The Invisible Art

Understanding Comics – My favorite required reading. I loved it – and by love I mean to represent the enjoyment and insight this book has brought me.

I have never thought about comics this way before. Reading this book has definitely expanded my knowledge of printed media and the history behind comic books and their influences. It was astounding how much knowledge and theory is in comics and I am at a loss of words on how to explain my feelings toward this wonderful sequence of inked panels on paper.

I suppose it is normal to feel a loss of words. After all these words do not mean anything unless my use of visible lines (or placement of light projected on your monitor by me) can be understood as words, and related to meanings that I wish to describe. My writing is only a mere form of media, one that “converts [my] thoughts into forms that can transverse the physical world and be re-converted by one or more senses back into thoughts” (McCloud, 195).

I find it amazingly interesting how the icons ^^^ are understood, even though they are truly nothing. They only have meaning because we give them meaning.

This book re-enforced the belief that everything is there for a reason. The panels are arranged in a particular way so that the reader has a path to follow, the balance between text and image, which is a skill that must be perfected for it to be beneficial, contributes greatly to the reader’s understanding, and the use of EXAGGERATED or dull color and font add deep emotion to the reading. Applying this to my life, I believe that I am now able to analyze media more thoroughly and understand what is really happening when I do not actually see the stabbing in the HoRrOr films (McCloud, 66).

I REALLY HOPE MY JOY OF THIS BOOK IS EXPRESSED CLEARLY

THROUGH MY USE OF FONT, ICONS, AND COLOR!!!!

I would also like to note, Mark Lipton is correct when he said that all forms of technology and media are corrupted by pornography and other substances.

(McCloud, 190)

Cited Work:

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Kitchen Sink Press, 1993.