The Rhetoric of Comics Weekly Spotlight! "Emotionally Understanding Comics"

Teacher's Note: This is the first of what I plan to be many Spotlights featuring my student bloggers and their work. I'll be taking the best post from each week, copying some of it here, and providing a jump to the full post, at which point I hope you'll follow, read, and comment. The goal is to expose their work to a new set of eyes, get them additional feedback, and hopefully set them on the path of responsible internet publishing with the promise of bonus points! And while new to the subject of comics, I've yet to have a semester of new students who haven't opened my eyes to the study in some new way.

For this first installment, we're taking a look at JoshSilva's summary of and thoughts on the first two chapters of Scott McCloud's opus, Understanding Comics. JoshSilva deftly summarizes McCloud (twice, no less!) then breaks down a key point from the text that most readers (including myself) overlook in their first read. Enjoy.

Emotionally Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud understands that comic books are usually "crude, poorly-drawn, semi literate, cheap, disposable kiddy fare, " but he believes they don't have to be. McCloud thinks that comics contain some kind of hidden power. He feels that people fail to appreciate comics as an art form because they try to define them to narrowly. McCloud then opens chapter 2 with a description and example of the Magritte painting, " The Treachery of Images." Although the subject of the painting is a common pipe, the artist's message reads, " This is not a pipe." As Scott explains, this is really not a pipe, nor is it a painting of a pipe. It is actually ten copies of a drawing of a painting of a pipe, when one considers that each panel on the two opening pages depicting the painting actually represents one copy. McCloud uses this example to demonstrate one of the many uses of icons, or images used to represent a person, place, thing or idea. McCloud also goes on to discuss how varying levels of icon ism and realism are used in comics to achieve various effects.

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