That, of course, is an impressive achievement, especially since he deals with functions as well as forms. To that we add McCloud's knowledge of art history, which allows him to go back in time and find the origins of comics in pre-Columbian picture manuscripts, Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Bayeux Tapestry. Topping all of this off is McCloud's grand and rather obvious conceit, that his book about the art of comic books is done AS a comic book. This might seem an obvious approach, but that does not take away from the fact that the result is a perfect marriage of substance and form.

This volume is divided into nine chapters: (1) Setting the Record Straight, which develops a proper dictionary-style definition of "comics"; (2) The Vocabulary of Comics, detailing the iconic nature of comic art; (3) Blood in the Gutter, establishing the different types of transitions between frames of comic art, which are the building blocks of how comics work; (4) Time Frames, covers the ways in which comics manipulate time, including depictions of speed and motion; (5) Living in Line, explores how emotions and other things are made visible in comics; (6) Show and Tell, looks at the interchangeability of words and pictures in various combinations; (7) The Six Steps, details the path comic book creators take in moving from idea/purpose to form to idiom to structure to craft to surface (but not necessarily in that order); (8) A Word About Color, reminds us that even though this particular book is primarily in black & white, color has its uses in comic books; and (9) Putting It All Together, finds McCloud getting philosophical about the peculiar place of comic books in the universe.

"Understanding Comics" works for both those who are reading pretty much every comic book done by anyone on the face of the planet and those who have never heard of Wil Eisner and Art Spigelman, let alone recognize their artwork. Which ever end of the spectrum you gravitate towards McCloud incorporates brief examples of some of the artwork of the greatest comic book artists, such as Kirby, Herge, Schultz, etc., as well as work by more conventional artists, including Rembrandt, Hokusai, and Van Gogh. "Understanding Comics" is a superb look at the form and functions of the most underexplored art form in popular culture.

I am using Spider-Man comic books in my Popular Culture class this year and will be using some of McCloud's key points to help the cherubs in their appreciation of what they are reading. If you have devoted hundreds of hours of your life to reading comic books, then you can take a couple of hours to go through this book and have a better understanding and appreciation of why you take funny books so seriously.


Don't Be Taken In Too Easily...   November 14, 2000
 50 out of 118 found this review helpful

It is a simple matter to discern when a Golden Age has ended by the sort of heavy analysis which immediately ensues; heavy, as in "by-the-boatload," not in terms of enlightening consequence. With no more real wheat to delight in, academics and born-too-late types busy themselves with the chaff of review and dissection. Citizen Kane was a single movie which, in the sequel of sixty years, has produced a horde of 500-some books, doctoral theses, and other various forms of minute analysis. Yet Mr. Welles' film remains unaltered by said avalanche, merely peering back through the ages at its commentators with a smile that says, "you may chatter about me as ceaselessly as you please-but you could never create me!"

The Great Days of the cartoon-including animated shorts, comic books, political cartoons and newspaper strips-are generally accounted to have occupied the first half of the 20th Century, after which television did its steamroller bit on radio, movies, weekly magazines and the cartoon alike. Folks these days may not be able to write and draw great cartoons anymore, but we sure can jabber about them. It's fun to be a self-appointed authority, and it's far easier than the painful baby steps of learning to draw well, or training the mind to think up arresting visual continuities and involving plot-lines. Hence Scott McCloud's fairly-recent offering into this field of texts which, as the old saw goes, "fill a much-needed void."

The title of Mr. McCloud's book is humorous in that the comics are a medium understood intrinsically by practically any person aged four years and up. The supposition behind his book, of course, is that this is only because the art form never left its infancy; that the potential of the comic medium is more untapped than otherwise. The error here is that attempts of late to force the comic to "grow up" and "expand" have been, to use a popular phrase of the day, "style over substance"; four-letter words, teeth-gnashing rage, self-indulgent angst, glib posturing, freewheeling sex, and most of all, lots and lots and LOTS of hack drawing, amateur plotting & scripting, and pyrotechnic continuity which cannot be clearly followed. That these childish squalls were ignored by the once comics-loving public is testament to the unappealing deficiencies which bind lesser talents. The works of Mr. McCloud's contemporaries have been, in mass, slicked-up nothings-tramps in $2,000 suits-and his own efforts (ZOT!) have never risen above mediocrity despite the vast "understanding" which he has contrived from whole cloth and placed herein.

There is no true profundity in the book, which automatically dictates that scads of critics will suggest it is there in spades. The author brings home his seemingly-obvious points with sledgehammer force, as though with each passing "revelation" we are to strike the forehead with the palm, eyes widened. Like most such volumes, Mr. McCloud has inflated his superfluous notions with an esoteric padding, sure to rake in the eggheaded suckers, and ready to repel the charge of "Yeah, so what?" with: "Well, if you don't like it, then you must not understand it."

