Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a stunning piece of work. I now understand comics, at least more than I previously had. There were things in there that I had never realized about comics that are so plainly obvious to me now. What I had assumed is that the more detailed and intricate the drawing, the better the overall comic is. McCloud proved to me the opposite. He takes a detailed look at how icons are utilized by comics to bring life to their works, and I have to say, it’s very interesting. I had never realized that the more simple a drawn face is (a circle, two dots and a line), the more meaning the observer sees in it. This happens for many reasons; firstly, most people have two eyes and a mouth, so the simplest cartoon face can identify with practically everyone. What’s amazing to me is that we consider such a simple image a human face. Why is it that we don’t feel as though it needs a nose? I even see emotion in the face to the left, which is almost scary when I think about it. As McCloud said, “We assign identities and emotions where none exist.”
Secondly, McCloud argues that we see ourselves in such a simple icon as the face to the left. He claims that when we are looking at someone else (in real life), we see them as such: another person. So, when we see a very detailed drawing of someone’s face, we do the same thing. McCloud also claims that we always have a “constant awareness of [our] own face[s]”, but a lot less clear; we only have a “sense of general placement”. Because of this, he concludes that we see ourselves in such a basic rendering of a face.
The relationship between words and images is easily the most important part of the modern-day comic. I found out the detail of the image greatly affects how we interpret them, and in turn, the words that accompany them will have a great impact on our interpretation, as well. Words and images are closely related, in that they both convey a certain meaning. But it’s how they convey that meaning that sets them apart. McCloud tells us that pictures are “received information”; they can be understood instantly. Text, however, is “perceived information”; we must “decode” it in order to understand it. The two together create comics as they’re known today.
clinthicum 