Understanding Comics

As I read Understanding Comics, I felt a sense of security while being taken through the world of comics that Scott McCloud not only writes in, but also lives in. It was as though I was on a museum tour and he was the witty tour guide. The nine chapters that he takes to run through the world of comics are clear and concise.
He starts off with an overview of history and how it relates to comics. He talks about the structure of story telling and how the images are placed in sequence to form a meaning, such as a story. McCloud breaks down the text and the pictures and talks about there history and how they have evolved over time. McCloud has an interesting part that I found was talking about the artists behind the comics and the journey they take to achieve their life long goals, and how there work evolves.
His breakdown of the different stages of the learning process for most artists was clear and concise stating that most artists begin at the 6th Surface level then move on to the 5th Craft, 4th Structure, 3rd Idiom, 2nd Form and finally 1st Idea/ Purpose. This breakdown of the artist’s journey showed understanding of this aspect of the artist and had a subtle inflection of Scott McCloud’s’ journey on his creative path.

As a Computer Animation student, I enjoy watching motion and how the parts of that motion come together as a whole. One of my favorite sections regarded motion lines and there evolution through time and across cultures. Watching the evolution of motion lines from the works of Duchamp when motion lines where being conceptualized to the dynamic high flying actions of Bill Everett and Jack Kirby’s characters, to Japan’s compositional techniques really gave me a good understanding of how motion has been perceived around the world over the last century.
Now that I have finished Understanding Comics and enjoyed it, I think I will investigate Scott McLeod’s’ other books specifically Making Comics to gain some new insights into the world of comics