McCloud Ch.1
I didn't read a lot of comics as a kid, but I was always into horror, so when I saw comics like Zombie World and Tales From the Crypt, I had to read them. I read others like Predator and Lobo, and as I got older some of my friends read manga. I never understood it, but it was art to them. I definitely think comics can be art. I also think comics entertain a person the same as if they were watching a movie. It opens up those spaces of possibility, like I said in an earlier blog. Pictures invoke the same imagination. This Non Sequitur cartoon will be my example. The reader imagines what the characters were doing before and after this one snapshot. Maybe the guy goes to get machetes and juggle them, or just crosses the road. But for a second you do imagine yourself in the picture. It's interactive, thought-provoking, and entertaining. I think it takes more thought to enjoy comics and stills, and with TV and movies you lose the imagination. Movies and TV create feelings for you through music, camera angles, and professional actor/actresses. All of this is an art, from reality TV to Dilbert. Ultimately, it depends on the individual taste and ideas of the person experiencing the medium of communication.
McCloud Ch2
This is not a waterfall. It is a representation created by a very talented sidewalk chalk artist.
I might rant about semantics throughout this. I was surprised at McCloud's separation of "icon" and "symbol". He mentions one similarity between the two, they are both representations of ideas. Art is the overall representation, and icons/symbols are a form of art. Movies, books, pictures all represent reality in some way. Icon or symbol is a really weak word for a painting of a sunset, person, or anything that could be captured in a camera. To me these two words are the same. They represent a single moment, or single and limited collection of thoughts. It feels strange to say comics are are an icon or symbol of real life, it's too confined; comics are a representation of life. Movies are a representation of what could happen or what has happened. I guess overall, representations are made of collections of symbols and icons. And if a representation of the real world is built on symbols/icons, reality could be as well. Words are the most common symbols we use, obviously, but we use facial expressions, tone, rythm, and body language, all of which are tied to some idea in society. Sarcasm is a widely used style of speech, and if you don't understand the concept you get lost easily.
McCloud Ch.3 Transitions
The Comics chapter on transitions brought one question to my mind- what is reality. Transitions occupy the space between concrete perceptions. So as the author states, if you kill a man between a space he suffers a thousand deaths. My question was, if pictures and/or dialogue exist in two frames, what exists in the empty separation. When 50 or so people look at a comic, does that create 50 more realities? If each person imagines something different, doesn’t that create a new reality/comic? First, to understand reality we need to examine the opposite. Schizophrenics and those who experience hallucinations believe in what they see, hear, and feel. Many experts tell these people what they experience isn’t real and does not exist. Old world natives in the Americas used hallucinogenic drugs (peyote, salvia, kava, etc.), many people believe in many different spirits and gods, and many people believe government does what’s best for its people. Here’s an analogy: if a tree falls in the woods, and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? Transitions exist, and yet there’s nothing on the page.
There is a whole branch in philosophy devoted to the idea that everything is material/physical. Now, the energy that flows throughout everything in existence might have a physical appearance at times, but anyone who’s been through a college physics class knows that there are plenty of phenomenon that are beyond our comprehension. Yet these things exist. We can’t explain the reasons we came up with the mind illustrations we had as we went through the pages of a book or comic, and they went beyond the 5 senses we normally use to make up our pattern of realization. So, if you imagine that something existed for even a second, does that make it any less real? I definitely don’t think so.
What an illusionist/magician presents to an audience is real to the audience, yet the magician knows it isn’t. But for that split second, a new reality is created in the minds of the audience members. I guess my entire point is, don’t expect much and don’t assume everything you see is all that is. A great quote from my dad, “believe half of what you read, and 90% of what you see. Reality isn’t all its cracked up to be”.
McCloud CH.7
Again McCloud defines comics as an artform. What is art, well anything which doesn't involve sex or survival (mutual terms, without reproduction there is no survival, at least overall). But even these two have a fine line when compared to art. People cook and go to expesive restaurants to eat not just palatable food, but food you really enjoy. People, and some say dolphins, have sex entirely for pleasure, and sometimes hope not to reproduce. We build elaborate homes, find jobs we are comfortable with (so we can survive), even buy Hummers and Corvettes to speed transportation. I'd say that almost everything today is a form of art, at least if we have the money to afford it. It could be opposite as well, some forms of art may be essential to our survival. Storytelling presents us with mistakes or achievements others have made so we can learn from them. Statistics are formed from a wide group of stories, in order to make better decisions (at least thats the idea).
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