The Ideas of Scott McClouds Understanding Comics - Essay Example

Topic: Discuss ideas from Understanding Comics- What did you learn? To understand Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics,” I give a simple analogy. From a stone block, a sculptor chisels out, piece by piece, that which is not part of the statue, and finally a statue of his conception emerges. He has removed from the stone the non-essentials and retained the essentials that make the statue. Similar is the process through which an artist creates the artwork of his genre. From the conglomerations of ideas he takes the ones of his choice to create the piece of his imagination. McCloud makes reader understand the relationship between words and images. He begins with the explanation, how the words develop from images and later become the communicating ideas. The message giving process may lay emphasis on words or picture. These are useful in children’s study books and comics. The children love the play and jugglery of words and the picture-images, as they fulfill their hunger for fantasies. The relationship between words and images is quite exciting. McCloud argues, “Words — are the ultimate abstraction."(47)Carefully planned and placed headlines and similar inter-titles kindle curiosity of the reader about the contents of the article. McCloud is aware of the strength of the words and imagers in the print and electronic media, and how they can create ripples in the minds of the readers. Read this title in the front page of a newspaper relating to a financial scandal. “Millionaire Brown is in million dollar jam!” McCloud has rightly pointed out that use of words and images are like dance partners who know their roles. They support and challenge each other to create the magical effect. For example, a caricature on corruption, may convey more than what is stated in a full-length article on the subject. It has the capacity to strike hard at the societal ills in a satirical style. It gets to the point and gives the message, without hurting. McCloud asserts that we have only scratched the surface of the relationship between words and images. Their relationship is profound and it generates credence to the progression of action in the story. An artist sees art in most of the human activities, whether they are big or small, and extracts something special from them and provides meaningful interpretations either though words or pictures. Such interpretations are not part of his academic knowledge; they are just spontaneous overflow of his ideas! Spectacular results are obtained and presented before the audience, the effect of which may last for generations, depending upon the latent potency of such combinations by the genius artist. The potential creativity of the comics beats the effectiveness of the painter and the writer; it depicts and says something without hurting which results in fountains of joy. The creator of the comics blends the aesthetic response in them and enjoys being in the role of a clown rather than a troubleshooter hero. This clown often reveals profound truths, often in a satirical form. His messages are the true reflections of the goings on in the society, and he pictures them without malice to anyone, without fear or favor. The criticism is often enjoyed by the one against whom it is directed and the societal response to his actions is light-hearted. The comic demands less space but the ‘built-up’ area within it is massive. McCloud writes, “Space does for comics what time does for film!"(7) The word has a specific meaning, but the million viewers of the comic enjoy equal number of interpretations. It also leaves immense scope for imaginations. The possibilities are limitless, often not imagined even by the creator of the comic! In this art, the viewer/reader has a role, and he plays it as if he practices the reflect act. It is what McCloud calls the “received” and the “perceived” information. (p.49) The act of closure plays its role here. The example given is, the viewer sees one panel with a plane flying in the sky and the next panel shows that the plane as a burning pile on the ground. It is up to the reader to imagine a number of scenarios between the two panels, from the moment it catches fire and its final conversion into burning debris, and the artist avails the latitude to play with the reader’s involvement. But those two panels need to be framed with lots of imagination, without terminating the “story” abruptly. McCloud writes, "To kill a man between panels is to condemn him to a thousand deaths."(69) That is comparable to the capacity to harmoniously blend the received and perceived information as stated above. McCloud tells us how and why one should appreciate comics, its field of applications, and makes us think about the concept and techniques. He tells and shows why it is a great tool of communication. It is used as a literary and artistic medium. He writes, “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." (123)Its strength is often more than the spoken or written medium and the effect of their hidden power is awesome. McCloud argues, “The picture-story, which critics disregard and scholars scarcely notice, has had great influence at all times, perhaps even more than written literature." (201) The number of movies and their increasing popularity, stand testimony to the views of McCloud. The picture story gives the joy like watching two trains moving on two parallel tracks, or two planes flying in a formation. Iconography is used extensively and intensively by the creators of comic and also in single work. Icons reach to the depth and illuminate. Every dot used by them is meaningful and conveys something intrinsic about the subject. The channels to communicate through images are limitless. In graphic novels this mode can be used effectively. McCloud provides lots of information that sets the serious student/critic of art thinking. His emphasis on the transition profiles, ‘being there’ rather than ‘getting there,’ hints at the power of experiencing than describing a situation. The author argues, “Different types of word-picture combinations include: picture-specific (words are a sound track to images); duo-specific (where words and pictures offer the identical message); additive (words amplify an image, or an image amplifies words); montage.”(McCloud, n.p.) The practical uses of this technic are in movies, documentaries, and other modes of entertainment and literature created by of print and electronic media. The author further states, “The most common word-picture combination is the "independent" combination: word and pictures convey an idea that neither could alone. Each supports the other.” (McCloud, n.p.) This experiment is extensively used in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Works Cited McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. William Morrow Paperbacks, 1994. Print McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993).n.d. http://members.cruzio.com/~zdino/bookReviews/McCloud.understandingComics.htm Web: February 26, 2013 Read More