Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
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First of all, I’d like to share my story about Amazon.co.uk and this book that goes to show how awesome some companies’ customer service can be. I first ordered it together with Waking From Sleep in Novemeber. Waking From Sleep arrived just fine but Understanding Comics never did. I sent them an e-mail asking them about my book’s whereabouts and they admitted that they did not know what had happened to it. As they’ve done before, they sent me a replacement copy.
What I had not predicted was that I wouldn’t be home to receive my replacement copy, because by then I was in Athens for the holidays. Once I was back, I did find an Amazon.co.uk package waiting outside my door. It was soaked from the winter rains and someone who must have been wondering what this strange parcel contained had opened it. Clearly, the contents or the condition thereof must have disappointed them, since the book remained there for me to discover.
I took it inside and began the drying process. It took a few days of devising various methods of using my air-conditioners on heat, my only way to stay warm inside the house, and keep the book spread out so that the pages could properly dry and avoid it catching fungi or worse, plainly disintegrate; the cover of the book was soft, and so was the glue that kept it stuck to the rest of the book.
Thankfully, the book survived with only cosmetic damage. After a few days I began reading it. Meanwhile, I had contacted Amazon.co.uk detailing the situation. One would expect that they would take the blame off themselves, declaring that it was the Greek Post’s fault or my own. But no. The gentlemen at Amazon claimed full responsibility for not being able to guarantee the book’s complete safe journey from their warehouses to my eager hands. So they went ahead and issued a complete refund for me, adding that they would choose their carriers with greater care in the future. Amazon, you have my respect. This is customer service. And this is why I’ll continue shopping from you, you made it.
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Anyway! To Understanding Comics itself. It’s a very interesting read indeed. Mr. McCloud clearly knows his Cultural Theory and has great communicative skills. This book is not so much understanding comics, it’s more about decrypting comics, since we’ve all grown up being able to understand the hows, but scarcely if ever have we put our minds to the whys (apart from Abraham Kawa. 😉 )
This book is perfect if you want to see why comics as a narrative medium is important and get to know its strengths and weaknesses compared to film, animation and literature, which are its closest relatives. There are many “aha!” moments hidden within the frames and outside them. Time, space, colour, icons, language and its relationship with imaging… The possibilities are endless and this books shows you why. Understanding Comics goes into depth in all of those, but it does so in a way that transcends its own medium. I was left there imagining the wider implications of all that I had just read about and couldn’t wait to read some more. I like how Scott McCloud used the art he’s theorising about to get the point across all the more effectively.
What’s a bit disappointing but de facto unavoidable is that by now a lot of what the author had been hoping to happen has happened, like comics making it to the mainstream, “serious” markets as mature and effective ways to present a narrative. Consequently, just a little of the information presented, though of course not all, is outdated. The revolution has taken place. Big things have happened to the comics scene since 1993 when Understanding Comics was published, and I wonder what Mr. McCloud would have to say about these developments today. Sandman, Y: The Last Man, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Persepolis, Scott Pilgrim, The Invisibles, Logicomix and many more I don’t have the knowledge to list. I believe he’s proud and happy.
Here’s hoping such a creation as Understanding Comics eventually comes out for video games too. Isn’t it time they, too, grew out of their baby shoes?