Understanding Comics By Scott McCloud

           Understanding Comics is a good read to get the overall basics of what a comic is and how it combines the realistic realm and the imagination. I like how McCloud first defines, as best he can, what comics are and uses a comic to tell of a comic. He even tells why he has drawn himself so simply and makes jokes periodically. I enjoyed the fact that he can make comments such as when he was defining what comics are he had a man in the crowd he made up ask, what about Batman, and x-men, etc. I also think it is helpful that because he is using sequential imagery that he is showing step by step what he is saying. For example, when he is describing how we see a face in certain things no matter what and he shows a more realistic image then a less realistic image and so on until there is a circle with two dots and a curved line left. Even with this slight imagery we still see it as a face. I like how he takes it even further and shows how we even see faces in cars, tops of soda cans, etc.

            I find it helpful that he also speaks of comics and their styles in other countries, such as Japan, and shows how they combine the more realistic background with the more relatable cartoon figure. After all this talks he goes into talking about how words bring around another realm of the comic world but even more important are the spaces between the images, the gutters, which are made by the use of closure. I love the way he puts it that, “closure allows us to connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality. He also makes the point that we must train ourselves to “perceive time spatially, for in the world of comics, time and space are one and the same.”

            Lastly, I like how McCloud gives the six basic steps you need to know before for creating a comic. One, what is the idea or purpose, two, what form will it take, three, what idiom or genre does it belong to, four, what type of structure will it have, five, what kind of craft will you use, meaning what skills, practical knowledge, invention or problem solving will you apply and six, what type of surface will you use.