'Understanding Comics' Chapter 6 Summary

The sixth chapter of the Scott McCloud’s ‘Understanding Comics’ explains the nature of both the written word and images and how together they can influence the style and direction of a comic, strengthening in some ones whilst weakening it in others.

Throughout the chapter, McCloud makes constant reference to the differences between image and illustration. While words are considered to be more abstract art (In static terms) and pictures as more representation, current artistic trends are seeing the development and allowing them to cross into each others fields. And this is where the clash we see within the likes of comics begins. And while images and writing separately can easily be considered ‘high art’, the combination of the two is often overlooked and seen as childish and not seeing how useful it can be. It is in fact the combination of words and image that are propelling comics forward in style and content. Through it ideas can be connected in unlimited ways. Words can reflect or detract from what’s being said in the picture or they can give us storyline, expression emotion or specific detail ultimately rendering them as an extremely powerful tool for shaping the direction of the comic. I’ve got a few examples of some comics that show a successful combination of script and illustration and others that fail when trying to overwork certain aspects.

As I spend a lot of time on the internet I find myself reading a lot of web comics, more so than ones such as Marvel, DC or whatnot. What differs web comics from others is the fact they often focus on humour rather than artistic content or messages within the comic itself. For this reason, they will often allow most of the writing to lead up to the joke, only using images to back up their script or for a visual pun. A clear example of this is my first case in point ‘Control-Alt-Delete’ (http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php) It follows a typical comedic web comic format, an establishment panel, one or two for building up the joke and the final delivering the punch line. I wouldn’t really hold in the highest regard for quality (Yet I still read it for some reason), because it suffers from one fatal flaw. Walls of text. While understandable for web comics to use text to achieve their means, CAD tends to dominate each frame with text that isn’t 100% necessary. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad if the artwork was stylistic or exploratory, but most of his character are simple copy and paste designs who’s same expression can be seen in the past 3 years of his artwork.

Walls of text:


An example directly opposite of the CAD comic would be the ‘Breaking Quarantine’ comic from the Halo Graphic Novel. Look at the page below



It contains absolutely no text apart from sound effect (In Japanese by the way), and in essence they become part of the artwork style. In fact the entire comic has no text at all apart from these effects. And it works. The comic is based upon the action-packed escape of Sergent Johnson from a pursuing, grotesque alien menace called the Flood. It’s meant to be tense and intense, and the vibrant and expressive art style shows this (Kind of gives reference to my last blog with the use of line in an…explosive…sense). But by adding in the sound effects the artist is able to strengthen while adding another sense to the comic, further immersing the reading and adding more tension and emotion to the already startling action-oriented artwork.

While comics like XKCD (www.xkcd.com) or Cyanide and Happiness (www.explosm.net) go for more text and little images but somehow work better than CAD. Example:



The characters are simple, and the text is short and sweet. And the punch lines are always hilarious. The comics themselves are kind of like jokes you tell to friend, but put into a comic format. Yet a lot of the humour comes from the little characters within the comic. They’re so simple, yet can be warped and changed in a number of ways to create hilarious expressions and/or comical stances. And it’s because of their simplistic nature that makes such exotic poses so funny. Combined with jokes that are already funny without images you have comics that cannot fail to satisfy.

By combining two mediums that are already brilliant in expressing the human soul, comics are able to utilise their two spectrums to shift their work in new directions and weave new ways for storytelling and message transmission. And such techniques are certainly having an impact on me, because I to wish to use these mediums to bring some comedy into peoples lives too:

'Understanding Comics' Chapter 5 Summary

The fifth chapter of the Scott McCloud’s ‘Understanding Comics’ details the impact that lines and symbols can have on our understanding of pieces of art, specifically what emotions they invoke and how they can establish mood and feeling.

Throughout the chapter, McCloud details how lines can represent different emotions when drawn in different directions and styles, or when drawn together or used to form shapes. The lines become symbolic as they represent something we are familiar with, often in a much simplified form, and our minds instinctively relate these shapes

When used in combination with subjects in panel, or simply used as a background, lines can have a severe impact on the mood emanating from an artistic piece. And artists will use these reactions to line and shape to their advantage, from comic artists to those like Picasso. The way they work line can easily define their own style as they will often recreate the same sorts of lines over and over again, often saying something about their character and psyche. Let’s see some examples

‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch and ‘Starry Night’ by Vincent Van Gogh are two good examples. The use of expressive line was first employed by the post-impressionist and expressionist painters, these artists wanting to establish a mood with their work rather than simply replicating what they saw (As was the style for many of the part artistic movements, and which was also the reason I felt extremely bored browsing several art galleries around Europe and seeing the same thing over and over again). They aimed to make the art more subjective as McCloud points out, and wanted to the viewer to feel what they felt when creating their pieces. The bold use of flowing and warped lines in both pieces creates a sense of madness due to their unrestricted and unguided path. While Munch may have done this on purpose to express the innermost feelings of his misshapen subject, Van Gogh seems to have done this subconsciously which interestingly reflect his mental condition of the time (He did paint the piece in a mental hospital)

We even see use of line throughout the natural world and people will exploit this for creative purposes. I feel this picture (Called Gothic Lines 01taken by a Deviant Art user called Photo-Witch) demonstrates this effect well.

The long verticals and the intricacies made up from the lines are highlighted within the photo due to its portrait layout and ability to capture the entire size of the pillars. The photographer positions you to see the marvel and majesty of the buildings design through showing its structural complexity in a certain way.

My final reference is to an anime I have only started watching recently, and one I feel represents the Japanese lust for manic, psychological art sessions in their works that Andrew was talking about in Kimba the White Lion. Neon Genesis Evangelion. NGE is reguarded as one of the greatest animes of all time, partially down to the deep psychological explorations of character within it. I wish to refer to one episode in particular, episode 20, where the main character Shinji is absorbed and becomes one with the god-like machine he pilots, leading to him to conflict with his own mind and learning much about himself. When in this state, he hears voices of different character in the anime and each is represented with these different lines.

Each person in his mind is shown with a different line. They all can be seen as representing how Shinji feels toward them, for example how his father is demonstrated. It shows how Shinji is unable to feel straightly about him. Or his relationship with Asuka, it is in a decline and is not simple enough to be flat or vertical.

Also, within this mental sequence (No pun intended), numerous pieces of art are show flashing in different quality at high speed. For example, a picture of Shinji’s father would be in full colour, then sketchy, then sketchy and hastily drawn in etc. and flashed repeatedly on screen. Again, this hectic nature of line creates a mad, insane and unstable atmosphere around the sequence. The fact that Japanese director Hideaki Anno and Vincent Van Gogh have used similar techniques with line in the works and produced similar outcomes is no coincidence. We are conditioned to see this way.

By appealing to more senses, these symbols are able to make more of an impression. We see a line, find descriptive words to explain its build and thus it becomes emotively attached to these descriptions. I feel putting emotions to lines it our way of coping with the world. We constantly need to find purpose in everything, whether it’s why trees have bark to why are we here. So when we see lines arranged in a pattern that isn’t natural, we automatically assume it must be that way for a reason. And this is not a bad thing at all, it helps further us both as a species and as individuals. We are able to reflect on ourselves and see that which is not on the surface, look deeper within our minds and find out what truly makes us human. That’s the reason Xavier was trying to make us represent feelings with lines in our first class with him this year, and this is why we are looking at how linear work within Kimba the White Lion can lead to tripped out psychological sessions within lectures. And all this from just a bunch of lines? I’m starting to feel a lot like Scott McCloud, there is a hell of a lot more to comics and their lines than meets the eye.