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Blog Post No. 1

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I'll go ahead and begin by sharing that I don’t really read graphic novels. I might have read one for class, but that’s about it. It’s not that I’m not interested in them. They actually seem quite enjoyable. I just haven’t gotten to them just yet which is why I am really looking forward to this class.

After having read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, I believe I have a better understanding of what a graphic novel is. I myself love visual art as well as film, so as soon as McCloud explained that a comic is “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequences,” (9) I knew I was going to like them. I went ahead and decided to start reading Superior Spider-Man #1 by Christos Cage. I’ve become a fan of Spider-Man, so I decided to give that comic a chance.

I found it intriguing when McCloud explained that the simpler the image of the character the more we can picture it as being ourselves. I had never imagined that that is why cartoons are so appealing to us. I have caught myself enjoying cartoons before that I could picture a certain character being me! McCloud explains that a cartoon “enables us to travel in another realm” and that “we don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it,” (36) and that is what I realized I began doing as I kept reading more of Superior Spider-Man. I was expecting for the characters to look pretty realistic because of the films, but I soon realized that they were pretty simple, and that is what helped me get more into it. With the images and the words, I was able to really experience what was going on in the comic. Now that I think about it, I was assigned to create a comic strip of 1984 as a sophomore in high school, and I was able to better understand the plot because trough the comic strip that I had created, I was able to travel inside the world of 1984.

McCloud also talked about how the Japanese put more detail into an object and make it look more realistic to bring focus to it. In this image, Dansen Macabre has more detail in the lower left side of the page. She went from being pretty much a background character to being the main focus in the scene. With all the detail, one assumes she is of importance. She stands out in a room full of men, and one is able to feel her power. She of course is not super realistic. She still remains cartoon-like, but the amount of detail from the first panel to the next is quite significant.

Gage, Christos. "Superior Spider-Man." Marvel, Marvel, 19 Nov. 2018, https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/71355/superior_spider-man_2018_1. 


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