Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels (original 2006; edition 2006)

Art-focused, but learned a lot either way. ( )

Interesting to learn more about what makes comic art good or bad. Very informative. ( )

This is the third in a series of massive comic books about the art and theory of comic books, following Understanding Comics (1993) and Reinventing Comics (2001). In this book, Mr. McCloud sets out to provide the bedrock principles for making great comics: clarity and communication (including five choices a comic artist must make - moment, frame, image, word, and flow); connecting to readers through character design, facial expressions, and body language; the power of combining words with pictures; world building; tools, techniques, and technology; and understanding different genres. He ingeniously accomplishes all this through the comic medium itself, inventively illustrating his points and referring to other comic artists, past and present. One particularly intriguing part of the book was the discussion on how manga differs from Western comics (with its use of iconic characters, frequent use of wordless panels, strong sense of place, subjective motion, and genre maturity), and how it has influenced current artists. The selected bibliography also provides a great starting point for excellent technical books on drawing comics and more information on manga. ( )

Won the 2007 Quill Award and the 2007 ALA Great Graphic Novels for Teens Award. Brilliant blend of written text and visuals. Each chapter begins with about a page of written text info to set it up, and ends with written text notes and exercises for the reader, but in between is the graphic novel format to explain all the details of the comic writing process. ( )

Reaction: Wow! A similar reading experience to Understanding Comics, I couldn’t put this informational book down! The entire text is written in a cartoon format, helping the reader immerse herself into the comic book world, and fully understand McCloud’s teaching points. Any teen or adult would find this text fascinating and very useful, especially if pursuing an art career. ( )