Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud
A very cool book. McCloud does something that no one has done before (well, no one that I knew of, which could mean just about anyone else in the planet): analyzed comics as a medium. Not only does he look at style, but at how we read comics, what happens in our heads as we read comics, closure and abstraction and all that other wonderful stuff. Not only that, but the entire book is rendered as a comic. Talk about practicing what you preach. McCloud quickly comes to the conclusion that attempting to define comics approaches very rapidly to the definition of art. He spends the rest of the book showing how comics and the comic medium are absolutely unique. Pictoral art, written word, film, none of these connects with the mind in the same way comics do. It's amazing. How come he hasn't been awarded a PhD for this work, dammit?! It's a unique contribution to the science of communication. Read it even if you're not into drawing comics, just to better understand ways of analyzing a medium and an art form, in a nearly content-free atmosphere!
