Earlier in the semester, Scott McCloud taught us that protagonists in comic strips are made with few details, almost as a blank slate, so that the reader will identify with them at times, even casting themselves as the comic character. The more defined the look of the character, the easier it becomes to view them as Other.

This past weekend I watched Todd Haynes’ 1995 film, “Safe”. Never before had I watched a film that so vehemently refused to sculpt its main character in any way. Carol, the protagonist, is almost affect-less throughout the entire film. Both her physical appearance as well as her interiority are not much more than a blank slate. She remains pretty expressionless throughout the whole film and her wardrobe is completely indistinct. Additionally, the audience gains no insight into her thoughts, her rationality, her inner life. As a character, she is empty.

so, I know Janet Murray was concentrating mostly on television and narratives, but I think her book actually really connected with Understanding Comics. First of all there is the aspect that McCloud's more recent books became clearly much more digitized, but also since many people (especially young adults) no longer read hard copies of newspapers, daily newspaper comics also appear many places online. I actually really enjoy this medium because it allows people to see archives of the comics, which is helpful since many times there are multiple connected comics in a series. Janet Murray predicted the use of the internet and the impact the digital age would have and although she didn't precisely say that the news media and sources such as cnn.com would become so popular, I think that is the general idea she gives.

I personally see it as a cop out when an author leaves an essential element of a story up to the reader in a way that makes it obvious there is no purpose to the mystery other than as a cheap device to grab an audience's attention (someone earlier mentioned the ending of Castaway). But other authors intentionally leave elements open to interpretation in order to create a reality different from our day to day sensory experiences, and the intrigue builds from the new perspective and its implications (House of Leaves comes to mind). McCloud describes this effect on pg. 133, writing, "...a lack of clarity can also foster greater participation by the reader and a sense of involvement which many writers and artists prefer." The sense of living, rather than just observing, seems to make open-ended stories far more compelling.

So, for the first time in a while I actually found an assigned reading (maybe with the exception of parts of House of Leaves) completely interesting and engaging. The book was informative and concise, yet interesting and informative. Although I never really read comic books, with the exception of an occasional Archie and Jughead, I thought that this was the best way possible for McCloud to bring attention to the topic and discuss it in a scholarly way. I've never read anything else academic on comic books, but I can imagine that reading about the history of comic books and the methods it uses would have been much less interesting in a typical novel or article format.

I loved this book. What a refreshing break from the academic essay! The best part was that I felt like I got so much more out of this book from its reader friendly format. It wasn't like the content was dumbed down at all but rather stripped clean of academic self-importance. Yeah. Great.

Anyway, out of the many different concepts presented in the book here were some of my favorites. First was the concept of amplification through simplification. I felt like the book itself was a perfect example of this concept in action. In simplifying the many complex issues at hand when trying to put in to words the many possibilities inherent to the art of comics, Scott McCloud's argument was totally amplified.

Let me first say, great planning Prof. Fitzpatrick, I couldn't imagine a better book to assign over fall break. Seriously.
On the other hand, I did feel a bit strange reading a comic book in the airport. This is probably because I've never been "into" comic books. I own a few Calvin and Hobbes, and the Maus books, but I guess I never caught the comic fever. When I got on the plane (after the pilot announced we would be sitting on the runway for TWO HOURS!) the man sitting next to me asked how I was doing and I told him I didn't mind the delay so much because I had a lot of work to get done. Then I pulled out the book, and he gave me one of the oddest looks I've ever received.

I think the good ol' what is/what is not art discussion has popped up on this blog before, I'm thinking in the discussion of Duchamp's Fountain (discussion isn't the right word, I don't think, is there another word for the commenting we do here?). I found McCloud's rather brief definition of art pretty interesting, and I'd like to hear (read?) other people's comments.
McCloud writes on page 164 "Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn't grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: survival and reproduction!" This seems too simple to me. He later draws a distinction between art and "pure" art (page 169), but how did other people react to this passage with the cavepeople?

i really liked "understanding comics". it touched upon several major media studies topics that we've gone over during our academic careers, but in a very readable and enjoyable format. from the use of icons to represent ideas, to the high art vs. low art debates of what does get to constitute art, to the more recent house of leaves inspired discussions on form's relationship with content.

one aspect of the book that really fascinated me was the comparisons between western comics and japanese comics. Even though the same format is used, and there is a similar relationship between icon and representation, what those icons, and what modes of visual storytelling that are considered natural, are are completely different. It amazed me how unique they were from each other. This made me wonder how would this class be like if we were in another culture where the notions of narrative, and possibley even the notions of the role of author are completely different?

Okay, so I'm still thinking about narration, and now I have some more questions/thoughts about non-narrative forms. I was in Las Vegas this weekend and my friends and I went to see Le Reve (the dream), an acrobatic, Cirque du Soleil type show. The show didn't make any linear, narrative-type sense as I suppose the audience had been warned about in the title... But I wonder, what effect does providing that kind of a background as a prelude offer to a production? Or a better question I guess, what kind of license does an author get when advising that a creation is dream-based (or simply non-narrative based)? Would most audiences be less willing to drop their attachment to narrative theatre or spectacula without prior explicit warning of the possiblity? It's kind of interesting that we bring out previous conceptions of where we expect narrative to appear and where we don't to the table when consuming media...

I was reading the latest installment of Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast online (which the comic artist describes as “the world’s favorite comic strip about a gay bed & breakfast”) and it got me thinking about how the prevalence of webcomics, and the role of the internet and new media in the production and consumption of comics. Making comics on the web seems to have a lot of advantages: it’s cheaper for the reader and can offer more control for the artist (possibility of more independent comics getting out there, animating images).

At the same time, I wonder about the drawbacks of a web/computer format. Over the summer I wanted re-read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series (which is great, btw), but I didn’t really have the cash to spend $20+ on the books in the series I’m missing. So I ended up downloading the series online and reading the first few books in print and the rest on my computer. It was still a good read, but something was missing. One of the things McCloud talked about was color, and that may have been a factor, the differences between the color you see on your computer screen and the color that a printer can print. Another thing may have been reading strategy. In my Digital Art class, we talked about the idea that people tend to read things on the computer differently than the way they read books and other printed media. Reading on the web and the computer tends to be faster, more of a skimming for information. I definitely found myself getting caught up in that when I was reading Sandman.