Week 3: Response to “Understanding Comics” – Oona Pecson

Reading “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud was a very fun, but also informative read! Comics have always played a major role in my life, and have shaped my goals for drawing and creating stories. However, even being a fan of this kind of work, sometimes people do not take the time to think about the history of comics or how people have used images to effectively tell stories for hundreds and even thousands of years! The fact that we have even used images in such a way is so interesting, yet how we have evolved in using them is even more so. For instance, McCloud references the Egyptians who used images to tell stories of their lives. Over time, we have gone from recording events with drawing to creating fictional stories, in which there are endless imaginary worlds and people with powers that exist, such as the ninja in Naruto or the superheroes in the Marvel/DC universes. Nonetheless, there are still authors who use comics in other genres, like “Persepolis” in biography and “Maus” in history. This, in fact, shows that comics are a very good way to convey really anything if techniques are utilized correctly. Like McCloud said, comics are truly a form of media.

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