Understanding Comics

I really enjoyed Scott Mcloud’s “Understanding Comics.” The book was both fun to read and informative. I noticed a lot of people mentioned during class that the book did not have the kind of pacing a comic book usually does, however I disagree. Even though there was less action, I felt that the pacing of each panel was quick and snappy. Mcloud often used multiple panels and poses to bridge a single thought together giving the effect of a single person talking to you while gesturing quickly. Were the book animated, I could see it taking on the pacing of an animated internet miniseries like “Extra Credits,” from penny arcade or “Zero punctuation,” from the escapist magazine.

I was also impressed by the content of Mclouds book. One section in particular that struck me was when Mcloud talked about how in manga, main characters are often rendered very simply with little detail, so that we can empathize with them more easily, while other characters, especially evil or bad ones are rendered more realistically. I’ve read a fair share of manga, but I never really appreciated this until Mcloud pointed it out.