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Week One Blog

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By bCrutchfield

I Know this is late but, better late than NEVER! I still wanted to participate and I NEEDED to participate :)
I will start off by saying that I have never read a comic book, besides captain underpants, other than that this was the first time. Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics was exactly what I needed! This book really helped me understand the basic concepts of comics and how I can use more of my imagination to allow the story to come to life. McCloud stated that comics are “juxtaposed sequential visual art”. At first I wasn’t quite sure what it meant or how to interpret it, reading further into chapter two it was a better explanation. Being that I am a visual learner anything with pictures allows me to understand by putting myself in the story, like becoming the character.
In chapter Two of Understanding Comics, the first few pages start off, in my opinion, trying to trick my brain, so I thought. This chapter helps explain why some of the icons; any images used to represent a person or thing or idea (pg. 27), where so simplified and why some are extremely realistic. McCloud gave the visual example of the face and how our brain will make “us” out of anything, which is so true! No matter what the image is or how It’s supposed to be presented, our brains will interpreter it however it sees fit, this is why him using the face as an example to explain it then he goes into how different forms of art for comic book are used. McCloud used the word “abstract” for drawings and paints with these features. It’s like, the more realistic the comic book the less your brain will interpret simple because it’s more detailed. The simpler (abstract) the story line, the more you use your imagination.
This Panel from the first series of X Men, looking at this one panel you can see the abstract style of drawing in the painting. This doesn’t take away from the story but it adds to it so that your brain doesn’t interpret the wrong concepts the story is giving.

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Uncanny-X-Men-1963/Issue-1?id=22715#3
McCloud, Scott. The Invisible Art Understanding Comics. HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

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