Judged by the Standards of the Old
It’s interesting to see how McCloud compares the development of movies and TV to comics, and all media in general. Each begins by adding on or making a slight alteration to existing media, but eventually people get creative and learn how to push the boundaries of this new medium. Comics and graphic novels definitely get less credit as a creative medium because they’re generally seen as a sub-genre of books. Because of this, a graphic novel like Watchmen, which is a fantastic piece of both literature and art, is judged by the same standards one would use to judge something like War and Peace and thus rather than be praised as a top-tier comic, Watchmen is rated as a slightly above par novel. Historically, it’s been thought that words and images dilute each other when combined, that text dumbs down art by telling too much and images dumb down text by showing too much. I’ve always been told that in creating good art that I should show and not tell, but McCloud says “Why not both?” There is great explanatory power in using images and text interchangeably.
The Gutter
The idea of the Gutter is fascinating to me. I didn’t realize just how much work I do subconsciously while reading a comic, and it never would have occurred to me that comic artists put so much deliberation into how they frame their images in relation to the Gutter. It’s the panel outside of the panel. Closely related to this idea of deciding what is shown and what is implied is the way comic artists sequence their panels.
Sequencing Panels
Comics have a unique place in art because they allow the artist a lot more power to force the viewer to see certain images in a particular sequence. When combined with words, the author can force any number of images into the same moment in time, or shift immediately between two moments far apart in time. When the panels are very different the words are the connector, when the words are different, the panels are the connector. It’s very much like the way bones and muscles rely on each other in the body- the muscles articulate and link the bones, the bones provide the structure on which the muscles act, but neither can exist independently.
Montage in Comics
The way McCloud describes non-sequitur panel sequences made me think of Eisenstein’s theory of montage. Unrelated or opposing images are presented with the result of producing a completely new thought. This is similar to Jon Berger’s discussion of how context changes our understanding of a piece of art. Discordant images shown in sequence all effect the context of each other, creating a new understanding of the whole. Click here for more on Eisenstein’s theory of Montage