Scott McCloud’s book serves as an extended “meta-media object,” using the tools of the comic to explore the medium itself. What aspects of comics, both as a medium of analysis and medium of expression, did you find particularly interesting? How might McCloud’s ideas extend to other media, or how might someone be able to express such concepts in other media? And what do the pieces by Madden and Smith add to our understanding of comics in relation to other media?
Reading responses for 2/26
- Author By Jason Mittell
- Publication date February 23, 2008
- Categories: Reading Responses
- 14 Comments on Reading responses for 2/26
Both Erin Faden and Scott McCloud realized that a great way of talking about a certain media is by using the media itself as the medium of expression. and there’s no doubt that it works.
how did the book work for me? well: i love comics, and i really respect them. i don’t think in argentina they are considered a “lower form of art” or anything like that. people who make good comics are probably amongst the most admired people in history. and i also have many friends who make comics. but i hadn’t really stopped to think about how they work, when they first appeared, or how many ways there are to tell the same story.
i found “understanding comics” truly fascinating. there are so many concepts that i learned and understood, that i really don’t know where to start. i guess one of the things that i found most interesting was the role of “closure” in comics. i knew what closure was, but i had never thought it as an essential part in comics (its grammar)
i am looking at my notes to see what else i learned and i read “page 36: amazing.” i think i wrote that because the page contains this concept: “the cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled, an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm. we don’t just OBSERVE the cartoon, we BECOME it.” this concept sounds somehow abstract and difficult to understand. but right after he says it, scott mcCloud (or his simplification) exemplifies the concept with his own drawing (“that’s why i decided to draw myself in such a simple style”). in other words: the drawings explain and broaden what is being told, the same ways images and sound functioned as information in eric Faden’s videos.
using different forms of media as mediums of expressions allow different forms of communication. personally, as i said, the best way of talking about a certain media is by using the media itself. why? first of all, because people who are interested in an analysis of a certain media will be at least familiar with the way in which it should be “read”.thus they’ll “get it” faster. secondly, because the only way of making anoyone understand anything is by showing instead of telling.
McCloud describes Japanese comic art as more willing to wander, more willing to exist in “negative space,” but also more willing to linger mood- and scene-establishing images. In the majority of the comics I read, one does not have to go after that which is left out. Even if some relatively major action takes place “in the gutter,” as it were, the panels make the transition clear. If, for instance, you take a look at this piece of Dominic Deegan‘s current arc, what happens between the last two panels is pretty clear. The chick in the black jumpsuit goes boom when the older lady magically smacks her around. Then I looked at the second, third, and fourth panels of the same piece of the story. What happens in panel three, let alone what happens between panels two and three, does not make sense until panel four (unless you are better than I at deciphering those “woosh” bands that are reminiscent of last Thursday’s protective enchantments). I find this curious—all the more so because McCloud’s analysis of comics and the illustration (ha ha) of his principles in one of my daily webcomics reminded me of nothing more than academic writing.
I realize how bizarre that sounds. We’ve already devoted some time in this course to the unwieldy form of the essay in its application to many media, but continuous exploration of the form, grammar, and flexibility of your everyday average analytical tool has probably constructed most of my skills in puzzling out whatever is set before me. McCloud describes Western culture as generally goal-oriented, concerned most with getting to wherever the story is going as efficiently as possible. Anyone who has gone through Mrs. Bertolini’s peer writing tutor training sessions knows that we employ the same “straight-line” approach to writing and evaluating our essays. It’s always about being concise and direct, isn’t it? Footnotes are for dwelling, and (at least if you’re MLA) keep those to a minimum, please. Arrogant snob that I am, I always laugh when someone complains about having “only four to five pages!” in which to contemplate the formulation of gender in As You Like It, or Frost’s responses to Darwin, or the symbols in “The Dead.” A length of four to five pages, I am convinced, is a kind of holy grail. If you can narrow your topic and give it a brief but focused attention that feels thorough in that kind of limited space, you’re golden. In an odd way, and without the further abbreviatory function of the graphic, the efforts one makes to be concise while writing mimic the relatively small panel-to-story ratio comics exhibit. Even when I have had to tease out an argument, I have always left some things for the reader to sort out for him- or herself. It’s a testament to my skill as a communicator if my reader makes the leap with me, but my ability purposefully propagate ambiguity and leave questions unanswered may have a similar effect. It’s the same thing, McCloud tells us, with comics—the axe murder panel pair, for instance.
