Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

EAN:9780060976255 Label:Harper Paperbacks Author:Scott Mccloud Binding:Paperback

This book was required for a class I had Amazing Book. I wasn't exactly thrilled to read it but after the first chapter, i couldn't put it down2009-02-13 Rating 5. This is a really innovative way learn about comics as well as understanding them, like the title says. Very well done! It has a lot of strong points and has a lot of insight on to subjects we dont pay attention to. I recommend this for anyone who is interested or wants to learn about making/drawing comics. At the same time, it applies to more than just comics, but movies, video's ie: stop motion animation. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. I was required to read this book for a college art class, and hated it perhaps the most repetitive book ever. I'm not a comic book fan, but I also don't detest them either2008-10-13 Rating 2. I found the book to be mildly interesting, but just way too reptitive. The author goes on and on about the same things for way too long, practically beating the subjects to death. The author tries to get the reader to take things in the book so seriously, it seems a little ridiculous. . Okay, this is seriously one of the most brilliant books I have ever read, and I have Henry (who is also brilliant) to thank for introducing this to me Brilliant Book!. (Thank you, Henry2008-08-04 Rating 5. ) Although this book has been around since '93, I suspect it's nowhere near as recognized as it deserves to be, but with time that will change, I hope. The full title is "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art," and what Scott McCloud does is explain what we take almost completely for granted, not just about comics, which he convincingly raises to a fine art, but also about the way we 'see,' and think we see, the world around us, especially as it is represented in words and images. It's an important book because he talks in deceptively simple terms about how we perceive reality. McCloud shows the reader, through the seemingly "childish" mechanism of comics, how we think about what we perceive. Therefore, it's an epistemological text, and those are always of tremendous interest to me. It's also a book about how creativity works, and that's a central theme to my research. I've spent most of my adult life dealing with 90% of what he encapsulates in 215 densely packed (and highly entertaining) pages. Did I mention that the entire work is written in the form of a comic book? No? Well, it is. It purports to be about comics, but that is only the tip of the philosophical iceberg. It's a study of how to think about words and images, and how we have come to use them, not just in Western society, but also in the East. He calls this the "invisible art," the effect of the combination of words and pictures, and if you read this, you'll get a much better understanding of the term "closure," which is the phenomenon of what the brain does when interpreting the gaps between words and pictures (in comics, this gap is represented visually by the space between each frame of words and images). We make up a story in our minds to close this gap, and it's a crucial piece of the story-telling process, this 'silence' that leads the reader to decide what really happens. Scott McCloud combines semiotics (the discussion of the meaning of signs and signifiers), art history, rhetorical analysis (why it's so brilliant), cognitive and neurological research (another reason it's so brilliant), with an analysis of art and literature's influence on human social dynamics. The synthesis he reaches makes the invisible, visible, and will help the reader understand how comics evolved and where they come from. Hopefully, it will give the reader a new appreciation for the comics art form. I have studied the theory behind virtually every aspect of what he's talking about, except comics, and so I know the sources he's relying on to get to the information he's condensed for the reader, and I also know you won't like those sources, but you will like this book because it's accessible in a way semiotics, rhetorical analysis, and the finer points of art history, are not. But if you read this book, that's part of what you'll be reading, and you'll be glad you did. As previous reviewers have mentioned, Scott McCloud is passionate about comics; part of the purpose of writing the book, it seems is to justify the argument that comics are indeed art Reading between the lines. I found this a moot point, although his evidence was interesting2008-07-25 Rating 4. Another reason behind the book, it seems, is to explain the message behind comics: the epistomological leaps we take when we read them, the artisitic decisions made when they are created, and the evolution the art form has taken. This was not only the strongest and most interesting part of the book, but also much less preachy. I enjoy comics, from 19th century broadsheets to the Sunday funnies and the occasional graphic novel. Until now, however, I never really thought about the conscientious decisions the artist makes between realism and meaning when drawing them. Similarly, I had never critically thought about the fundamental differences between Asian (especially Manga) comics and Western comics. McCloud has shed much light on these topics, and explains these differences and decisions clearly, without pretense. Avid readers of comics, aspiring comic artists and purists may find McCloud a bit pedantic - for the novice such as myself, I was fascinated, as a whole new world has been opened to me through his explaination. Why the four stars then? I took a star for his argument about comics as "art". I suppose there are those who believe comics are not art (or are "low" art at the most); while I disagree with this (and side with McCloud), I thought the argument was out of place, and ultimately moot. Still, a recommended read. You don't wanna miss this lesson guys Great!. Mccloud just forgo himself2008-07-17 Rating 4. A must-have book for all comic readers. Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, this innovative comic book provides a detailed look at the history, meaning, and art of comics and cartooning .