found extremely interesting was the reason why people are so connected to cartoons.  Scot McCloud illustrates that by using simplified imagery to represent complex ideas that we can connect better to it, because it closer resembles what our minds imagine when trying to break down complex scenarios. This explanation completely rewired how I think about cartoons and why people feel so closely connected to cartoon characters, sometimes even more connected then to people they actually know.

This type of way of thinking may also explain a lot or different things that deal with human connections and what we desire. For example, many times News stories will take a very simplified approach to a subject or a conflict in order to draw in an audience, even when most conflicts are much more complex then presented. According John Green, author of The Fault in our Stars and co-founder of the Vlog Brothers YouTube channel, the reason many News channels take this approach to the news is because the general public likes a simple story. Something we can easily process. I am not saying that cartoons are just dumbed down drawings of more complex forms, but that there simplicity are just easier for people to understand, just like a simple narrative with a news story and when it is easier to understand it is easier for us to connect to it. Unfortunately, simplifying the News comes with its own social ramifications, but that is an entirely different topic.

Lastly, the final portion of the book that explained the separation of form and content I believe was extremely well written and had a lot of insight on how greatness is achieved in the graphic medium or any craft or profession as a matter of a fact, but in the end there is a choice that needs to be made between form and content. When people master the 6 tiers of being a great artist they have conquered their medium and are able to use it as a tool to masterfully communicate and deliver a message to its audience. It is obvious that after reading this that Scott McCloud is one of those people and has delivered to us this masterful piece of work, that is Understanding Comics.