Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud was an interesting read for me. He introduced concepts in such a simplistic way that it had me going "duh, of course!". It felt as though I already knew about the majority of the topics he brought up. To be fair, a lot of the concepts are similar to storyboarding, which I have had several intensive courses in.
One aspect I found interesting was McCloud's explanation of the differences between American comics and Japanese manga. I've read a lot of manga but I never actively thought about the importance they place on the setting. Often times they do have several panels of the environment and different objects. It tends to put you into the story in a way that more "American style" comics tends to neglect. With the recent advancements in video games and virtual reality there is a much stronger importance on environment rather than character. It will be interesting to see if this will effect comics in the next 10 to 15 years.
The other fascinating piece of information was "the gutter". I think I instinctively knew what it was, but its nice to put a name on the space in between panels. Numerous things can happen in "the gutter" and it is all up to the reader and their perspective to decide what happens there or how much time passes there. That is one of the things that makes reading comics so fun.
I too found the gutter to be one of the most perplexing parts of the entire read. Its almost curious which took notes from what, when it comes to film and comics, as the gutter seems to have parts and aspects of both. Many of the different types of transitions that can happen by using this interesting space are both similar to and reminiscent of film language and scene transitions. This seems like something you'd study in your story boarding class, so it doesn't surprise me that you found it so interesting as well!
ReplyDeleteAs for Manga, I haven't read a whole lot of it, but when you said "I've read a lot of manga but I never actively thought about the importance they place on the setting. Often times they do have several panels of the environment and different objects. It tends to put you into the story in a way that more "American style" comics tends to neglect."- It did make me realize many of the staging components I hadn't previously.