understanding the invisible art of comics

Except this one has pictures (or should I say, integrated with pictures?) It's informative and eye opening, but not particularly relevant, like every single other art theory textbook. I guess the idea is to understand the basic structure and potential of comic art, but must it be so academic and dry? The book doesn't limit itself to the conventional art theory, but rather ventures into fundamental epistemological and phenomenological debates. You can go 'oh wow that's such a clever way to illustrate this idea, and the text is so effective', but it's a bit like reading an instruction manual, and nothing personal or particularly poignant. It's amateurish, but I believe if you're aware of how great a book is while you're reading it, it's not working at its best. Great book, but I'm too annoyed to give it four stars. If you want to know how comics are made in all its range of possibilities, and if you want to take see why this interrelated telling of visuals and words should be taken seriously as art and literature and cultural commentary and entertainment, this is the book for you. This book is one of the classics of comic history, one of its great books for helping you understand and appreciate comics for their potential complexity as an hybrid art form, without question. McCloud also wrote Making Comics, for comics artists. While thoroughly practical, it's also the most philosophical and thorough and at the same time efficient guide to the craft. It's the best book I've found for doing this, and it's in a comics format, with McCloud as the cartoony and erudite 'narrator'. Review from before: I've used this book many times to teach comics basics. Maybe this is less true for non-comics fiction, though.

That's like suggesting that minimalism (something like Raymond Carver's stories, or Ernest Hemingway's stories) invite readers in more because we as readers have more space to 'be' the characters, to connect with them.

McCloud says that realistic depictions of characters such as in superhero comics are actually less relatable than simple characters such as Charlie Brown or Nancy, or most manga. What I have to add is that I had a fun conversation with my class about one insightful claim McCloud makes, that the simpler and more 'cartoony' a comic representation is (i.e., a smiley face), the more universal it will be, the more we will say 'that's me.' In fiction classes I was taught to be as specific and detailed as I could be about characters and places. It's the primary source though there are many good books coming out. I'll read this and use it to help people understand comics every year. I finished reading it for my comics/YA Graphic novels class this summer, 6/16/16 and now again, 8/8/17.

Understanding the invisible art of comics