I have to admit that I underestimated this book. It wasn't anything about the author or the title or the topic. I just thought that I understood comics fine. I have been reading comics since I could read and I felt comfortably confident that I understood comics.
Thank god, I was wrong.
I think that this is one of the most fascinating books that I've ever read. It captivated me from page one, taking me chapter after chapter, through the worlds of symbols, writing, philosophy, literature, layouts, concepts, ideas and imagination.
I think that the ideas explaining the mechanism of comics are relevant for advertising, design, internet or any creative project that deals with images and and words.
First I had never spent any time thinking about a definition of comic.
But the book through the definition touches on a very important subject: Form and content.
The artform of the comic is the medium. The content is up to the artist.
For a creative, there are so many important concepts explored and explained in the book that I felt like I was reading Advertising 101; introduction to the basics of creative thinking.
The definition of comic:
Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.
I belong to a generation (born in 65 in Madrid, Spain) that assigns a subtle negativity to comics. That's why when the book makes the case for Aztec manuscripts being the first comics, part of me resisted the concept. Obviously McCloud is right and those early signs of self-expressions are comics. I guess that Tintin, Asterix and Donald were comics too. Even though I never really assigned them the word comic... they were cartoons. Or at least that's what my mother called them.
The vocabulary of comics.
Icons. Any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea.
Cartoon is a form of amplification through simplification.
This is the very heart of thousands of the ideas we see in advertising everyday. We tend to magnified the qualities of a product or an emotion through the simplification of the details, we are, not eliminating details, we are FOCUSING on specific details.
At this point of the book I was like a kid seeing all the candy coming out of the piñata.
I can't believe that through the process of understanding comics, such an important concept of the idea process could be explained so clearly.
By stripping down an image of its essential meaning an artist can amplify that meaning.
I think that I could have worked 13 more years in advertising and I never would've heard such a good definition of the goal of ideation.
The power of comics is It's ability to focus our attention on the idea.
We humans are a selfcentered race. We see ourselves in everything (cars, cans, electric outlets) and we assign identities and emotions where none exist. And we make the world over in our image.
When we see a realistic drawing of a face, we see the face of another. When we enter the world of the cartoon you see yourself.
I don't know why this revelation is so significant to me. I guess I am excited about discovering new concepts and new ways of interpreting comics and its implications. This is the feeling I get often reading this book; to define the ideas and concepts that I use as a creative everyday in such an easy and smart way. Wow. I'm having so much fun going along, page after page, discovering what comics truly are, so complex, yet so simple.
Sometimes, our identification of the messenger keeps us from fully receiving the message. The closer we get to the cartoon, the easier it is to receive the full concept.
All the things we experience in life can be separated into two realms, the realm of the concept and the realm of the senses.
Our identities belong to the conceptual world. they are merely ideas. And everything else, belongs to the sensual world, the world outside of us.
Writing and drawing are seen as two different disciplines.
Pictures are received information. We need no formal education to get the message.
Writing is perceived information. It takes time and specialized knowledge to decode the abstract symbols of language.
when pictures are more abstracted from reality, they are more like words. When words are more direct, they require lower levels of perception and are received faster, like pictures.
All of us perceive the world as a whole through the experience of our senses. Yet, our senses can only reveal a world that is fragmented and incomplete. The phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole is called CLOSURE.
In comics the audience is a willing collaborator, and closure is the agent of change, time and motion. The space between the panels, the gutter plays host to the magic and mystery that are the very heart of the comics. The human imagination is the silent accomplice to the comic artist.
This concept of our imagination being an accomplice is the central piece on which good advertising is based.
By creating a sequence with two or more images we are endowing them with an overriding identity, and forcing the viewer to consider them as a whole.
The transitions between panels then becomes the invisible art of comics storytelling.
Traditional western art and literature don't wander much. They are goal oriented, but in the east, there is a rich tradition of cyclical and labyrinthine works of art, where they emphasize being there over getting there. In japan, comics are works of intervals. Elements omitted are as much part of the art as those included. (just like the silence in music)
The art of comics is as subtractive an art as it is additive.
Another key principle in creative advertising. How much is needed to understand an idea? how much is needed to engage the consumer? Understanding this balance is essential to developing good executions.
Its when our senses are not needed when all our senses are engaged.
This following paragraph is also one of the most important principles of creative advertising, the relationship with the consumer:
Several times on every page the reader is released, like a trapeze artist into the open air of imagination, then caught by the out stretched arms of the ever present next panel. Caught quickly so as not to left the reader fall into confusion or boredom. But is it possible that closure can be managed in some cases that the reader might learn to fly?
I believe that it's the responsibility of advertising to "teach" consumers to "fly, to use their imagination so often that they can feel comfortable when exposed to creative ideas, enabling the creative team to simplify more, to broaden the gutter.
Comics are a silent dance between the seen and the unseen, the visible and the invisible.
The way words and picture can combine.
Word specific.
Words illustrate but don't add to a largely complete text.
Picture specific.
Words do little more than add a soundtrack to a visually told sequence.
Duo-specific.
Both words and pictures send the same message.
Additive.
Where words amplify or elaborate on an image or vice versa.
Parallel.
Where words and pictures follow very different curses without intersecting.
Montage.
Where words are integral part of the picture.
Interdependent.
Where words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea that neither could convey alone.
The more is said with words the more the pictures can be freed to go exploring and viceversa.
The last one, Interdependent is the type of combination desired by smart print advertising.
I think I'll be using this often with creative teams to illustrate creativity in print.
The creation of any work, in any medium always follows a certain path.
- Idea/purpose. The content
- form. A book? a chair? a comic? a drawing?
- idiom. the school of art. the style, the genre.
- structure. How to compose the work.
- craft. the skills to getting it done.
- surface. production values, finishing.
If one focuses on form, one becomes an explorer. His goal is to discover all that the art form is capable of. Creators who take this path are often pioneers and revolutionaries, artist who want to shake things up, change the way people think, question the fundamental laws that govern their chosen art.
On the other hand, if one chooses Ideas, then the art becomes a tool, and the power fo the art, rely on the power of the idea within.
why am I doing this?
The question every artist must ask himself at one point or another. And I'll say every creative before working on any project. The question will give you purpose, and the purpose will focus you on the task.
A medium is a bridge between minds.
The idea we see in our mind will never be seen in their entirety by anyone else.
The mastery of one's medium is the degree to which the artist's idea survive the journey. (bridge)
The message found in the last pages of the book is to continue to explore. And it is through exploration that I opened the first page of this book. And few times I've ever been happier of such a small action, given me back such a big return; the discovery of a whole new world. The better understanding of concepts that I use everyday as a creative and the knowledge to communicate this concepts with people I work with in the daily basis.
I didn't mention yet the amazing use of the comic format used by McCloud to communicate all these concepts, which being as complex as they are, never felt difficult to understand.
This book open many, many doors of opportunities for me and I'm thankful for that.
A note to myself: please read this book again soon.
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