I found it interesting how McCloud described that the combination of text and images is viewed as less “great” than either of them alone. I definitely agree with his observations, and it made me wonder if it is because using both text and images makes the art/writing too easy to comprehend. I feel like the idea of “great art” has always been very exclusionary and works of writing or art praised as masterpieces are often the most difficult to understand. If the inaccessibility of art is what makes it prestigious, maybe comics are considered less so because combining text and images allows for easy communication.

I also really liked how McCloud described the different ways that text and images can work together in a comic panel. Even though I’ve never been an avid comic reader, I was able to recognize almost all of the examples he used. I particularly enjoyed the example comic panel scenario at the end—-it was cool to see how altering either the images or the text could drastically reframe the tone and mood of the story, and I personally really enjoyed when text and images amplified or paralleled each other rather than deliver the same message.