When reading Scott McLoud’s ‘Understanding Comics’ and Smith’s article ‘The Maxx’, I was really intrigued by all the differences between the film medium and the comic medium. Both writers expressed why the comic strip is unique and how it can portray things that film cannot.
McLoud did a successful job of showing the passage of time in his comic book. He used himself as the narrator and it was easy to know when he was narrating because he showed himself in several frames addressing the reader. Then the reader would know when he was going into facts about comic books and printing because McLoud would use a new style of illustration that differed from the narrator frames. After reading the comic book, I really couldn’t think of a source of media that would better present this information. If instead this book was all text, there is no way that it would be as compelling. It would most likely be very confusing.
In Smith’s article ‘The Maxx’, I think he, too, made many interesting points about why the comic strip is unique and can not be imitated by another source of media. There has never been a cartoon that is even close to the comic strip. One of the points he made really caught my attention: that the comic book page is first understood as a unit and then the reader fits the component frames into that overall structure by reading each frame individually. This is not possible in film or books; film only has a few different frame sizes while comic books have endless possibilities. Madden’s ‘Exercises in Style’ really showed how creative one can be when writing/illustrating a comic book.
I enjoyed the Smith reading about the comic book turned animated series because it highlighted the specific techniques that are required to transform (adapt) a comic into another medium. Smith talks about the film (in this case television) grammar that meshes well with comics’ distinctive style—namely the way the comics are framed and the corresponding camera movements in the animated version. After reading Smith’s points on the subject, I began to consider two pieces of media that were inspired by comics: the film Sin City and the video game XIII.
I believe more people are aware of Sin City, the Frank Miller comic that was changed into a Robert Rodriguez film in 2005. The visual style of the film distinctly resembled the comics, both in terms of actions sequences and the color scheme. Additionally, the dialogue in the film was all taken from the comic, so there is no screen writing credit—only a writing credit that is attributed to Miller. Rodriguez himself stated that the film was more of a “translation” rather than an adaptation.
The computer game XIII is a first person shooter that features a unique tone and feel compared to other first person shooters. The animation looks like a comic book—it looked drawn and has a distinctly comic book style of movements. Additionally, if you did certain sequences, such as thrown a knife and hit someone, or use a grappling hook, the game would literally show these actions with a three panel break down of the action.
This game was based on a comic book of the same title. To preserve its comic book origin even further, whenever a sound effect would happen (gun shot, punch, or alarm) a stylized written version would appear on the screen, in addition to the sound. For example, *Whack* would appear in the corner of the screen when you bunched someone. Not only did this feature keep the game rooted to its comic tradition, it differentiated itself from nearly every other first person shooter on the market. According to imdb.com a movie based on the comic is underway.
First of all, I just want to say that I absolutely loved reading this book–comic? Essay? It’s hard to put a label on it.
What I thought was one of the most interesting concepts that McCloud talked about was the idea that the further away from reality a pictorial representation reaches, the easier it is for an audience to identify with it. I was considering the smiley face and really, anyone from any culture can understand that icon and relate to it. I suppose that’s where Disney’s Mickey Mouse gets his appeal.
I was thinking that animation could be another medium in which these similar concepts could be used, as far as identification with a cartoony character goes, but I think that another one of McCloud’s important points about the infinite possibilities of the blank spaces between panels would be lost. After all, movement (or at least the illusion of movement) is what differentiates these two media. However, I still think that animation comes closer to expressing what a comic can express than any other media.
Like a comic, animation is flexible. Anything that can be drawn can be animated, and unlike comics we can see the process of movement and metamorphosis. Whereas comics give us the freedom to interpret what happens in between panels, animation explicitly shows the information, leaving no room for that kind of interpretation. I think the most important difference between animation and comics is animation’s lack of words. Since sound technology can be used, things like music, sound effects, and dialogue can be used to create a sense of “blank space” in between the scenes or “panels” of an animation, thus creating a similar sense of ambiguity that comics posses.
I’m in agreement with Erin as far as animation is concerned.
Film creates boundaries that, while slowly being destroyed by the beast that is CGI, are still boundaries none the less. The camera can only physically do so much, as can the living breathing actors. However, in animation, the director can emulate the same visual style as a comic book. But I think it’s important to emphasize that it can achieve the same VISUAL style as the comic. Animation does have the benefit of having an audio track.
