Week Two: Reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

This week I read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. Overall it discusses what comics are, what are important elements for comics, and how to accomplish a comic.

Personally speaking, I had a hard time to get into the beginning of this comic. It doesn't introduce the concept in a straightforward way, especially when it comes to the question of what is comic. I really didn't know how to answer the question, and I didn't think we should care that much since it is pretty obvious and simple. The comic is just comic, there is nothing more to explain and you will know it is comic art when you see it. However, Scott McCloud did open my mind. He not only introduces but also digs into some concepts that we thought we were already familiar with, like sequential arts and storytelling. Before reading his comic, I never realized that comic was such a complicated thing in fact.

What impressed me the most is the part where he discusses the growing path of comic artists and what this career's goal supposed to be. He tells the readers that comic artists are not easy to be, they need to learn many many skills, like drawings, story structure, figure out their own styles...... There are many people that dreamt about being a comic artist, however, most of them quit at the very beginning. Those who are the comic artists now must have been being strong all the time and overcoming a lot. They are lucky for sure, but at the same time, they paid probably more than anybody else. However, it is not enough yet according to Scott McCloud. Based on my understanding, being a comic artist should not just focus on figuring out what their forms are, what they should figure out more is what their goals are, or why would they spread out this story to the world, what do they want to tell to the world or people.

I found I really get in touch with this part of the discussion because I am a super manga fan and I have a strong sympathy for stories that have a very clear and determined goal. I can feel that the artists have this story because they want to tell something to the world, or they have a "core" and value to show to the world,  in other words, they had the idea first, then let the story driven by the idea, rather than let the idea driven by skills or the story. I think it is really important because works that affect the world or human society deeply usually have an ablaze and passionate "core".