Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Great, informative, engaging read. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes enjoys learning about art history and theory

I purchased this item, along with McCloud's other book Making Comics, to teach a course on comics in English to art students at Cheongju University in South Korea. Both of these books really lend themselves to teaching, each one is divided into chapters which discuss specific comic concepts and elements. Two excellent chapters:The first chapter in Understanding Comics is great because it discusses the history of comics, and some great activities can be done having students think about and search for comics in the real world and instances of comics in history. This chapter really validates the fact that comics are interesting and useful, rather than just being treated as a 'fake' art or a 'not really real' subject.Chapter three is excellent because it breaks down transitions not only in American comics, but European and Asian comics as well, and explains his thoughts as to why these differences exist. This allows students to compare the differences and broaden their understanding of how different cultures think differently. This chapter also discusses how comics are subtractive, and lends itself to an excellent lesson whereupon students can draw comics with many pictures, then keep subtracting and combining pictures until they have the miminum number of pictures that tells the gist of their story.In other chapters: Chapter two discusses word choice and flow in comics, four discusses time, chapter five discusses displaying emotion by using different types of lines (and similarities and differences between comics from different cultures), chapter six discusses how words and ideas complement each other in comics, and chapter seven discusses six steps to making comics.In my opinion, each book is worth its weight in gold alone for a comic class, but they have a synergistic effect when used in tandem with each other. Concepts from one book flow into the other book, and vice-versa, giving the students in-depth knowledge of both how to make comics and how to understand comics from other authors better. All of the concepts from the chapters can be seen easily in comics online or from newspapers, and so each week I first do the lecture, then use a few examples on the overhead that I have found from other comics, then give the students homework pertaining to the concepts discussed.Through use of the two books, the students' work is really improving, and it is fun to see them working specifically with each comic element. Each of the concepts discussed in the chapters is a great starting point to get the students' creative juices flowing. I would recommend this book to any teacher or lecturer interested teaching comics at almost any level and to any audience.

Still reading the book, but, had to hit the pause button once I reached page 23, the last page of Chapter One.Not because I quickly grew bored of the book, rather, my mind refused to process the short definition applied to the term "Comics", i.e., Sequential Art, which is presented at this stage of the book.After wrestling with the short definition for a couple of minutes, I eventually modified it to " Sequential Imagery" that was later validated (in my mind) by Scott McCoud's definition of an "Icon" which reads, "Any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea.".For me, the term "Art" goes beyond images, i.e., sculptures, performances, music, etc.Therefore, this book made me think more about the topic which is why I'm giving it five stars.Fascinating read thus far which goes beyond the boundaries of comics as we understand the term today.

Great insight for anyone looking to create comics or just understand the medium better as a fan. Reading this will allow you to appreciate your favorite stories on a whole new level!

I was required to read this book for multiple comic courses. Yes, this book is useful, especially for those with a limited understanding of comics. The advice on flow, pacing, etc is invaluable. However, because comics are such a complex medium, this book is not the all-or-nothing guide it pretends to be and can even come off as pretentious at times. If you'd like to truly understand comics, observe the comics that you read rather than relying solely on this book.

As a comics fan, there was a pretty good chance I was going to love this book. McCloud takes a stab at explaining why people like comics. What about them resonates with us? What makes them unique? How does this particular format compare to other forms of media?I think what made this book work so well for me is the format itself. It is written as a comic book. This allows McCloud to utilize the page to show the concepts that he talks about throughout. Sometimes it is simple and seems unnecessary, but might be helpful to someone that doesn't read comics. And it is meant to be accessible for anyone, whether they are regular comics readers or not.The book covers a lot of different topics from the panels and the space in between, known as gutters, to the passage of time and expression of emotions. Every single one comes with examples to guide the reader through his thought process. There are a couple ideas that I did not agree with, but it didn't taint my reading of the book. He puts it out there that the book is meant to foster discussion about comics and to get people thinking about the way they work. Everything in this book falls under that umbrella. It did a great job of getting me to think about comics with some more depth.