Of course I have always loved comics. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, I fondly remember comic books like Archie, Superman, Spiderman, The Hulk, and The Fanstastic 4. I also really loved the hybrid "MAD" magazine, which was actually a little raunchy and edgy for a 9 year old to read, but it was, after all, the 80's...
As an artist, though, it is one of the few mediums that elude me. Perhaps it is the strict adherence and follow-through required to character, stylization and form that annoys my rebellious " I wanna do it my way" nature. Or perhaps I am just jealous because I realllly suck at drawing cartoons. So I have completely ignored the whole genre of comics books with a flippant "eh" attitude.
One of the required texts in my Design 001 class at UC Davis, taught by Doctor James Housefield is "Understand Comics: The Invisible Art" by Scott McCloud. Ironically enough, my dad already had this book. But for those of you that know my dad, I am sure you aren't surprised. Not only did he have the required text, saving me $25.00 from my overall $400.00+ text book bill, but he also had "Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels".....
Upon digging into my textbook like a good little student should, I am finding a newfound respect for the genre and ( almost) ready to jump in and experiment with it, much like I do poetry. I will never be a master, but it's something that makes me happy.
Scott McCloud breaks down the art of comics to a science. McCloud defines comics in Chapter 1 as a "juxtaposed, pictorial & other images in a sequential order". This is a very very very simplified definition for what is turning out to be a complex, infinite and limitless art form. He points out that the genre cannot be defined by: topic, age, genre, style, paper & ink, medium, materials, color versus black and white, philosophies or movements. Comics are always changing, immense, re-inventing itself, growing, and puching artistic boundaries. From realistic to abstract, objective to subjective, specific to universal...comics does it all.
McCloud not only takes us back in time to the first comics , discovered in Egyptian and Mayan art as sequential "stories", but he also connects dot-to-dots throughout history by showing us the invention of printing and woodcut, engraving and paintings and how the accessability to the public through mass communication seemed to be able to join our little dots into a bigger picture of humanity.
Comics and graphic novels seem to have elements, characters and storylines that we all, as a whole, can relate to and associate with. As outlined in the book, really good comicbook artists can create characters that a huge population can relate to.
Technical tools such as use of the "gutter" in between the panels stop time and allow us to experience "closure" as we jump from moment-to-moment-, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, and scene-to-scene. We know that if we , for example, see a man with a raised ax standing over a monster, and then, in the next panel, see a dark city skyline with the word "EEEEEEYAAAA!", that someone got the ax. Our minds do the work and in between the panels, in the gutter, our minds magically put 2+2 together to do the work $ the artist. He or she is not required to draw every single second of the scene like the movie making process does, but instead, our eyes take the visual cues and does the mental work. Time stops. Or speeds forward. We can be in 2 places at once. Or we can see 10 things happening at once within one single panel, as it spans through the characters at a party and we know, through thought bubbles, what every character is thinking or saying.
Not only do comics perform "time machine" miracles, it can let us experience a scene thorugh our senses. In Chapter 5, McCloud illustrates how line work- a clever use of line and design- can make us feel or sense: anger, joy, intimacy, anxiety, tension, madness, peace,cold, warm, sour, quiet, loud....the list goes on. And that is even WITHOUT the thought bubbles and sound (SPLATTT!) effects. Comics employ the gutters, the panels, words, line, character, thought bubbles, but also spans several themes to identify with audiences.
Themes include: horror, biographical, romance, satire, erotica, folk tales, religious themes, fiction, history, social issues....the list can go on and on. Each one of these themes can take a whole new turn when we put a cultural slant to it. Comics books in America very from European comic books, which both very from Japanese, who of late, have been in the forefront of the comic and manga movement becasue of their advanced and unique approach to use of panels and stylization.
As we reach the end of the book, Mccloud tries to sum up in Chapter 7, the six steps of creating the chameleon-like genre" comics". After reading the layers of techicality that go into making these "kiddy books" seem so effortless, magical and fun, I feel that 6 steps seems trite and ridiculous. Comic book writers and artistis need to be always working, always striving, always pushing their -and our- boundaries.
Which inspires me to do the same....
