Week 2 - Understanding Comics

I really liked when he talked about breaking down the process of comics into the list of 6 steps. Purpose, Form, Idiom, Structure, Craft, Surface. This resonated with me because in a way I felt as though most of what he was saying about these steps were true. Scott McCloud visualized these steps as an apple with Surface being the outside of an apple. Most of these days every chooses what has the best surface and then ends up getting disappointed because there's just a hollow center(no Craft, Structure, Idiom, Form, Purpose). I agree with this idea 100% and believe that it applies to lots of different things in life.

Then Scott goes on to talk about how a younger, newer, inexperienced artist who likes comics will go and start making one but only concentrate on the Surface. He does not have the other 5 important parts of the comic. This I found interesting because it seemed as though it was explaining most of our generation and how when we get excited about something we only proceed to do this thing at surface level and then quickly lose interest and move on to the next thing. There example was a guy who did a comic and took it to professional at a comic con and gets his work torn apart because he did not know how to make a comic with every step. After he gets his harsh critique he forgets everything and then moves on. I think this speaks to the ADHD of the world and that we all have short attention spans nowadays.

Week 1 - The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The Arrival was able to tell a story without words through the use of it's images alone. Using a familiar topic, detailed images, and linear narrative we are able to understand the story without there being words.

The type of topic or specific story that the comic follows is immigration/moving to a new country. It feels very reminiscent of when people started coming to America from England. I think most people can relate to having to move or traveling while also spending some time apart from their families. Because the comic is about this topic I think it connects to readers on a more personal level and therefore makes it much more easier to understand on a base level.

The images in which are used in the comic are detailed, focused and specific. Each frame/image chooses to show you specifically what they want you to see. This is very important since there are no words, the only thing we have to go off of as a reader are what is shown visually. I felt as though because it uses the frames in chronological order you are able to understand what the story is about. It’s similar to a storyboard for films but goes into more detail almost going frame by frame every time a little action in the story changes. In The Arrival it uses a variety of frame sizes to also help convey what is going on in the story.

The narrative in this comic is similar to how most stories are with a beginning, middle, and end. Because the entire comic has the whole story I think it is easy to make sense of what the story is. We are not getting random fragments or just an individual chapter or segment from a larger story. The more we follow the characters journey to me the easier it is to understand what is going on in the story because you have more images to go off of and it becomes less cryptic.