Scott McCloud explained that comics, or "picture manuscripts," go as far back as ancient Egyptian times in chapter 1. I would have never guessed - but if one considers McCloud's definition of comics: "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer," then his claim that ancient calligraphy are comics would be true. Comics truly have a wide variety of genres. McCloud made it clear that comics are not only about super-heroes and silly romance in the first chapter of his graphic novel. This way McCloud eliminates the readers judgment and stereotyping of comics, in order to make them curious and continue to read, or at least look at the pictures.
As I rarely read comics, it was difficult for me to focus on McCloud's text and his message at times. I found myself scanning the pictures, rather than reading the text some times, just as I did with the two Beowulf graphic novels. I made a copy of the vocabulary page from one of the books, because I found that interesting. I also wanted copies of pages with text on them, because the text was old and a kind I would rarely find. However, I again found myself reading the story more through its pictures than its words. The intense and symbolic color in the Beowulf novel's was definately more enticing and understandable than its diction.
1 comment:
Maria, I'm glad to see you thinking so carefully about McCloud's ideas. We will have many opportunities to use McCloud's ideas as we come up on our first graphic novel. Good blogging so far!
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