Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

            Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a must-read for anyone interested in the medium, whether you’re a would-be creator or someone who just enjoys reading comics.  What I found most interesting (aside from how wonderfully meta the book could be) was McCloud’s discussion of detail versus simplicity, and how that segued into analyzing the different approaches Western versus Eastern comics use.

             Coming from an illustration background, the feud between detail and simplicity has always been a problem: are simplistic characters and environments used because it’s easier for the artist?  Does that make the artist lazy in some way, or is it proof that they can’t draw as well as realistic artists?  To what level should realistic versus cartoony work be compared, if at all?  I think McCloud hits the answer on the head and then some.  As a kid, you don’t consider why you may enjoy cartoons; as an adult, you may attribute it to the writing or the character designs, among other things.  But McCloud makes us look at another reason, something far more simplistic and even primal: the fact that simplistic characters allow us to fill in the details, and project ourselves onto this character.  Detailed, more realistic characters have an established identity of their own, from personality to appearance; meanwhile more cartoony characters, despite having their own looks and personalities, allow for viewers to see more of themselves in said characters because of the lack of detail.  On a personal level, I feel like that may be the perfect explanation behind people’s preferences for certain styles of illustration.

This segues a bit into analyzing the techniques of Western comics versus Eastern comics.  As a fan of both, it was fascinating to see the two picked apart and presented side-by-side.  What struck me most was the analysis of panel-to-panel transitions, with Western comics having a tendency to focus on action-to-action sequences, whereas Eastern comics tend to focus on moment-to-moment transitions.  As pointed out in class, the latter may partially be due to moment-to-moment transitions filling more space (therefore, more pages, so the manga-ka may still keep their weekly deadline), but it also shows what Eastern cultures tend to prioritize over Western cultures/subtly displays the differences between cultural attitudes.  Simultaneously, you have European comics that are somewhere in between – not quite as action-to-action oriented as American comics, but not as heavily moment-to-moment focused either (with Europe, particularly France, being more and more influenced by Eastern story telling, this may change in the future).

As a whole, Understanding Comics presents a wealth of valuable information when it comes to the art of visual story telling.  While the book itself revolves around comics, many of the issues McCloud discusses could easily be applicable to other mediums, particularly film (both animated and live-action).  Both comic readers and wannabe comic artists should walk away with quite a bit from this book.  I know I did.