“Understanding Comics” is an interesting introduction of comics as a medium that should be appreciated for the level of thought that goes into its creation. The author, Scott McCloud attempts to debunk the widely stereotyped belief that comic books were “poorly drawn, crude etc…” as compared to other mediums of storytelling. McCloud defines comics to be Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, which encompasses the basic nature of comics, and the way that they convey their content to the reader. McCloud reminds the reader not to confuse the message from the messenger, as the content of the comic is decided by the creator themselves, but works in a symbiotic relationship with the medium to create meaningful content. McCloud attempts to alter his reader’s perception of comics by utilising his definition to portray ‘comics’ to encompass even the most highly regarded masterpieces of the 20th century, stained glass windows in churches, or the manuals and diagrams that we see and use day to day.
Comis as a medium employs the use of styling, space, and icons in order to convey a story to the reader. The reality of comics and the cartoons that are used in the comics are that they allow the reader to use their own imagination to fill in blanks, to create ‘closure’, and to place ourselves as a subject in the comic in a way that film and real-life photography is unable to do. McCloud argues that the simplified nature of cartooning allows the readers to become the cartoon instead of just observing drawings on a page. He draws on theories put forth by Marshall McLuhan describing how inanimate objects that we often use in everyday lives become an extension of our bodies, and how we are able to place our identities in a conceptual world just beyond our reach – exactly how we are able to do so with comics. Our imaginations continue to not only fill in the blanks for simplified features, but also for the spaces in between each panel, known as “The Gutter”. “The human imagination manages to transform 2 different images into a single idea” in a concept that McCloud introduces called ‘closure’, which is a strange psychological concept that is evolutionarily wired to further our survival.
It’s amazing how quickly one’s perception of comics can change from reading this piece by McCloud, and you notice the intricate nature of comics, and the amount of thought that goes into its creation, the importance of space in between each still and the artistic decisions that the creators run into, that either further their story or retract it. McCloud’s book enables the reader to think differently about comics as a medium, and to appreciate the different factors that go into its creation. By explaining the way that comics work, and redefining what a comic really is, it allows the reader to truly appreciate and interpret it in a way that the creator originally hoped for.