In his book, “Understanding Comics,” Scott McCloud argues that Comics are about the form and not the content, and that comics are a vessel through which to obtain content. I like McCloud’s definition of Comics, because it argues for the “medium as the message” and leaves room for a broad range of material which increases the likelihood that a greater variety of people will read and enjoy comics. Before reading McCloud’s arguments, I too considered comics as somewhat of a narrow genre targeted to a younger audience. However, by defining comics through their form and not just content, McCloud is leaving room for a wide range of material and target audience.
In Chapter Two about the language of comics, I found the “this is not ____” page to be quite engaging. All of the “this is not” statements together caused me to reflect on precision of language and how language plays a role in what we consider to be reality. The “this is not my voice” caption was particularly interesting, because it brings up the question of what we define as our “voice.” Clearly the author’s point is that we are not actually hearing his voice speak words. However, if we go beyond this very literal definition, I do think that we are indeed hearing his voice on some level. In every-day language, we use the term “voice” to mean an expression of someone’s ideas/thoughts, whether that is in person or through the written word. For many of these examples, our use of language is not precisely accurate in the literal sense, however it often is a representation of the literal object.