Piece of You

While reading Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics,” there were two concepts that really stuck out to me.  I have never been a big comic buff, in fact, I cannot recall ever reading one before this book.

The first concept was the thought of being such a self-centered race that we see ourselves in everything.  In the book he has a picture of a car, a parmesan cheese container, and a generic circle with two dots and a line.  I found myself able to see a face in each one, and I would be lying if I said I have not seen faces in certain images before.  However, I saw a face, not myself.  I didn’t feel related to that car in the least bit. I do agree that we are self centered in the sense that things that we use become extensions of ourselves.  It was interesting to see that the more realistic an image became the more I took notice of it, not because I didn’t see myself, but because it had it’s own personality and qualities to focus on.  The author says that if himself were more realistic the reader would be less focused on the message and more focused on the messenger.  I think out of the whole book, that is the statement that stuck the most out to me and I agree.  He goes on to say that I would start to wonder details about this realistic person such as what his politics are or where he got his outfit.  Would we be less interested if things like comics were more realistic?  I think yes, but not because the story is not about me.  Now, if you were to go and create a cartoon of me with my picture, I might be able to relate a little more (see link below).  Otherwise, it’s just another person.

Another concept that really stood out to me was the chapter on reading the gutters.  The gutter is the space in between the two pictorials (for more vocab see the link below).  The first example was of a man with a raised ax saying “now you die” and a man in front of him screaming no with a terrified look on his face.  The next panel shows a dark city with “EEYAA!!” written across it.  It is our imagination that takes those two separate images and transforms them into a single idea.  At first I concluded that the ax man must have killed the other man.  After reading the chapter, I went back and said to myself “wow, I am gruesome.”  For all I know the man with the ax was yelling because he cut down a tree next to him and it took a lot of effort.  I as the reader made the crime occur in my own style.  The story was my own.  Does every person that reads something have a completely different view?

Vocab – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_vocabulary

Cartoon Me – http://www.cartoonme.com/en/

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