Yet if this volume makes clear any point whatever, it is that Mr. McCloud himself understands very little about comics-or at any rate, their appeal. The probity of good cartooning has always been and will always be a good story, well-drawn and simply-told. The trick is to work within those conventions rather than peremptorily dismissing them as ancient. The kind of ivory-tower imaginings which infest this and other identical books of analysis will never replace the hard work and ingenuity which were the hallmarks of the masters of the art. Citing the possibilities of a lump of clay makes a sculptor of no one, nor will anything but diligent and concentrated effort. For Scott McCloud to suggest that comics can be so much more than they have been is all well and good, but people have had more leisure time for examination, reflection and training since the 1950s than ever before-so where are the great comics? It is talk. The ignorance of the learned. Hal Foster of "Tarzan" and "Prince Valiant" fame claimed never to have dissected his art or storytelling technique. Yet he is certainly one of the ten greatest newspaper strip cartoonists of all time. How on Earth did he manage it without the guiding hands of Gilbert Seldes, Will Eisner or Scott McCloud?

The much-revered art instructor Kimon Nicolaides, who died in 1938, said: "I have had students who seemed to be more interested in `being artists' than in drawing. They were enthralled by a train of mental ideas rather than the feeling of responding on paper to a vivid experience of the senses. Such students are likely to be found, not sitting in front of the model, but sitting over a cup of coffee in a neighboring cafe, talking about art. The student who really learns to draw will be the one who draws. As Leonardo said, the supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance." I mention this quote because the greatest of cartoonists were first and foremost ARTISTS-they later became cartoonists, and trained themselves individually to do so by trial and error. In this way, numberless styles, yarns and deathless creations flooded the field. There was no time for pontification or self-analysis-those men just kept cranking and kept improving. They had deadlines. We have theory. They had talent. We have their reprint books.

And so, I suggest that if you plan to spend $18.00 in your efforts to "understand comics," you do it on the reprinted works of Messrs. McCay, Outcault, Crane, Foster, Caniff, Sickles, McManus, Opper, Segar, Sterrett, Herriman, et al. Their cartooning legacies are all the education-and more importantly, all the enjoyment-that you need ever hope for from a wonderful but long-deceased art form.


Deep and Clear   March 3, 2000
 45 out of 51 found this review helpful

I expected this book to be a witty and well-done presentation of mostly stuff that I already knew; but it was much more than that. McCloud has a deep understanding of art and society and people, and a completely lucid presentation.

There are neat and useful new ways of thinking about comics here (his comparisons of American and Japanese comics, his theories of panel transitions and why comic characters are sometimes drawn more simply than the backgrounds, his comments on the psychological impact of color), and for that matter ways of thinking about art in general, and design in general. And he makes masterly use of the comic medium itself to present the material in a way that never drags or confuses.

I hope someone programs the Orbital Mind Control Lasers so that McCloud extends this book into a whole series on the theory and practice of comics, and another on general visual design. The world needs it!


The Quintessential Book on an Underappreciated Art Form   January 22, 2000
 20 out of 24 found this review helpful

If you are interested in any aspect of comics at all, this is the first book you should have on your shelf. Scott McCloud guides you through the history and theory of comics art with wit and wisdom, all captured in an easily accessible comic. More than a simple funny book, this book will change your opinions on comics, whether you have never picked one up before, or you are a long-time comics professional. This book could be used as curriculum for a college course, despite (or maybe because of) the whimsical artwork. The art draws you in and makes the information easy to accept and understand (in fact, McCloud gives examples of why the comics artform makes it easy to read and identify with). McCloud takes this subject matter seriously, and after reading, you probably will too.


Perhaps ever so slightly overrated...   August 17, 2000
 16 out of 22 found this review helpful

I appreciate the innovation of writing a book about comics in comic-book style. It's a clever, winning idea. Perhaps it would have worked a bit better if McCloud himself were a better draftsman, or if there had been more (and better-quality) reproductions of other artists' work.

The writing here is uneven. Some chapters, including "Blood in the gutter" and "Time Frames," are very effective and very specific, with strong insights into the nuts-and-bolts of comic techniques. Another chapter, "The Vocabulary of Comics" -- which uses a big triangle graph to encompass the whole of range of comics art -- is quite insightful but, at the same time, oversimplifies a bit, I fear. I'm not saying McCloud's assertions aren't necessarily true, but he might have put himself on surer ground with some of the language/symbol ideas by getting more heavily into semiotics theory, etc. And maybe here is where the light-hearted tone and comic-book style starts to undercut his intellectual accomplishment. I understand the book isn't meant to be a doctoral thesis, but still, it has high ambitions, and the structure of the book must be subordinated to the loftiness of its aspirations. Chapter 7, which attempts to relate all of artistic achievement into a unified whole, is one of the least satisfying, because it is frankly pretentious and rather gooey, non-specific, in its assertions.

Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of good insight in "Understanding Comics," and I wouldn't debate that it's an essential read for anyone interested in the topic. But it also feels like sort of a primer, a survey. Each one of the chapters could itself be the subject of a whole book. In other words, "Understanding Comics" has impressive breadth but not as much depth as one might want.