Understanding Comics

In Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud he wants to explain how involved and intelligent comics have become.

First, the way Scott tells us the story is presented in comic form. I think this is super intelligent because what better way to inform people on comics then with a comic format. So out of everything he presented the most interesting topic for me was the thought of time and space involved with comics. Our mind will actually piece together every frame and even if there are two different narratives going on. The best example he had was around the idea of how the comic is presented, where a monitor is the base of viewing the comic. My favorite presentation is the one where there are two different comic strips running parallel to each other which the stories are being told in different areas, but exist in the same universe and time. That opens a whole new world of story telling, there’s a really good example of this in modern television. The hit show Breaking Bad has a spin off show called Better Call Saul, which is presented to us as a prequel to Breaking Bad. Our brain tells us that even though this story Breaking Bad hasn’t happened yet we still believe it as the same universe.  Therefore, Scott wants us to understand the possibilities of story telling and the thought of being able to understand a dual story that exist at the same time. Something that is really interesting about this idea is the possibility of the two stories meeting up at some point and having the story be resolved or even furthered with the past knowledge the story teller gives us. Another TV show that pushes the idea of different dimensions and several stories that are being told at the same time and how some stories affect other is Rick and Morty. There is a episode that has several dimensions that have different time lines where are different because the character has a different personality.

To wrap up my ideas, I think that the idea of several stories being told at the same time is something that comics and story telling can really benefit from. It makes our brains really work to understand the significance of each time lineage of each different story.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a really interesting comic, because of its context. The whole story is told by pictures and and no writing. Shaun depicts a story of a man in need of escape, he abandons his domain which is a horrible spiky dark place. After he leaves he enters a beautiful mysterious setting with lots of other travelers. The story definitely has to relate to refugees who are harassed to the point where they must flee to feel save.

The way the story is laid out is genius, he has a repetitive manor in the size of the images. He is keeping the tiles consistent and flowing to keep the reader attention. When the main character enters the new place he is confronted by so many strange creatures and beautifully constructed buildings. It almost immediately makes the reader understand what this man is going through. He is consistently talking to people by sketchbook and images. Whenever he is lost he confronts someone to guide him through relatable images, just like the artist is doing for us. The story heavily relies on how images have a cross language understanding. The way the story is so successful is because how our brain relates images to certain actions that can tell a story without words or explanation. At the beginning of the story the man is packing up and leaving his home and the images around it tell us that it isn't a pleasant leave. There is a spiky monster weaving through the town, the monster is dark and covers most of the image. The first couple images set up the whole story for us, because our brains relate suitcases with traveling or leaving what you are comfortable with. Thats why I think this story is so easy to read, because even though most of us have never gone through that we understand the imagery and all the composition elements to make us feel a certain way.

Body language is a really big factor in this story. Shaun adds several sequences of different faces that have been affected by the same thing the main character is going through as well. After these sequences we start to really understand why this man left his original home and moved to this magical place. I think the imagery Shaun created for the new city was really appropriate, he was obviously really inspired by silent films. In silent films there is over exaggerated actions and movement to tell the audience what is happening really easily.