VISUAL RHETORIC AND DESIGN: McCloud Favorite Frame?

August 27, 2003

McCloud Favorite Frame?

Hello everyone and welcome to our first blogging session. For today you have read Chapter 2 in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, yes? Please leaf through this chapter and pick out your favorite "frame" (or place) in this chapter that caused you to go "OH wow" or that forced your lingering attention. I found any number of such places, even on my third or fourth reading, but just pick one for now. Using this smallish space, talk about this frame and why you think it is significant.

When you are finished--respond to someone.

PS--if you didn't bring your book, try to remember and do the best you can . . . . or wrest a book away from a classmate for a moment.

Posted by sromano at August 27, 2003 08:17 AM

Comments

I'd have to say it was the Herge frames, which may not really count as a "real" frame, since they were more sub-frames used as an example of what McCloud meant by a more abstract character set against a more concrete background to encourage reader buy in.

The reason this popped out at me is because I grew up on the English translations of Tintin. I have since branched out into Gaiman, Ellis, Ennis, Moore, Loeb, Miller, and others, but Herge is where I started my experience with graphic novels (my preferred term), and even now, two decades later, I still re-read them from time to time. So this is a familiarity issue - I bring to the book an extensive history with Herge's work which allows me to more deeply consider, and understand, McCloud's point. Of course, I then start trying to compare it to other artists.... And then I want to go re-read my collections, starting with David Mack's Kabuki, which may not be the best bet. Ah hmm.

HTH.

Posted by: Kathleen Hardy at August 27, 2003 12:37 PM

I liked the frames explaining why we are drawn to comics, or rather, why comics draw us in. I had never considered the simplicity argument before, that the more undefined the graphic, the more we put ourselves into the graphic.

Neat stuff!

Posted by: T.J. at August 27, 2003 12:53 PM

Like T.J., I also liked the frames explaining our ability to immerse ourselves in an abstracted world of comics. Particularly, the frame at the bottom of page 48 caught my attention in that it illustrates efficiently and effectively the concept of abstraction.

Posted by: eli.n. at August 27, 2003 01:00 PM

I was drawn to the series frames that lead up to McCloud's assertion that language is the ultimate abstraction of images. Thinking of language as completely separate from images, it was interesting to see the two linked along a scale of realism and abstraction.

Posted by: Melody Gee at August 27, 2003 01:01 PM

I was looking at car advertisements last week, so the page illustrating how we see ourselves (page 33, I think) in objects caught my attention. I have been interested for a while in how individuals & marketing campaigns assign personalities to things like cars.

Posted by: Rob at August 27, 2003 01:08 PM

Like TJ, I had never considered the fact that simplicity in images actually enhances an image's iconic/symbolic value.

I thought the :| face was a very good example of this. When thinking back on the times in my own life that I've read comics, I realized that it really was much easier for me to identify with the cartoonish types of characters and expressions than with the more realistic types.

I also realized that I got more "meaning" out of the more cartoonish ones. Whether that meaning was humorous, ironic, cynical, or serious, I actually *felt* the author's message. I didn't just comprehend or process the message in my mind, I *felt* it emotionally.

Posted by: Leah at August 27, 2003 01:17 PM

The final frame on page 36 gave me the most pause. Had the author sketched himself in such great detail throughout the chapter, I would not have paid as much attention (as he suggests). This one simple frame drew together (for me) the concepts of face, and extension & universal identification discussed throughout the chapter. I could identify more easily with the simplistic drawing of the author, and never questioned that behind the round circles on his cheeks were indeed eyes. McCloud's fuller sketch of himself filled in blanks such as glasses with such specificty that it took him from the anonymous to the known, from the universal to the singular. Having the information imparted by the more simplistic drawing makes the tone of the information appear more general as well, since the "source" (by that I mean the auther's representation of himself rather than the actual author) has universal appeal. This thought led me to question whether I would have not only listened to but accepted his ideas if they had been presented by a less universal looking character (probably not as much).

Posted by: Karyn at August 27, 2003 01:17 PM

Ok...Let me see...This comment is in regards to the McCloud Chapter 2 assignment. The frame that made me go "oh wow" is on pages 35-36 just because the author was articulating something that I have never been able to in a decipherable fashion! In this area I was paying more attention to the text becuase it was going more into mind-pictures, psychology, and such.

The frame that had my lingering attention the longest is the one on page 26. There are all sorts of cute little random pictures all over the place. I was scanning around trying to find meaning by adding one picture to the next. It wasn't until I read the text that I made sense of it all.

This assignment shows me that I am a bit biased in thinking that text will have more complex theories/ideas and that pictures will have less to say! Since a child, academic learning has been pretty much linear, where you start with picture books then move to very textual matter such as novels. Letters can be pictures too, no?

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