Friday, 12 January 2018

Research: Scott McCloud - Understanding comics talk

Scott McCloud on Understanding Comics from Jared Hester on Vimeo.

I can’t believe it has taken me so long to refer to McCloud. Back when I was considering figureheads of industries, he should have been my choice for comics. Scott has both published comics, and books on the subject of making comics. These guiding books are a cornerstone to learning about comics, in the industry they can do no wrong. For this research I will refer to his Ted talk. I have read his books, but they concern more about the process of making comics, whereas the talk was made after the book, when web comics were just emerging. Speaking of which, I should really talk about web comics.

  • “watch for patterns - this is where visions of the future start to manifest themselves
  • “Comics are a visual medium, but they try to embrace all the senses within it”
  • Refers to future of “post print comics”
  • “Including motion and sound breaks the continuity of presentation”
  • “Is there any way to preserve that special relationship whilst still taking advantage of what digital has to offer us?”
  • “Don’t look at the monitor as a page, look at it as a window. I propose we create these comics on an infinite canvas


He strikes me as a forward thinking person, speaking about the potential of web comics before they became a prominent method. Alongside this he displays a great sense of criticality on the subject, noting the cons before they even became apparent, and suggesting different approaches.

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