McCloud Part II

I looked at Katie Y's blog, who surprisingly also discussed my blog. Katie and I have similar readings of the texts and both discussed how comics convey space and time in our first McCloud blog. Katie however refreshed the idea for me and because of that I feel a need to elaborate on my previous discussion.

Katie states that,

""Each successive frame of a movie is projected on exactly the same spaces--the screen--while each frame of comics must occupy a different space. Space does for comics what time does for film" (7). I enjoyed reading the comic on the computer because it flowed more like a movie even though "the gutter" (66) still existed between frames. I was very interested in this section of the text because it fascinating how the reader can make instantanious assumptions about what happens between frames, almost to the point where they don't notice the gutter even exists."

I had compared comics to animation but never to traditional film or text alone. The point Katie makes here is the expert use of gutters and how it engages a reader. In film, there is little room for interpretation. Each moment is captured on film with nothing left for the viewer to imagine. In contrast, books or words alone give infinite freedom to a reader because they can imagine and visualize whatever they want. Readers are given freedom of interpretation. Comics, however, find their place somewhere in the middle. Comics offer a balance between absolute freedom and visual restriction. When we read, we visualize in our minds. Comics do much of the visualization for us, but allow us to play out particular moments (those trapped within the gutters) ourselves. What's great about this also is the freedom of assumption, as Katie discusses. The comic leaves out particular moments where we are left to fill it in ourselves. However, the comics are made in such a way that all readers assume to same thing to happen. Comics offer freedom in that way but are also genius in that they're set up so readers have a universal understanding of what happens in the gutter. Books often leave too much to the imagination and movies too little. I like the balance of the in-between that comics offer. I never appreciated them before but this mere characteristic alone (that of gutters and the freedom of assumption they offer) helps me to better understand and appreciate them.

In relation to this, McCloud discusses the individuality of comics on page 151 where he states that, "as long as we view comics as a genre of writing or a style of graphic art this attitude may never disappear." (McCloud 151) This "attitude" he refers to is the inferior attitude people have towards comics. This "attitude" also refers to the attitude comic artists have towards comics in general and their constant attempts to achieve higher artistic status. By considering comics as inferior in the first place, and by those who create them no less, sustains inferior attitudes towards comics. Accepting that comics are their own art form, not some sub-species of a better form, is key in allowing comic art to grow and become better appreciated.

The combination of words and pictures make comics unique, but there is more to the art than just these words and pictures, as McCloud discusses throughout his entire book. Simplicity, detail, space, time, gutter freedom, reader-to-character relation, representation, and numerous other characteristics make comics "comics." Before reading McCloud's defense of comic art, I admit that I had little to no appreciation of comics. They were crude drawings, basic, lacking in meaning. But now I understand that the "crudeness" is intentional simplicity, meant to help reader's relate to characters. Each artistic factor is intentional: the size of the frame, how characters are drawn, the language, and even the gutter space. Similarly to film where lighting, make-up, music, and setting set the tone and together create some form of meaning, so do the many factors of comics make it a meaningful art form.