Understanding Comics The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud

Sequential Art is its own major at other colleges and this book is really proof why. As shown in the book on page 48, one might be a master at realistic drawing or a ground-breaking proficient writer, yet lack the skills to meet along the scale to which comics are made. That being said the idea/purpose to surface section really did not click with me. I think I saw the words and understood them, but the actual content did not click with me. I cannot tell if it is my own ignorance that does not want to hear it, or if I just need to be older/more seasoned to understand. I just switched majors and that aspect of truly never reaching the core of art really struck me. What if I am only doing things for the structure of it all?

If I am honest, I have a silent dread of Art Philosophy and the abstract. Perhaps, it is because I like to feel grounded or just click with something immediately. More likely, it is because I accidentally took an Art Philosophy course when I was 15 and my professor really enjoyed picking apart every argument we had. Damien, if you are reading this, I am only mad because you are right.  I digress, but it did make me rethink comics upon the lines of why do I relate to this. "This is not..." and Icons really remind me of that deep, challenging conceptual art. Are these words? Pictures of lines? or just pixels on your screen? In fact, the mask stuff McCloud goes into makes me question my own physical forms attachment to my brain. Perhaps, that is why most people like Disney princesses. They relate to them, because they see themselves there and not another face. Perhaps the focus of detail being in the location rather than the people is what made the world building so immersive. Yet, it makes me wonder what all these live action remakes are now doing to our previous thoughts upon what a character looks like?

When McCloud made himself realistic on page 36, it did bother me, but in a good way. He was right. I had a concept for him already. He was just voice in my head. I do not even know what he sounds like... and is that not amazing that I already had made a singular purpose for him? I fit his icon into my world.  As said in the book, I absorbed the content into my identity and made it an extension of my body. I used to be in Computer Animation. Whenever there was something wrong with our characters, we would talk like it is wrong with us. For example, "Oh, My eye lashes still need to be attached." I always thought it was a possession thing, but maybe it truly is part of us in an abstract sense.