When I was little, I enjoyed reading comic books a lot, most of which were Japanese comics such as Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan. As I grew up, comics seem to be getting farther and farther from me. I became more into motion pictures. McCloud’s book reminded me of how imaginary comics can be. They can easily achieve things that couldn’t be achieved by films even with the help of visual effects. Comics generate our imagination. As we are reading a comic book, we see motion, hear sounds, feel the environment (heat of the sunshine, coolness of the breeze……), smell the scent…… All our senses are activated when we are reading comics. And I think that is truly amazing to burry myself in the universe of imagination. Just as McCloud believes, it’s really hard to predict what comics would be like in the future. It is beyond our imagination and at the same time, it is calling for us to break the boundaries of our mind.
CSS Exercise – Taylah Bland
http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~tlb394/exercise-css/
I had some difficult in moving some of the items that I will address in office hours. However, after spending a considerable amount of time in attempting to fix it up I submitted what I could do.
Response to Understanding Comics – Julia Riguerra
Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics sheds light on the history of comics, emphasizing the abilities of comics to convey ideas, just as other, more mainstream, media do. I had never thought of comics as something that can be used for academic purposes, but McCloud seems to do this rather seamlessly as he aims to educate his audience through comics as a medium. This does make learning about the history and capacities of comics more engaging, as he says it himself that icons and images do not require the same brain power as reading.
What I found particularly interesting was the discussion in Chapter 2 on how our brains automatically search for images of ourselves in the world, and how comics and icons create vessels for us to inhabit. I’m intrigued by the idea of a universal form of communication, and the potential for that through the use of iconography, as iconography and visuals allow us to transcend language barriers.
CSS Portfolio – Julia Riguerra
Link: https://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~jhr360/week2/index.html
I found using CSS to be frustrating at first, since there so many ways to format a website and I didn’t any prior knowledge of any of the functions. However, I did find that the process gets easier the more I tinkered with it, and it soon became more satisfying than annoying.
I mostly had issues with the footer, though the site w3schools was extremely helpful in that respect. I also struggled a lot with the flex container and its components. Trying to edit the margins and padding of the boxes became frustrating, though I eventually figured it out.
Response to Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud – Jannie Z
Comic books have never interested me before. I would spend a whole day watching animations but I would yawn after reading a few pages of comic books. It seems to me that I fell into the stereotype of what Scott McCloud describes in the text, comic books are only for entertaining and they are not useful compared to novels or other books. But after reading Understanding Comics, my thoughts toward comic books shifted.
Now I rewind the experience of watching animations and reading comic books, I discover where went wrong. The animation is very direct and presents us the world the way we perceive the world, just like the television works or movie productions. They provide much more details and information to us so that understanding them is easy. Just like the way what Scott McCloud discusses in the book: novels or the actual book. But comic books are different. They only offer images and very few words. So that a lot of other artistic values and interpretations need to be done in our minds. The images are open to scrutiny and discussion, but the author will never offer a fixed answer. It is the readers’ freedom to imagine and interpret the book the way they like. They read the images, and connect them with their own knowledge and past experiences, then form their own interpretation of the book. It is a much more complex process than watching animations. But you cannot really tell which one is better — they have their own artistic values. What Scott McCloud stresses is: the comic books have a narrative-like quality and visual direction to them.
Personally, I have a very strong feeling for visual arts like photography or videos. This book makes me reconsider my opinions on comic books. In my perspective, good art should be interactive. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the author is “talking” to you. It means that you need to be able to respond to “them”. You could resonate with them and echo with them. And comic books is such a good form of art and its value is definitely underestimated. Art should be open to discussion and should be, timeless and limitless.