Week 2: Understanding Comics

This week, I read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It’s a very interesting book. McCloud explained some questions that are so common that people have never thought of it. It’s interesting how he says, “We humans are a self-centered race. We see ourselves in everything. We assign identities and emotions where none exists. And we make the world over in our image.” He gave examples of drawing random shapes, which I considered probably maps at first. And then he added a symbol like ⊙. As he said in the comic, I imagined them as eyes. And those random shapes have faces, even expressions on some of them. But the symbol is so simple and there is nothing else he has added to those shapes. I think that’s the same principle of comics. Comics tell stories to readers with different kinds of limitations. The comic author would pick the key information and show it in the pictures. However, when the readers read the comics, what shows in their brains would not just separate pictures. When I read comics, the characters are actually moving in my mind. My brain would automatically add the missing part. Some comic authors are very good at timing. It will be like watching a movie in the brain while reading the comic.