Then again, films like 300 and Sin City, and even independent films like Dogs of Chinatown, are closing the gap visually as to what a movie is capable of doing.
In anycase, I found McCloud’s thoughts on the smiley face particularly interesting. I never stopped to think about it, but the truth of the matter is that in many cases it’s easer to identify with a simplified face than that of a hyper realistic one. Even the most beautiful of comics have art that, while teetering on the line, still don’t quite look photo-realistic. Not so much because the artist is incapable of this, but because I believe it’d take the reader out of the story.
Though my favorite part of the reading has to be when he speaks of how when one smiles, they don’t really see themselves, they see a simplified comic-like version of their face, whereas the person speaking to you sees your face in extreme detail. It’s a very simple concept that you don’t really think about on a daily basis.
I was rather pleased that McCloud touched upon Japanese manga, and the way in which transitions function. It’s comparable to a complicated film in the use of series of shots that are organized to create a certain scene, or in some cases even a sound, despite the manga having no real audio.
All of the readings were just extremely compelling.
I agree with others who posted before me that McCloud was a joy to read/look at. This is important in and of itself as a rhetorical device. An example of the obvious entertainment factor is on page 73 when there is a frame of a gunshot in the middle of McCloud’s analysis with his narrator. As well as being entertaining, this is an example of McCloud’s meta-media analysis. He is making a point about non-sequiturs.
While I was reading the McCloud’s essay I kept thinking about the idea of meta-analysis and how what he was saying corresponding to the medium he was saying it in. I got most excited when I was reading over page 90 and he talked about the idea of “closure” in relation to the “gutter” in between different frames. I was able to have an epiphany moment when I though about how the effect of having “gutter time to think” while I was in one of these “gutter” periods. Truly a meta-experience.
As someone who doesn’t read comics often, I really enjoyed the medium because it gave me time to think (and if any one has comics they recommend, by all means go ahead–when I have time I think I’m going to read Maxx).
One thing that interested me in the content of what McCloud discussed was how New Media is thought about in terms of previous mediums. When I think about political blogging, for example, if you look at dailykos, posts are called “diary entries”. This is interesting because dailykos is a relatively old blog, and newer blogs such as Talking Points Memo posts are organized in a more sophisticated fashion. In my opinion, the antiquated diary format of DailyKos holds it back.
Final note on McCloud: I thought the section (page 189) on technological change was especially interested. Different color technologies fundamentally changed the grammar of comics. This is definitely seen with video in political blogging. Talking Points Memo, for example, has fundamentally changed in the past six months since they added video.
I thought the Smith essay on Maxx in different mediums was a lot less effective as piece of media criticism because I felt I needed to see the MTV show to understand what he was talking about.
The Madden comics served to underscore the extent to which different choices in the form and structure of comics have a large impact on the interpretation by the reader.
In regards to Jessie’s comment about the tendency of Japanese comics to linger more on establishing mood and scene, I would say that there is more to this than simply enhancing the clarity of transitions (though it is a factor especially in comics). As someone who has a thing for Japanese cinema, the tendency of films by Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, and Ozu to linger in a shot long after an actor exits frame or to cut to shots with no people at all do more than just clarify.
In regards to the first part of the question, comics (or any meta-media object for that matter) can analyze a medium in two key ways: original content and sampling from the works of others. Madden decided to create his own original comic that immitated (and, in doing so, analyzed) other styles (i.e. superheroes, dailies, etc.) McCloud illustrated unique features such as how increasing the # of panels can imply a longer passage of time by creating an original comic that does exactly that. But he also drew upon examples from established works throughout the book, such as the frames from Herge’s Tin tin to illustrate iconic characters with a very realistic background. In terms of a medium of expression, a feature that struck me the most was the way in which panels can be used to express the passing of time (i.e. long panels, more panels, the absence of borders). Also, the fact that we can see peripherally where we’ve been and we’re going while simultaneously viewing the present is an interesting feature.
Finally, here is a list of some very useful questions of all media (do forgive me if I drift more towards visual media) that readings brought up:
1) What is the primary sense that the medium appeals to? Hoe does it use this sense to convey other sensorial information (i.e. how can lines be used to convey a smell? How does “one sense speak for all 5?”
2) Is the information being conveyed sensorial information, iconic information (ideas, feelings, thoughts, etc.), or both?
3) How does a medium command viewer involvement and identification?
