Scott McCloud has an advanced perspective on how he views comics and digital forms. I’ve always considered comic books as an assembly of static pictures, for when I’m reading through the pictures, I can automatically connect them in my head and form a complete storyline. But through Scott McCloud’s analysis, the static pictures inside comics are separated, and therefore are never continuous. McCloud explains the blank area between pictures is left for the readers to fill in. The classic version of printed comics actually inspires readers’ imagination.
McCloud also brings up a theory I’ve never thought about. He explains that due to the size of the pages and the printed-version of comics, a series of pictures always have a line break and cut to the next line, it interrupts the “continuity” (even though there isn’t an absolute continuity in comics) in comics. With the improvement in technologies, we now have digital devices for online comics. But due to the limitation in people’s minds towards old types of comic books, the comics online are simply paper version comics scanned into screens. McCloud comes up with an idea that with the support of digital devices, comics can be continuous. It can be presented as a continuous, never-ending form, such as a wheel that displays comics like films. He even mentions that by the turns inside the plot of the comic, the composing type on the screen can make a turn, indicating the plot as well as getting the readers more involved in the story. I’m inspired by this idea and the latest Black Mirror series, Bandersnatch. It would be amazing if I can create a comic page on the website that creates turns when the plot twists and make the readers pick their own story when reading my comic.