In the reading for today’s class, McCloud covers several concepts towards understanding comics as an art form and how we can better interpret them.

In chapter 2, McCloud covers several concepts towards the representation of icons in comics. One concept that really stood out to me was how McCloud pointed out how we see ourselves in everything. I found this a really fascinating concept because I do think humans tend to design in a way that reflects ourselves; however, I didn’t agree with all of McCloud’s ideas. Though the examples drawn for the car lights, plugs, etc. definitely reflected the human face, I think McCloud exaggerates to some degree how much we really self-insert ourselves. The exercise McCloud mentions with drawing the faces onto blobs I did not identify this, or I at least saw it as a reach. I do agree with the concept of us seeing inanimate objects as part of ourselves when we think about vehicles/machinery we control or the clothes we wear, but McCloud seems to suggest that even inanimate objects like cups start possessing separate identities in comics and I don’t think I’ve seen this except in the case of the author actually animating that object (think the furniture in Beauty and the Beast). Overall, however, I do like this conception of how we see ourselves reflected and identified in the world around us and how a comic rendering helps us visualize that.

In chapter 5, McCloud talks about the role of lines, shapes, and patterns and the role they play in comics. I really liked the discussion of word balloons. The representation of speech through nonverbal ways is super interesting to me – how authors describe it in words, versus how realistic artists illustrate details of expressions, versus the use of different textures in word balloons by comic artists to convey tones. In this way, sound becomes a visual medium. I think the transition into using word balloons to represent even nonverbal gestures is particularly interesting in how we conflate our senses with each other.