4) How much does a medium rely on the viewer’s imagination to fill in information (either with in a single frame, shot, etc. or between them)? Closure
5) how do the elements of other media within in one particular media (i.e. text and images) interact with each other.
6) How do various elements serve expressionistic purposes (i.e. how can lines or colors be manipulated to express different moods?)
7) How is a medium affected by commerce and technological limitations?
8) How does a medium differ in different cultural environments (i.e. Japanese vs. Western comics)?
And that’s just to name a few!
McCloud writes and draws about comics as “the invisible art,” but I feel that many of the concepts he explores, especially closure, seem to suggest that something like “the quantum art” (as opposed to “the linear art”) would be more descriptive of the unique character of comics. Comics is the only art form I can think of where the majority of meaning is created in the quantum “jump” from expression to expression (in comics, panel to panel). The gutter, where the reader’s imagination temporarily takes over, serves as the demarcating line for this jump, and the explicitness of the space between the panels allows for participation not found in any other form. These “quantum meaning jumps” occur in all sorts of media, including television, film, and print, but in all of these causality and depiction is in some way oppressive. Both film and television force us to see pretty much only what is actually on screen (and we cannot readily stop to “fill in the blanks” by ourselves), and print vocabulary and grammar has become so standardized as to restrict meaning to the point where although different word orders may yield different meanings, the jump from word to word or sentence to sentence does not usually allow for much reader participation—he or she must stop reading to ponder recent passages.
I feel like McCloud’s study, especially the aspect of closure, applies pretty readily to the web, another medium where meaning is created in the quantum “jump” from link to link. We all have a picture in our mind’s eye of what lies beyond a certain link, whether it be a literal picture or an article, yet we must still click on the link to be satisfied as to what lies on the other side. The difference between what we expect pre-click and what we find post-click influences our reading of the actual post-click content to a great extent (the same thing happens in TV, during a commercial break after a dramatic moment). Closure seems to explain our ability to reconcile these quantum jumps.
I was very excited and intrigued to find out that those spaces between the frames (the gutters) had a purpose! I had always thought that they were just an unfortunate by-product, a defining visual characteristic at best. According to McCloud these gutters allow for closure. I think that this idea of closure is brilliant and it makes perfect sense. It is an accessible concept because McCloud uses the medium of analysis as the medium of expression and, as Micaela stated earlier, McCloud therefore shows instead of just telling.
Another very interesting concept that would not have lived up to its true potential in an academic essay is the expression of time in comics. I have only ever read a few comic books and I always thought that the progression of time was noted only by a transition words like “meanwhile” and “the next day” scribbled into the corners of the frames. However McCloud provides excellent demonstrations of how time can move between and within frames. On page 96, McCloud uses the reflection in his own glasses to demonstrate how our eyes move across a scene. To further prove his point he also uses a rope, hooks and a grid. They illustrate his point beautifully but I highly doubt that these props would have been a welcomed addition to a scholarly essay (especially if they weren’t introduced properly before being used).
I really enjoyed reading this book and look forward to reading more comics.
“Storytellers in all media know that a sure indicator of audience involvement—is the degree to which the audience identifies with a story’s characters.
And since viewer-identification is a specialty of cartooning, cartoons have historically held an advantage in breaking into world popular culture.” (Scott McCloud)
One of the most interesting points McCloud rises in Understanding Comics is his analysis of how images visually communicate. He begins chapter two with Magritte’s “The Treachery of Image”, the famous “this is not a pipe” painting. McCloud is interested in Magritte’s painting as a visual representation of reality. In comics, I find it intriguing how reduced, simplified illustrations convey universal meanings and messages. The vocabulary of comics root in universal and societal icons. As a sociologist, I am interested in semiotics- the study of signs. How far can a visual image be reduced before it becomes indecipherable? This idea has been explored in other mediums too. In the world of fine art, Magritte plays with the ideas but artists such as Jasper Johns altered and modified the American flag to see how far he could go before the viewer could not recognize it.
Comics take this even further playing with self-identification and sensation. McCloud terms this the “masking” effect where characters are often reduced and over-simplified in contrast to the visual stimulating/ realistic backgrounds and landscapes. Here the illustrator uses two different styles of illustration to convey different effects to the viewer, “One set of lines to See. Another set of lines to Be”. The artist is separating human’s identification of the self from sensation. This feature of comics portrays a characteristic of the medium where visual style influences more than just an aesthetic taste. McCloud writes, “perspective on cartooning helps demonstrate one’s choice of style can have consequences far beyond the mere ‘look’ of a story.”
