Scott McCloud talks about comics in his Comic Book: Understanding Comics. He starts off with a panel depicting him talking to his friend about the book we are currently reading, and I absolutely love this panel. I think it is hilarious how his friend responded and I think its a great way to introduce what his book is about.
McCloud points out that the word Comics should refer to the medium of Comics itself -- NOT JUST COMIC BOOKS. I think this is very important distinction to make! Comics are a huge genre that is used in many different ways! For example, the comic strips in the newspaper are completely different from the Batman comics! BTW, I own my fair share of Batman Comics, so I should know! But overall, my point is that Comics are really amazing and I fully agree that they are a vessel that artists can use to make any idea come to life! Now, I don't think the final definition of comics are very important, but I guess that it is important to explain how a comic is different from other mediums of art - espeically since we did take the comic books and make it into television shows and movies.
Time Frames
Now, I really enjoy comic books, but I have never given much thought to how time works in a comic book. As McCloud points out that between the frozen moments in the panels, OUR OWN BRAINS fill in the motion and time passing by. Its all a big illusion, which I have never realized! This means that technically people can have different interpretations for how a movement or time played out if it is explicited written out.
McCloud also mentions how we read the comics from left and right and so comics will use that to make reactions go from left and right. This is really interesting to me because I also read manga and I read that from right to left, so sometimes I actually read the panel wrong and that causes my preception of time to be off as well.
Aside from that, I never realized how important the panel borders are. They represent divisions in time, but because we also take time to read, sometimes they are not needed like the image below.
Color in Comics
Now, I have read comics in black and white, espcially because the comic strips in the newspaper are typically black and white, and I have read comics in full color. I personally really like comics in full color. I think really brings everything a bit for to life! However, I never given thought about why some comics are in some color while others are in full color. Now, I know it is because of commerce and technology. Comics are ofcourse involved with business because it takes money to produce them. Thus, using colors in comics means having more costs to produce the comic. Comics did start to use color though because it definitely boosted sales as well.
However, colors were not there to make the comic more expressive, but some colors did become very iconic - especially ones with superheroes.
Comic Books Coming Together
To conclude, comic books are absolutely amazing because they are a medium in which we can communicate. This is important because we really did live in a world of isolation and then COVID-19 happened, and we got even more isolated then before! Comic Books won't expressed everything an author will want, but it does send the reader a message, and in a way that message is completely unique to the reader.
In the end, just like McCloud says, there is truly endless possibilites for comic books!
