{"id":534,"date":"2008-10-06T19:09:55","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T23:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/?p=534"},"modified":"2008-10-06T19:33:10","modified_gmt":"2008-10-06T23:33:10","slug":"closure-in-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/2008\/10\/06\/closure-in-comics\/","title":{"rendered":"Closure in Comics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I’m not an avid comic book reader, I\u00a0really enjoyed\u00a0reading Scott\u00a0McCloud’s Understanding Comics: An Invisible Art<\/em>.\u00a0 I thought it was a\u00a0smart idea to write the book in the form of a comic, instead of feeding audiences the\u00a0material in textbook form.\u00a0 I think\u00a0structuring\u00a0the book as a comic makes the overall experience much more pleasurable for the reader.\u00a0 Considering the fact that McCloud\u00a0has created a comic book about comics,\u00a0\u00a0it’s no surprise that I\u00a0often found myself\u00a0reading\u00a0the material and then unconsciously applying it\u00a0to my own reading.\u00a0 However, McCloud\u00a0does make it a point to remind us that we are in fact\u00a0reading a comic, forcing us to notice what’s\u00a0happening and what tools are at work.\u00a0 I also enjoyed McCloud’s lively, conversational tone.\u00a0 It makes the\u00a0book even more animated and fun to read.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My favorite chapter so far was Chapter Two, in which McCloud talks about\u00a0icons — Why do\u00a0creators use\u00a0pictures that are\u00a0representative of the “real thing”\u00a0instead of\u00a0just using realistic images?\u00a0 Why\u00a0do icons appeal to us?\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 McCloud suggests, “We humans are a self-centered race.\u00a0 We see ourselves in everything.\u00a0 We assign identities and emotions where none exist.\u00a0 And we make the world over in our image” (32-3).\u00a0 So very true.\u00a0 We make up a culture that revolves around symbols and icons, and we often attach personalities to inanimate objects like our cars, our clothes and even our iPods.\u00a0 After all,\u00a0these\u00a0objects are symbols\u00a0for our identities.\u00a0\u00a0In short, comic creators use iconic images so it’s easier for readers to see themselves as the characters in the comics.<\/p>\n

I also thought McCloud’s discussion of “closure” was quite interesting.\u00a0 I think he’s right when he says that we often\u00a0observe parts and\u00a0perceive them as a\u00a0whole.\u00a0 We don’t have to see something to know that it’s there.\u00a0 McCloud then goes on to discuss the “gutter,” or the empty space between panels.\u00a0 He\u00a0notes\u00a0that “here in the limbo of the gutter, human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (66).\u00a0 In other words, readers\u00a0fill in the gaps\u00a0using their own imagination.\u00a0 In this sense, interactivity is inherent in comic books.\u00a0 This made me think about the different hypertexts we’ve looked at in class.\u00a0\u00a0When\u00a0“reading”\u00a0these hypertexts, the reader\u00a0must fill in the blanks, much like he or she does when reading a comic book.\u00a0 But I’m skeptical of the term “closure” to describe this phenomenon.\u00a0 Readers might be making mental connections between images, but do they really achieve a sense of closure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although I’m not an avid comic book reader, I\u00a0really enjoyed\u00a0reading Scott\u00a0McCloud’s Understanding Comics: An Invisible Art.\u00a0 I thought it was a\u00a0smart idea to write the book in the form of a comic, instead of feeding audiences the\u00a0material in textbook form.\u00a0 I think\u00a0structuring\u00a0the book as a comic makes the overall experience much more pleasurable for the … Continue reading Closure in Comics?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}