Boy, that's a nicely academic-esque title. Ahem.
So, Corona was originally introduced into the market in the same brown-glass type bottle most beers come in (protects the contents from light-encouraged deterioration), yah? And didn't sell well. (I mean, come on, it's not exactly the best thing out there.) So. Rather than improve the product - brew a better beer - Corona went for a cheaper solution:
Clear glass bottles.
Sales improved.
All they did was put the old (questionable) liquid into a new package. And people bought it. What is it about "new" packaging that we're so attracted to, anyway?
Food for thought. Actually, food for /my/ thought since this lets the subconscious spend a few minutes deciding how to design the spreadsheet I'm supposed to be doing right now....
HTH.
Archives are fixed and rebuilt, so they should work.
If you use AOL's instant messenger at home, and would like it to notify you when this blog updates, add it to you buddy list, open instant messenger to blogchangebot and type 'subscribe www.theanswergrape.com/asblog/'.
When weblogs.com updates its recently-updated weblogs page, you should be nofified via IM when the blog is updated.
My favorite panels (p.32 and 33) were McCloud's visual examples of our representations of ourselves in objects. The readiness with which we give objects, animals and even places human characteristics seems to really change perceptions of what would be a comparatively lifeless thing to my eyes.
I was drawn to the ideas presented on page 38 on our unconscious ability to seamlessly connect our mental and physical state to inantimate objects. The observation that an object apart from ourselves becomes an extension of ourselves is so often overlooked, especially as we continue to simplify these objects in our mind. As I type, the keyboard, the monitor and eventually the online message board become extensions of both my mind and body. This gives me a perspective on the images and concepts created in my mind, and how they transfer to my senses.
I was struck by the fact that I couldn't see the basic face as anything other than a face. I tried to switch my brain to view it as separate shapes (circle, dots, line) but I still grouped them together as "face."
I also was interested in some of the techniques comic artists use. Comics are pretty foreign to me, so it was cool to see some of the elements I've observed explained. Example: characters designed simply "to assist in reader identification." Other characters/objects drawn realistically "in order to objectify them, emphasizing their OTHERNESS from the reader."
The colors was the first the first thing that caught my eye on the page, and then the images on the page. The color red on the left page, and then the large white lettering of the Title was attention grabbing. The butterflies are prettier and saw that first before the caterpillers, even though the caterpillars are much larger.
I believe that the frame pretaining to the use of icons as a possible universal language in the future is very interesting. Mcloud focuses on the simplicity of language when details are removed. I think this is important because icons do help to, or completely break through the language barrier. An example I thought of was the pre-historic cave paintings. The images are very simple and make it easy to understand what pre-historic life revolved around. For example, when they paint a deer in which they would hunt, it is easy to see that they were hunting a deer or some creature related to a deer. Any one observing these paintings could see that the icon was not a horse or a bear but some kind of deer. This shows how icons from thousands of years ago communicate and translate pre-historic ideas and language to people in the 20th and 21st century.
I stopped reading and stared at the four frames that begin with "Humans are a self centered race" (p. 32). The majority of the reading seemed light-hearted. The concepts were great, but the visual impact was light. The black backgrounds of these four frames created enough contrast to stop my eye and make me look. The arrangement of the frames, especially the electrical socket set across the spine with his line-drawing face, amplified the impact of a few simple images.
I am struck by the frames that repeatedly make their point by turning a specific man into as generic a face as I can imagine. One line, two dots, and a circle. No emotion, no ethnicity, no gender, no identity. Truly a canvas that the cartoonist uses to speak volumes. I had never before thought much about cartooning in this way. I am intrigued by the avenues for exploration that this opens for me.
The idea that Scott McCloud set forth on self projection into cartoons was extremely interesting to me. It makes sense that the less detail a cartoon has, the more we put "ourselves" into it. When I was a kid, I hated Prince Valliant in the Sunday comics because it was too real looking, and I couldn't identify with it. This made it very boring.
I never thought about it before.... but Comics ARE the perfect form of visual rhetoric.
I NEVER read Comics as I was growing up. It wasn't untill I was grown, and out of my home that I started reading them as entertainment. I quickly fell in love with Japanese Comics... known in the West as Manga.
With in a few short months, I found my self immersed in the the pop sub-culture that was Manga in the US... and it wasn't much longer than that that I was actually teaching children and interesed parents about the culture, and indeed the iconography of Japanese Manga, and its associated artform, Anime. Looking closely at Manga and Anime, a person will see that there is a rich multitude of unique cultural iconography within Manga.
Chopsticks
I like the idea presented in a frame on page 28 that words are completely abstract icons. It is funny that we use such concrete symbols to represent things that they don't really resemble at all. I think it's interesting that as we travel through levels of abstraction, reality is pretty much left behind and we are left to our own devices when making decisions about the meanings of things. The concepts presented in this chapter challenge our ideas about language and meaning.
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.