I find myself having so many misunderstandings about this medium before after reading the first four chapters of the book Understanding Comics—the Invisible Art. In fact, comics to me were just stories presented by sequences of pictures, sometimes in combination of words, and are funnier to read than plain texts. This understanding is actually close to how the author defines comic in this book, which is an artform or a medium that present ideas in sequentially juxtaposed pictures (McCloud 6-7), but I haven’t actually pondered on the differences between comics and animations or cartoons, and the messages that comics convey.
Comics is a medium that conveys certain messages. When defining and differentiating comics, the author modifies the terms he uses a couple of time. To generalize, some key words about comics are: sequential, visual, static, and iconic. Different from cartoons, comic is a medium which often employs the picture-making approach (McCloud 21). Comics are not as efficient as plain texts in explaining information, especially academic knowledge, and not as vivid as animation or videos in presenting the reality. But they have more abstractions and emphasis, and are more able to deliver messages with strong emotion such as irony.
Another thing that I want to highlight is the balance between the objectivity and abstractness of comics. As McCloud introduces, icons which reduce and simplify the realistic pictures but intensify the features take up a significant part of comic drawings, such as the faces of two dots and a line. Such abstract images are recognizable because we tend to complete the whole picture from the small but essential fraction with imagination. It is pretty amazing to examine, but just as McCloud mentions, “we see ourselves in everything” (33). As long as the image has the basic feature of a face, which is two dots representing the eyes and a line denotes the mouth, we see and recognize it as an abstract face. Such closure phenomenon appears quite frequent in comics, and the consistency of comics actually relies heavily on people’s ability to see the unseen. The closure ability is accumulated from our life experiences, and thus to understand comics, certain experiences are needed. I think that comics’ capability of storing and delivering messages are lesser compared to both video animations and plain text, for the use of sequential images and the limitation on the wordcounts determine that more spaces are needed for comics to convey a story. Personally, I consider pictures more important than words in comics, and words are just complimentary explanation of some concrete ideas which cannot be well delivered only through image. That is also the reason that comics are generally easier to read. But different from pure pictures, which people can interpret as wildly and various as they like, the messages that comics convey is more concrete and consistent, and thus need some words to support. Comic pictures, though, are not able to show the whole, and often jump between a scene and some details. McCloud uses the Japanese comics as an example, whose characters are mostly designed simple “to assist in reader-identification”, but also has some frames with very realistic drawings to show the detail of an object or some textures. I used to only accept the messages that comics tell, failing to think about why they are organized in such way. Now reflecting on comics I read before, I am quite amazed by our natural ability to relate and recognize the whole from fractions, or reality from abstract, and the use of such closure ability to comprehend comics.
Comics are able to show a sense of time by arranging the contents in consecutive frames. A sense of urgent can be created by repeating the image of clock in several frames, and a sense of motions can be strengthened by drawing multiple images of the same subject with each presenting one position stage. The amazing part is what to put on each frame and what techniques are used to create certain effects.
I gained many insights and understandings about the features of the comics and its story telling ability, and how they are related to our natural abilities or life experiences. I also learned and thought about the message of the comics as a medium after reading the first four chapters. I’m deeply engaged in this book and look forward to reading the rest of it.