Title: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Goodreads)
Author: Scott McCloud
Series: The Comic Books #1
Published: William Morrow, 1993
Pages: 215
Genres: Graphic Novel, Non-Fiction
My Copy: Paperback
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
I have been getting into comics lately and I am quickly discovering there is so much about this medium that I do not know. When trying to review a comic or graphic novel, I find it easy to talk about plot but talking about the art is difficult. I picked up Understanding Comics because there is so much to learn and I wanted a better grasp on the art form. And it is art, it might not be as highbrow as artists like Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet or my personal favourite Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, but it is still art. To exclude comics as an art form would be like removing Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack or René Magritte from the art world because you ‘don’t get it’.
Now that I have had a little rant about art, let’s talk about comics and Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. This book is a graphical look into comics as an art form, exploring the history of comics and tries to explain the meaning behind the art. It starts off trying to define what a comic is, which I quickly realised was an impossible feat. McCloud ended saying “Comics are juxtaposed pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” but then went on to explain how problematic that definition can be.
A highlight for me was found in chapter two where Scott McCloud explored the vocabulary of comics. The chapter begins with explain René Magritte’s painting The Treachery of Images (1928-29), an artist I am a big fan of. I actually went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the hope to see The Treachery of Images, but it was currently on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago. What I liked about this chapter was how he took the meaning of this painting and expanded on it to help explain comics. He took something easy to explain and built upon that to the more complex ideas.
Reading Understanding Comics makes comics sound like highbrow pieces of art and maybe that is how we should view them. Instead of thinking about comics as a lowbrow medium, it is about time we experience the art and what it can tell us. In this book six major ideas around the art. Idea/purpose, form, idiom/style, structure, craft and surface; explaining how they can all work together to make great pieces.
There is a lot of information within Understanding Comics and I don’t think I have explored it all yet. It has equipped me with some new tools when reading and reviewing comics. The best thing about this book is the way Scott McCloud changes his art style and methods to explore the different ways you can execute the theories behind this book. I am glad he referenced all his work, especially when talking about other artists and how they write comics. The graphical representation of the art theory in the book helped me to understand comics a little better but there is just so much here that I will need to reread this a few times before it sinks in.
It was because of this book that I came to appreciate Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Now I think it is such an incredible painting. I need to read the rest of Understanding Comics. We read portions of it for my French media studies course this past spring.
I’m a fan of Magritte, but learning stuff like Ceci n’est pas une pipe really helps with the understanding/enjoyment. This book does the same sort of thing but with Comics in general
It was because of this book that I came to appreciate Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Now I think it is such an incredible painting. I need to read the rest of Understanding Comics. We read portions of it for my French media studies course this past spring.
I’m a fan of Magritte, but learning stuff like Ceci n’est pas une pipe really helps with the understanding/enjoyment. This book does the same sort of thing but with Comics in general
I’ve been meaning to get to this for ages now, ever since getting back into comics a few years back. I’ve heard nothing but good things.
It would be awfully nice to be able to say something beyond “it’s pretty” when speaking about the art in a review, heh.
I hope that future reviews have more about art; it was the main reason I read this
I’ve been meaning to get to this for ages now, ever since getting back into comics a few years back. I’ve heard nothing but good things.
It would be awfully nice to be able to say something beyond “it’s pretty” when speaking about the art in a review, heh.
I hope that future reviews have more about art; it was the main reason I read this
Sounds like a really interesting read. Ever since the number of hit movies based off of comics, it seems they are losing a lot of the stigma and snobbery that used to be hurled toward them.
There are plenty of varieties in comics to cater to all types of people
Sounds like a really interesting read. Ever since the number of hit movies based off of comics, it seems they are losing a lot of the stigma and snobbery that used to be hurled toward them.
There are plenty of varieties in comics to cater to all types of people