Three of his paths, however, are of particular interest to anyone who wants to know how the Internet will affect both our lives and the livelihoods of future artists. Understanding Comics, with its brilliant how-to guide on marrying image and language, has become an indispensable reference for many Web designers. Now McCloud returns the favor by focusing on how the digital revolution will influence production, delivery, and the art form of comics itself. Informative without being pedantic, controversial without being argumentative, and always entertaining, this is both a worthy sequel to the author's brilliant original and a work that opens up the potential for an entirely different direction for sequential art in the realm of cyberspace. --John Longenbaugh

Product Description

In 1993, Scott McCloud tore down the wall between high and low culture with the acclaimed international hit Understanding Comics, a massive comic book that explored the inner workings of the worlds most misunderstood art form. Now, McCloud takes comics to te next leavle, charting twelve different revolutions in how comics are created, read, and preceived today, and how they're poised to conquer the new millennium.

Part One of this fascinating and in-depth book includes:

• The life of comics as an art form and as literture
• The battle for creators' rights
• Reinventing the business of comics
• The volatile and shifting public percptions of comics
• Sexual and ethnic representation on comics

Then in Part Two, McCloud paints a brethtaling picture of comics' digital revolutions, including:

• The intricacies of digital production
• The exploding world of online delivery
• The ultimate challenges of the infinite digital canvas

But the second half of the book, unexpectedly, brought back to me the excitement I felt in 1993. It covers new technology, especially the Internet: digital production, digital distribution, and the evolution of comics in the digital world. McCloud includes a brief history of computers, the internet, and computer graphics, and analyzes both the impact digitalization has had on comics, and the impact he expects it to have in the future. Always the optimist (see Zot!), McCloud is also terribly smart, and the future he envisions is exciting and provocative.

_Reinventing Comics_ is essential reading for anybody interested in comics, in the potentials of the Internet, in information theory, or simply in thinking.


Typical college crowd ideological faire   June 28, 2002
 23 out of 90 found this review helpful

McClouds first book was a wonderful little study of the form and function of comics. I was hoping he would continue the lesson, but instead he seems to moan and complain about the economics and politics of the CONTENT of some comic books. He, like many a whiny, disillusioned liberal before him, paints a picture of evil corporations bogging down the "pureness" of unfettered art. And no hippy rant would be complete without the standard straight white male bashing; for, as everyone knows, we are the root cause of everyones problems. McCloud conveys clearly that he wants to stay at home and create masterpeices untainted by monetary, social, or racial boundaries and very poorly any real means of attaining these ends, all while very conveintly avoiding the subject of comic art. My suggestion is to file this one under "ivory tower political bilge" and focus more on his first work (providing you were looking for a comic book in the first place).


Interesting, but not as successful as "Understanding Comics"   August 31, 2000
 21 out of 22 found this review helpful

This book continues the arguments McCloud made about the validity and potential of comics in his earlier book "Understanding Comics". He still uses the comics format, but the effect isn't as strong since the subject matter here isn't as much comics itself as the financial and logistical aspects of the comics industry and the technical aspects of comics creation in an electronic environment; thus it never quite captures the astounding, recursively expressive effect that the earlier book had.

Still, McCloud's discussions and insights on the nature of the production and distribution of comics are worth the read. His ideas about the future of comics on the internet are less convincing (he suggests the prime advantage of internet comics are an avoidance of the confines of the physical page; in my opinion, restrictions like that, in any art form, usually provide both limits and opportunities).

Anyone with an interest in the distribution of comics, or any art form, will find much of the book insightful and helpful. Many people new to the internet will find the discussion of it useful. But techies, especially those who have studied hypertext, won't learn anything new about the net here.

In summary, this book is recommended for its content, but the essay-as-comics form isn't as effective this time around. The same material could probably have been presented as straight text with a few illustrations, and the resulting book would have had the same impact in fewer pages. The arguments are interesting, if not wholly convincing, and the inclusion of an index and a bibliography round it out nicely.


Definitely NOT "Understanding Comics"   September 23, 2003
 20 out of 22 found this review helpful

The idea behind this book was "computers, internet, and comics." Sounds great, but there was a bit too much explaining the history of computers and internet. It was necessary for those people who don't know, and I reccomend it for those who want to learn about computers / internet in general. However, as a seasoned computer tech of sorts, reading most of this book was like "eating 10 pounds of potato salad" as McCloud himself described his book at one time. Another problem is that the book is somewhat outdated. Comics on the web are proliferating successfully, and broadband and VERY fast computers are quite affordable now.

It has good moments, though his first book "Understanding Comics" is much, much better. That is a landmark title for comics.


All Show No Substance   August 22, 2000
 18 out of 87 found this review helpful

Scott Mccloud is a corporate cosmetician for Time Warner Inc, Microsoft, and The Wall Street Journal. No wonder this patsy's scribbles resemble Dilbert more then anything else.