I picked up a few more comics-related books at the library on Saturday (the single exception to the theme being The Rough Guide to the Rolling Stones) and I've been idly browsing them in occasional breaks from Henry James. Well, I say idly browsing, but one of them, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, has proved a major attention grabber - almost unputdownable, except to make sure I don't rush to the extent of failing to sufficiently drag out the pleasure of reading, or to ensure I get a bit of time to digest the interestingly digestible ideas it explores with exemplary clarity.
With luminaries such as Matt Groening, Art Spiegelman and Will Eisner saying extremely nice things about it on the jacket, I was fairly sure Understanding Comics was going to be a more than decent read, but both conceptually and in terms of execution it's top drawer stuff. Basically McCloud has created a comic book about the art of comics, and if that sounds a tad post-modern meta-something-or-other it's not because it works like a charm (which most post-modern texts, being far too pleased with themselves, don't.) In many ways the territory of Understanding Comics extends well beyond the confines of the genre - it has many worthwhile things to say about the nature of perception, about how stories and the language of stories work, about the bigger world of art - but it has all the strengths of the genre working for it: not least an engaging enthusiasm and desire to genuinely communicate with a wide audience. The stuff about the frames used in cartoons & comics and the representation of movement, indeed the play of the now of each frame against a wider sense of the passing of time almost convinced me of the possibility this might be the most important art-form of our time. (I know that's way over the top, but that's what these anoraky obsessions can do to you, especially to the callow sixteen-year-old part of one's personality.)
Anyway, I'm allowing myself another chapter tonight - I'm now on some fascinating bits on the combination of words and images - and then it will be back to Strether dealing with the redoubtable Sarah, in the final stretch of The Ambassadors.
2 comments:
Don't forget the other two: Reinventing Comics and Making Comics. And heh-heh 'anoraky' is such a Brit word.
Thanks for the info on McCloud's other books - I wasn't aware of these at all.
I wasn't too sure if Singaporeans would be aware of the implications of being an anorak. By way of definition I should explain that when it comes to the music of the greatest band in the known universe, I refer of course to King Crimson, I am an anorak of fairly major proportions. I think that's enough said.
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