Saturday, January 26, 2008
Understanding Comics
This article discusses the definition of comics and then basically spends the whole rest of the article adding to the definition, and in my mind criticizing it. It brings to light how so many different things that our out there could be included in the broad category of comics, however on the other hand many of these works would like to remain separate from being called that due to the fact that it is sometimes seen as a derogatory thing. After reading this article, one thing I definitely took away from it was the fact that those one block illustrations which are so common in papers or magazines, are not in fact comics as many people refer to them as, because they are not sequential. Towards the end of the piece it also discusses how the generation’s view of comics and how they should be created is a constantly changing thing. What one person views as a comic may be the exact opposite of another.
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3 comments:
I agree with what you said in your post about how people's perception of the comic can be so different. It's interesting to find out what people define as a comic and what is not a comic if you just randomly ask them, and what the actual definition of a comic book is. Finding out that the one-shot comics we always see in newspapers are actually not comics was also pretty interesting too, seeing how I thought that anything with a picture and some one-liner was a comic.
I felt like rather than criticizing comics and their definition he was more playing a question and answer game with himself, bringing up problems in the definition and then correcting the definition to solve these problems.
By giving you a definition and then "criticizing" it, i think McCloud is trying to show you how vast the genre of graphic novels is, showing that ist not something that you can box up. And with any new form peopl are going to shy away becuase its not established yet. You know all the great literature wasn't considered great until a lot of time passed, there was a time an author would have been insulted if there work had been compared to the Bronte's. I mean some of the greatest books have been or are on the Banned Book list. So over time I think more works will be open to being tied to the graphic novel form. I mean it takes time to be great.
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