In chapter 2, McCloud talks not only about how cartoons often simplify the real world but also about two consequences that I’ve never consciously realized before. First, he suggests the idea of amplification through simplification, which now makes a lot of sense to me why cartoons are often a lot more recognizable to me than real faces. It’s interesting that when we eliminate so much detail and noise, that we can be left with focusing on specific details and signal. Additionally, McCloud talks about why he draws himself in a simple style with mainly just lines and the effect (or lack of effect) it would have on a reader. I realize that the simplification of his character helps me focus more on his message than figuring out who he is as a messenger and helps prevent the context of who he is/my judgment of him to change the way I perceive his message.

In chapter 5, I thought it was interesting that even though the reading/comic is in black and white (and McCloud mentions the “power of line, shape, and color to suggest the inner state of the artist and provoke the five sense”), I was still able to understand the intended emotions/senses through just the lines and shapes without color. Looking through the various examples from different comics that McCloud shows, I was surprised at how just changing the thickness of a line, the angle at which it is drawn, and other properties of a line, it gives a comic a distinct feel from another comic and one is able to produce an huge diversity of sentiments/convey a full range of emotions.