Comics With Scott Mccloud Scott

¶ … Comics with Scott McCloud

Scott McCloud's 1993 illustrated work of non-fiction is an unusually clever approach to its selected subject matter. It has a meta-reference quality to it, offering a professional overview of the art of comics, using comic illustrations and linguistic nuances in order to provide a text which is equally explanatory and demonstrative in its approach.

Based on the content and resolutions raised in Chapter Seven, McCloud's book may be assessed as an active blueprint for understanding both the process and the emphasis which enter into the art form. The topic of this chapter is the Six Steps to effective comic art. This gives McCloud the chance to delineate his assessment that such matters as Idea and Form help to justify and classify art and artists. In the field of comics, the emphasis taken by the artist on one or the other, McCloud contends, will help to define this comic artist with the context of his medium.

This is an assessment with McCloud seems to offer to the newcomer in the field. For such an individual, the premise is that a preeminent interest in form, for instance, is found in cartoonists who "are often pioneers and revolutionaries -- artists who want to shake things up." (McCloud, 179) This explanation underscores the author's purpose, which is to help comic artists or prospective comic artists to identify the connections between comic art theory and the manner in which these individuals pursue the mode of expression. This discussion finds that in Chapter Seven, the author succeeds at offering a step-by-step explanation of the elements which constitute an artistic theory on the subject.

This discussion is given greater foundation by the definitional intent of Chapter One. In the first chapter of this text, McCloud introduces both his subject and his purpose, cleverly delineating the definition of comics through the medium itself. There is a palpable clarity in the author's meaning when he notes that comics can be so much more than the work of limited intellect and childish appeal which is expected by non-readers. Indeed, by immediately demonstrating the intent to create a comic strip-based explanation of the field of comic through corresponding exposition and illustration, the author both contends and shows that comics can have purpose, intelligence and even depth.

This chapter is driven by the topic of providing definition for the term comic. The author succeeds well at breaching this subject, using the simplicity of language and the emotional appeal of his cartoon characters to introduce the uninitiated to the selected subject matter. McCloud describes comics according to the words of "Master comics artist Will Eisner," who "uses the term sequential art when describing comics. Taken individually, the pictures below [as shown in the comic] are merely that -- pictures." (McCloud, 5) the author goes on to contend that when sequenced, even with only two images instead of one, the 'art of comics emerges.' The core impetus for this definitional discussion is the claim that will be supported throughout the text concerning the conceptualization of comic drawing as warranting serious critical assessment.