Understanding Comics

When I am made Emperor, this shall be compulsory reading for everybody... or perhaps I'll completely ban it: whichever of the two options that is more likely to encourage people to peruse the contents, for something must be done, because it just aint right.

It's not right, in this day and age, that people are ignorant about this medium, and considering that Scott McCloud's almost perfect tome has been available since 1993 there is simply no excuse for it. None.



Scott got clarity. The vast majority of things written about Art do not seem to aim for comprehensibility. They don't.( George Orwell made an interesting point in his essay 'Politics and the English Language': that some art criticism is actually entirely devoid of meaning).

This comic aint like that.

This comic comprehensively and comprehensibly examines its subject* (which he defines as 'visual art-in-sequence') extremely clearly.
In fact, understanding comics does it with the absolute clarity that only the combination of words and pictures can provide.

I love it.

Have a taste: this is the opening 10* panels to Chapter 2:

'The vocabulary of Comics'

they appeared as four panels on the first page and six in the second.