Writing about Comics Part 1

Growing up, I never was into reading comics, they always reminded me of some sort of action hero stories, like Batman or Spider man, which didn't appeal to me. Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, is the first comic book I ever read. The positive aspect is that it teaches the reader how to understand and interpret comics, but I don't have a lot of experience in that, so this was all new information to me. At first this book was hard to read, not because of the text or language, but because of the way you have to read the words in a comic. The lines and bubbles were hard for me to read without getting distracted and wandering off to the drawings. I caught myself completely forgetting where I was at, and what the topic was about! After a few chapters of practice, I was able to get the hang of things and found myself flowing through the reading much easier, and enjoying it as well. I thought a lot of the illustrations were helpful and noticed the words changed for me with the illustrations.

I found a comic strip off the web using the site onlinecomics.net. This site allows you to read different comics, which are categorized either by genre or style. The comic that I found interesting is called Croaker's Gorge by Steven Ogden. This is about a boy who moves from the city to the country, and meets a bunch of smart-alec talking animals living in a polluted swamp behind his house. This comic is for people of all ages. This comic reminds me of when I was younger, and my parents taking my brothers and I on vacation up north. We hated it, couldn't wait to get back to the city life, we always were so bored! The boy in Croaker's Gorge hates moving there, and the animals don't make it much easier. I think it's hilarious.

The scene that I want to talk about in relation to McCloud is funny, and I chose this because it resembles the format for the comic that we have to create in class. Take a look at it right here. There are 3 frames, which is what we have to create for our comic as well.

According to McCloud on pages 70-71, the transition used is called Subject to Subject, or #3. This type "takes us from subject-to-subject while staying within a scene or idea." (pp 71). The reader involvement is needed in order for the transition to take place, where is he walking to; his room, kitchen, or is he going outside? The next frame takes us to the scene outside, but stays within the same subject. The other idea I want to point out it is the idea of Time Frames, which is Chapter 4 in McCloud's book. On page 101, there are demonstrations of how authors play with the frames in order to show time. They can either make the frames larger, or spaces between them larger as well. I found this comic interesting because he is shown walking from one frame, to the next, as if we are taking the time to walk with him. I thought this was a cool technique used, that I didn't see in McCloud's reading.