Week Two: "Understanding Comics"

This week's reading was Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. I read Making Comics by the same author years ago, when I was in high school-- when reading Understanding Comics I realized that they're very similar (I believe it's just a newer version) but the basic principles presented in both books are the same.

I swear by these books. I studied McCloud's comics thoroughly and I fully contribute the good footing I gained in comics early on to these books. The concept is very simple-- teaching how to make comics through showing it in comic format. It's genius. My favorite part about Understanding Comics is that it highlights the foundation and structure of comics. Of course you can bend and meld the rules into all different kinds of ways for yourself as a cartoonist, but there are a certain set of foundation skills that you must understand if you want your comics to meet a certain level of success. What I mean by this is, if your comic is really pretty but the panels aren't in the right order or don't read easily... that's a problem. If your word bubbles are illegible or jump all over the page, and the reader has to spend 5 or more minutes trying to decide which speech bubble they are supposed to read first-- that's a problem.

Understanding Comics addresses basic issues that, without proper understanding on the artist's part, can make for a very hard-to-read, very unsuccessful comic that is disconnected from its reader. You don't want to alienate your reader when they read your comic-- quite the opposite, actually. I believe if you don't understand these basic foundations, nobody will want to read your comic, and in a way, you've failed. Understanding Comics addresses these issues in a fun, easy-to-read, relatable, and intuitive way-- demonstrating exactly what it's trying to teach! I can't explain how much I love these books. I feel like I owe them so much.

Whenever I have a friend that tells me they want to start making comics, or want to learn how to make them, I automatically offer to lend them my copy of Making Comics (many times I will just lend it to them anyways in hopes that they will read it). I feel like it gave me the tools I needed to build on top of, and taught me the basic skills of keeping my comics intuitive and legible. I feel like I had gotten much farther ahead much quicker by reading this book-- it's nothing you couldn't figure out by looking at any other successful comic and noticing what makes them good-- however it teaches you up front and I appreciated that. Anyways, I really love these books and gush about them anyways, so it's nice to be able to do the same thing for a class.

Week One: "The Arrival"

In class we established that "The Arrival" and similar graphic novels can be very successful without ever including a word of dialogue. This particular feature is one that is present in all comics and graphic novels, and is one that makes the medium so successful and so unique on it's own. The ability of comics to represent a story through still images only and not through film or spoken/written language caters to a different way of thinking and interpreting stories; one that is maybe more accessible and--not easier-- maybe different to digest than a written story or film may be.

One of the most important things that you learn when you are learning how to draw comics is that you have to treat your images that you're drawing as their own medium and the trait that carries most of the weight of the story. Most people, myself included, find it incredibly boring to read a comic that has very chunky and lengthy boxes of text included with the imagery. In fact, I find I won't even bother reading a comic that is too wordy, 9 times out of 10. Why is this? In almost all instances even the wordiest comic should be more visually enriching and less wordy than a novel would, by far. Why are wordy comics such a turn-off?

I learned quickly that the reason for that was, at least for me, when someone is reading a comic, they're switching into picture-mode. Just as it's hard to really understand a movie by just listening to the audio, it's nearly impossible to understand a comic with just the dialogue alone-- if it's done right. A good comic should SHOW the viewer the story. By being given the option of illustration, comics open up a whole new realm of possibilities as far as telling the story to the reader. Many comics rely on words, exposition and dialogue to carry the story throughout a comic-- however, this is kind of a beginner's mistake, in my opinion. Most of us are so used to 'telling' a story that we forget that there's almost so much more that we can tell a viewer, in a single instant, than we could say in a thousand words (not to be cliché, but it's true). This is why comics are so successful and often relatable, and why there is a whole different experience that you can get from reading a comic that you just can't get from a novel in many instances-- and vice versa.

Many comics lovers love the medium for this specific reason. I love what can be done in this format, what I've seen and what I think can be new. I get such a different set of feelings and experiences just by looking at the sequential images of a comic than I do from other mediums. Even in terms of movies-- when you are watching a movie, you don't get to control at what pace you experience it. While reading a comic, the reader determines how fast or slow they choose to experience it-- if they are hit particularly hard by a page or panel, they may linger for as long as they want. I find this can extend the power that the images can have on a reader, as well as the option to go back and re-read a part. The reader is more in control; much less so than when watching a movie.

A novel such as "The Arrival" is a perfect example of the potential of graphic novels and the stories they can tell without ever having to say a word. The setting of the novel takes place in such a rich universe, with tons of depth and nuance, and Shaun Tan is an expert at guiding us through the story and showing us exactly what we need to know without ever having to tell us. Many graphic novels use this format and it can be just as powerful, if not more, than novels that use dialogue.

I could go on about this forever, but the success of the graphic novel and the success of those that are wordless comes from its ability to show the reader what is happening, like a movie, though at the reader's own pace. For this reason comic-reading is a much more intimate experience and many comic artists know exactly how to make the most of that.