Some notes on  Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics
Jim Davis
Feb 2000

Comics defined as juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and or produce an aesthetic effect.

sequence means that McCloud won't address much the relation between a
single image and text.

cartooning is a graphic style.  McCloud's definition admits of comics
composed of successive still photographs, or successive "high art"
paintings.  (But not movies, as the individual images are no longer seen as
distinct).

icons
 symbols for concepts
 pictures are icons that resemble their referents

a cartoon amplifies some details while removing others.

The degree of iconification affects the identification with subject.  more
iconified characters are easier to identify with, because they are more
abstract.  McCloud also has a theory of self-perception, in which one's
self-image is more abstract (since one does not see oneself much, as
compared to seeing others) and than a cartoon hence resembles one's
self-image more closely.

iconic pictures can be more conceptual and universal.  One style of comics draws comparatively simple human figures in a complex graphical world.

closure: seeing a part, perceieving the whole.

Gutter: space (and hence elapsed time) between frames.  Events occur (or are inferred to occur) in this gutter.

There is closure in inferring the scene and in the action.  (this closure
was also shown by the Kuloshov experiments, where the film-maker can convey
a synthetic location or person just by showing parts)

McCloud compares closure to that in film (p 69).  comics closure happens more often and is more essential.  "The reader's *deliberate, voluntary closure* is comics *primary* means of simulating time and motions" (p 69, panel 4)

types of transitions:
 panel to panel
 action to action (same subject)
 subject to subject
 scene to scene
 aspect to aspect (different views of the same thing as the same time)

"No other art form gives so much to its audience while asking so much from them as well" (p 92 p 3)

A single frame in a comic often shows an extent of time,  it is not just an instant snapshot, using a complex set of visual conventions.

How can words and pictures combine? (p 152)

* pictures illustrate but dont add to a largely complete self-sufficient text
* words "add a soundtrack" to a visually told sequence
* they can be redundant
* additive - words amplify or elaborate image or vice versa
* parallel - no obvious relation at all
* montage
* interdependent - both needed