Understanding Comics

I read this a few weeks ago on a flight before I was able to pick up the Ong book. I’m glad I did, because it was a pleasure to read and made the flight much less uncomfortable. I haven’t been much into comics lately, but to read the theory behind the art presented so clearly and concisely makes me want to start reading them again. Scott McCloud leaves nothing to the imagination. When read the theory of the art, you think to yourself, “Oh yeah, that’s why it’s like that!” Previously all notions I had about comics were just feelings about why they are what they are, but McCloud harnesses that universal feeling and applies words to it, so now we know in between two panes in a comic, it is closure that allows the mind to fill what happened between these two moments in time.

I appreciate art forms with rules, because within these sets of rules there is a great opportunity for creativity. This is true of blues music. All blues music is essentially variations on a theme, but sometimes an artist comes along to give the form new life. Other artists add their interpretation of the form to give immense depth to the art form’s overall canon.