Understanding Comics by: Scott McCloud



Scott McCloud takes us behind the scenes of comics and how to fully understand this concept of being able to identify cartoons from actual reality themselves. He goes through the background of icons and there meanings to comics and even animation. McCloud also talks a lot about the simplification of the person or object, which gives the characters more meaning and a more unique quality to them. An excellent point discussed in this comic, which I have noticed before is that we see ourselves in everything. For example, The lights and bumpers on our cars show a face and type of emotion. As a kid to even the present moment when I look at the car it somehow shows it's own emotions based on how it was designed.

There were so many other very interesting things in this comic that I myself have noticed when reading this comic. The idea that we ourselves can't actually see ourselves but vivid images of what we could look like in our thoughts. Yeah we can feel our emotions, but we can't actually physically see ourselves doing it. We can picture it in our minds, but it's not reality. We also look in the mirror and see what we look like. I agree with this idea Scott McCloud talks about in this comic. The idea that humans, even though are realistic are somehow trapped in this animated world because we were technically designed with physical attributes and looks.

For me this was a very interesting and well articulated piece of comic literature. When I look at comics, read comics and watch animations there is more iconic characters. The simplification and ample detail is what sets comics apart from real live action films. However, when comic book characters come to life on the screen there is a different perspective to it because they are still very iconic but in realistic form on the screen. Animated films have the cartoony style that I love. The cartoony yet realistic quality to the cartoon characters fascinates me. It's as if they are part of reality themselves. The environments themselves tend to look more realistic but they connect very well to the characters and there situation.