From the author’s website
“A 215-page comic book about comics that explains the inner workings of the medium and examines many aspects of visual communication. Understanding Comics has been translated into 16 languages, excerpted in textbooks, and its ideas applied in other fields such as game design, animation, web development, and interface design.
Topics include:
- Definitions, history, and potential.
- Visual Iconography and its Effects.
- Closure, reader participation between the panels.
- Word-picture dynamics.
- Time and motion.
- The psychology of line styles and color.
- Comics and the artistic process”
Who Might Like This Book?
If you have an interest in comics, art history, or even the philosophy of art, you might enjoy this book. And it reads quickly.
I read many comics as a youngster. I also recognize that modern comics are much more sophisticated than those were, and this book helps explain why and how.
Time, Space, and Comprehension
“Space does for comics what time does for film”. What he means by this is that for comics, the number of panels dedicated to a scene, the perspectives given, even the width of the “gutter ” between panels are all techniques used to show the passage of time.
Comics can also require imagination from the reader. While reading, we need to “process” many of the comics panels to get a full understanding of the story, since many details will be left out. The more dissimilarities between the panels, the more effort and imagination required of the reader.
“What happens between the panels is a kind of magic only comics can create.”
Comics and Art
On page 129 he provides a great summary on how language evolves. He uses comics as an example, but the idea really applies to any form of communication or many forms of Art. “If enough artists begin using the symbol, it will enter the language for good, as many have through the years.”
This idea can apply to comics, writings, photography, music, poetry, and so forth.
“The longer any form of art or communication exists, the more symbols it accumulates.”
Ditto.
“Each new medium begins its life by imitating its predecessors. Many early movies were like filmed stage plays, much early television was like radio with pictures of reduced movies.
“The mixing of words and pictures is more alchemy than science.”
“Art is the way we assert our identities as individuals and break out of the narrow roles nature casts us in.”