Scott McCloud

A theoretical vocabulary for comics! Callooh callay! in some ways this should have been called "Making Comics", with the heavy focus on the creative process and creative integrity, especially in the later chapters (I see McCloud has a later book actually called that, so I guess it's clear he continued to think in those terms). But the first chapters almost have a claim to style themselves "Understanding the Protagonist" or even "Understanding the Self", with all the stuff about masking and show more seeing other people as photorealistic but keeping the image of the self suspended as a cartoon. It's true, I say. And I like the way he can be theoretical like that and still break it down for us on topics like panel transitions in anime v. western comics, or the origin of the four-colour process in technological and price constraints. Overall this makes me wish I'd never read a comic, so I could pick one up and see what it'd be like to go in fresh, armed only with this as a manual. show less

G loves Raina Telgemeier's books and has read ALL of them (we also own all of them), plus she has read the Cat Kid Comic Club books dozens of times. So I pre-ordered this one but she didn't get around to reading it until this week. She asked me lots of questions while she was reading (do people have symmetrical faces?) and shared Lynda's comic (oh, mommy, this is so sad!). When she finished it she sat it on my desk.

There's always a stack of her books left in my office everyday, but they're show more usually contained to the daybed where she sits after school (or theatre camp because SUMMER!) to have a snack, do her reading, and snuggle the pets. So to have her sit one on my desk is not normal, so I inquired.

"Mommy, I think you'll like this one, you should read it."

So I did.

Reader, I cried. It is bonkers how well my kid knows me. This book features a librarian and kids following their dreams, learning to make mistakes ,and people supporting them (even when they think they might not have the support of their adult). Art's room was full of SO MANY HOBBIES and his parents just let him fail over and over again and Art kept trying and learning. Plus I learned so much about creating comics — I could've used this primer when reading Kavalier and Clay decades ago.

There's a list of memoirs ("do you think they really remember everything they put in their memoirs? do you think it's all true and it really happened?") that G was so excited to see, she called out all of the books that she's read and I'm sure she'll be looking for the one's she hasn't read (comic memoirs tend to be the books she reads over and over again like Four Eyes, The Tryout, Real Friends, and, of course, Smile). show less

I'd been meaning to read this one since it was first published in 1993, when a number of people I knew who were really into comics kept recommending it very strongly. Well, I am glad to have finally gotten around it it, even if I am a few decades late!

I was sort of expecting most of this to be an explanation of the nitty-gritty details of how the comics format works. How comics artists incorporate speech bubbles or arrange panels to draw your eye in the right direction, that sort of thing. show more There is some of that, but it's actually much, much broader in scope, looking at comics (or "sequential art") as an art form, placing it in the history of art, talking about the unique features of the format and how we perceive them and the wide array of things artists can do with them. McCloud gets very philosophical in places, and I'm not sure how I feel about all of his ideas, but they're all at least really thought-provoking and interesting. And well and engagingly presented, too. McCloud uses the format itself to aptly demonstrate his points, as well as including examples from the work of others.

I can see why people who care passionately about comics as an art form regarded it as a must-read (and probably still do, although I imagine it no longer stands nearly alone as a serious discussion of comics as art, the way it did in the 90s). And even for someone like me, who is a much more casual and occasional sampler of comics and graphic novels, it's still definitely worth reading. Or, you know, doing all the complicated perceptual things that happen in my brain when perusing this combination of pictures and words. show less

I have Scott McCloud's brilliant 1990s books "Understanding Comics" and "Reinventing Comics," and thought he'd be a great editor for the 2014 best-of collection, but boy, was I wrong. What disappointed me about this book? Let me count. First, the absolute lack of surprise in the selections. He starts with the established greats: Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, Adrian Tomine, and R. Crumb. But I, like everybody else, have been reading these authors for decades, and show more these selections in no way show anything new or different in their current work, with the possible exception of R. and Aline Crumb's X-rated "senior sex" piece, which I desperately wish I could un-see. (I'm 52. I don't have that long to wait. I'll wait.) Second, of all the new artists I was exposed to in this book, I can count only one that struck me as interesting enough, different enough, and well-executed enough to make me seek out more. It's no exaggeration to say that I was over halfway through the book, which I read from cover to cover, before I found a piece I enjoyed. And I wouldn't have picked up a book of current comics if I didn't enjoy comics. Everything I *dislike* about comics was here in abundance: the pathetic chronicles of depression, the sad childhood memoir, the pointless angst, the wild, ungrounded experimentation, the clichéd situations, and the weirdness for the sake of weirdness. What I like about comics was mostly missing: the shock of recognition, the unexpected perspectives, the fresh expressions of life-affirming humanity, and the just plain gorgeous art. (As I mentioned, with at least one exception.) Jaime Hernandez's wonderful cover art just doesn't match what's inside, in tone or in quality. And McCloud's frequent, annoying begging of the reader to bear with him, read straight through, and not skip over things didn't pay off. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. But be warned. show less