In “Shaping the Maxx” Greg Smith discusses the process of translating original content to a new medium. By understanding the aspects/characteristics of each medium and creatively trying to adapt these forms into other mediums, aesthetic innovation occurs.
For most people–myself included, demonstration is the quickest and easiest path to actionable knowledge. Clearly, this is why commentary on a medium by using the medium is so powerful.
As someone who has never been a fan of comics, with the exception of Tintin, which I have long adored; McCloud’s book opened my eyes to the versatility of the medium. One thing that struck me particularly hard was his analysis of the frame with reference to film\TV. His point was that comics are able to shift and alter the frame as they choose, while the filmic medium is stuck within a fixed aspect ration, be it 4:3, 16:9 or anything else. I agree with McCloud that comics make much better use of frame, but it has only to do with filmmakers choices, not with constraints of the medium. Filmmakers can create (and have on many occasions created) different frames within the “master frame” all they want, but popular grammar dictates that they don’t. The grammar for comics is much more open to shifting frames, but they are still stuck within the confines of their “master frame”, the book. In this regard, filmmakers are actually more free, because a vast majority of viewers will see the work in a frame (be it TV or at a theater) that is much larger than any comic book.
Both Madden and Smith provide strong corollary to McCloud’s work, especially with concern to McClouds “pitcher” concept. As we’ve explored in class, mediums are truly empty vessels waiting to be filled with content. The type of pitcher dictates how much\what type of content can be transferred. For backwards example, lets say I have a movie pitcher, filled with the latest Harry Potter (aka thick, pulpy orange juice). If I were to pour the contents back into the “book pitcher” much of it would go in, but the book pitcher has a grating at the top that prevents the bits of “soundtrack pulp” from going in–because a book cannot have a soundtrack. There’s some conceptual slippage in the metaphor, but I think it holds.
I never had much interest in comics until I realized that one of the main characters in Doonsbury was based on Hunter Thompson. As I began reading Doonsbury every week or so, I realized that comics were a good medium for expressing Hunter’s dry sense of humor. As I began to pay more and more attention to the illustrations (and less to the text) it became apparent that this comic presented a more cerebral characterization of Hunter’s “Dr. Gonzo” persona than his own depiction of it through text. As a medium of expression, the illustrations in Doonsbury presented a more believable depcition of this persona than Ralf Steadman ever could with his drawings of the good doctor. While this statement does not de-value Steadman’s amazing art, it does show how a different medium allows for the presentation of a new perspective while leaving the original medium’s content essentially unchanged.
I read a quote by Andy Hertzfeld, a co-creator of Macintosh, that truely put the value of graphical novels and comics into perspective. He called Understanding Comics “one of the most insightful books about designing graphic user interfaces ever written, even though it never discusses the subject directly.” A GUI is the interface that most of us use to interact with computers. Comics allow readers to consume their content in a multi-dimensional manner that is very similar to the way that we browse the internet. This analogy strikes deep. Consider using a text-based web browser (they do still exist). You are still able to read all of the content on a site that is deemed important enough for its author to write explicitly, yet you loose the ability to see the site’s architecture along with any non-text-based content. Surely, you would feel like you had missed something (assuming that you had used a graphical web-browser in the past).
In a similar vein, Smith’s article was designed to present both text-based information as well as illustrations of key points. Would you have realized the true depth of his piece had you been forced to imagine the illustrations that he presented?
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What I found particularly interesting about the work of McCloud is how he was able to communicate his points to readers by actually showing them in a comic book. For example his point about how comics are like film except that they are like the individual shots of a film I thought was a great point and I thought that he did a great job illustrating this as well. Furthermore I started to think about how films are like comics and one thing that came to mind is the “24” style of editing. By not following the traditional style of editing within one frame it achieves a comic style of presentation except with motion. I think one of the reasons why I personally like the “24” style is because you are able to convey multiple ideas, conversations and shots simultaneously. Like Smith says in his article, by borrowing media, the borrowing medium often gains expressivity, which I think is true in the case of 24 with the editing style and any other film that has been based on comics such as Batman, Spiderman or The Hulk. Whenever these comic mediums are tranferred to film they all gain expressivity that could not be conveyed in just a comic strip.