03 February 2010

Ch 4 & 6 blog

Anthony Ratliff

English 112

January 31, 2010

Chapter four was about time frames. Each panel shows a single moment in time. When you have a sequence of panels, in between the panels or the gutter your mind fills in the intervening moments. It sounds right but to Scott it’s not. He uses a rope as a metaphor to show that figures, faces, and words are matched in time, but if all the images are on the same line then time gets messed up and with the rope metaphor it’s easier to understand it.

The most important icon in comics is the panel which is overlooked just like human beings largest organ is their skin. His point of that is although panels don’t affect the meaning, they do affect the reading experience. As well as action, drama, and additional effects such as multiple images, and streaking effects.

Chapter six "show and tell". It starts off with a little boy name Tommy and he’s at school. He pulls out his robot for show and tell, and he can’t explain how it works but he shows them, and Scott say’s we all started out like this using words and images interchangeably, just as long as we grew out of it. McCloud says when were younger we read books filled with nothing but pictures because there easier to read and when you get older you move to books that have very few pictures and a lot more words. Then finally you read real books with no pictures in them. Early comics had no words and all pictures, and when words were associated with comics they stayed separate "refusing to mix like oil and water."

The part I understood best was when Scott used the rope as a metaphor for time in comics. He say’s "each inch represents a second." So he puts it through a short comic and each figure and face is matched in time. Which puts all the images on the same vertical line, and it tangles up time. So what I got out of that is each panel holds single a moment and a single moment is suppose to be read in a second, but the time gets tangled up because it takes the eye time to move across the scene.

Another part that I understood and was really interesting to me because it’s true is how panels are overlooked and there the most important icon in comics. Just like people don’t know that our skin is our biggest organ. Panels are so many different shapes and sizes and they affect the reading experience. On page 101, there are three different comics and each one tries to lengthen a pause. The first comic adds panels and of course it works, then the second comic makes the gutters wider which do nothing, and Scott wonders if there was another way to lengthen the pause. In the third comic he just stretches out the middle panel, and it works. I found that interesting because I never really thought about how to make a pause longer in images.

1 comment:

  1. Another good post, Anthony. Just proofread, and remember, unless you know an author personally, never refer to them by their first name :-)