Week 2 Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics was a very interesting book, that I found the theories and chapters to be parallel to many things in life and not just comics.  Chapter Three, Blood in the Gutter, caught my eye as I was reading through because the theory deals a lot with what I work with today.  Blood in the Gutter is a chapter about the space that is left between each image in a comic strip that allows the reader to have closure.  McCloud goes into a great amount of detail about the different types of closure that the reader could be offered to participate in.  In this chapter the seven different types are:  moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene, aspect-to-aspect and non-sequitur.  The reader will try to create meaning of two juxtaposed images no matter what their content.  This theory applies to me in many ways including: in animation, poetry, music and design.  In animation each and every image is not drawn, instead the iconic images are drawn and the human brain uses gestalt to fill in the blanks.  In poetry, I tend to write in metaphors; by keeping each statement juxtaposed in the poem the audience will still comprehend it as one piece even if they do not understand the metaphor that has been laid out.  In poetry the metaphors also allow the reader to fill in the blank and disconnections with their experience and thoughts.  In design, artists many times try not to spill out everything for the audience.  Instead the artist will piece together multiple images to push the audience into getting a specific meaning.  This is where the blood in the gutter theory comes in.  Different images juxtaposed creates different meanings, just as each person viewing it will see it in a different light as well.  The content of each image triggers the viewers brain and tries to find connection and hugely influences what the outcome statement is..  As I read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud I was using my experience and knowledge to create closure in what he was writing and it lead me in a complete circle of all my daily practices.