McCloud’s Vocabulary of the Comics

The Vocabulary of Comics by McCloud was a very interesting read because it rhetorically constructed a visual argument for why cartoons allow people to focus on what is being said rather than who is saying. In my opinion, I believe this has wider implications in the academy setting generally speaking. For example, I wonder if my students will pay more attention to what I am saying in class, if I spend less time providing my own perspective on a topic rather than listening to them talk. Is this why graduate students are required to give presentations on class readings as an attempt to change the source of information received in hopes of getting students to focus on what is being presented? It does make you wonder. As it relates to design and visual rhetoric, the concept of removing the designer from the picture is a familiar concept - good design requires no explanation and is invisible, if it is done well. I would also add that good design uses the affordances already present to make the product more usable.

In McCloud’s piece, I also like the definition of an icon, which resembles that of a noun for composition and writing instructors – an image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea. A cartoon icon uses abstraction to simplify what we are seeing so that the focus is placed on specific details. This idea of abstraction reminds me of the modeling industry because black and white photographs are still considered better representations of a potential model/actors natural beauty than color photographs; this is because color photographs allow for more distractions when studying an image, but models who can still look appealing in black and white photographs are considered to be “the cream of the crop” because they are represented in their barest of form.

Finally, McCloud mentions that “a cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled.” I believe this is reminiscent of the idea of popular culture, generally speaking, where scholars believe the sites of popular culture (television, film, etc.) to be reflections of our anxieties, fears, likes, and dislikes.

January 31st, 2009 in Visual Rhetoric/Doc Design

Cynthia PengillyOnline teaching, dissertation work, and other academic stuff

McCloud’s Vocabulary of the Comics

Author

Archives

Categories

DE Classmates

Links