Books : Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5
EAN: 9780060976255
ISBN: 006097625X
Label: Harper Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: April 27, 1994
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release Date: April 27, 1994
Sales Rank: 7548
Studio: Harper Paperbacks
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, this innovative comic book provides a detailed look at the history, meaning, and art of comics and cartooning.
Amazon.com Review:
A comic book about comic books. McCloud, in an incredibly accessible style, explains the details of how comics work: how they're composed, read and understood. More than just a book about comics, this gets to the heart of how we deal with visual languages in general. "The potential of comics is limitless and exciting!" writes McCloud. This should be required reading for every school teacher. Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Spiegelman says, "The most intelligent comics I've seen in a long time."
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I was required to read this book for a college art class, and hated it. I'm not a comic book fan, but I also don't detest them either. I found the book to be mildly interesting, but just way too reptitive. The author goes on and on about the same things for way too long, practically beating the subjects to death. The author tries to get the reader to take things in the book so seriously, it seems a little ridiculous.
Rating:  -
Okay, this is seriously one of the most brilliant books I have ever read, and I have Henry (who is also brilliant) to thank for introducing this to me. (Thank you, Henry.) Although this book has been around since '93, I suspect it's nowhere near as recognized as it deserves to be, but with time that will change, I hope.
The full title is "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art," and what Scott McCloud does is explain what we take almost completely for granted, not just about comics, which he convincingly raises to a fine art, but also about the way we 'see,' and think we see, the world around us, especially as it is represented in words and images.
It's an important book because he talks in deceptively simple terms about how we perceive reality. McCloud shows the reader, through the seemingly "childish" mechanism of comics, how we think about what we perceive. Therefore, it's an epistemological text, and those are always of tremendous interest to me. It's also a book about how creativity works, and that's a central theme to my research. I've spent most of my adult life dealing with 90% of what he encapsulates in 215 densely packed (and highly entertaining) pages. Did I mention that the entire work is written in the form of a comic book? No? Well, it is.
It purports to be about comics, but that is only the tip of the philosophical iceberg. It's a study of how to think about words and images, and how we have come to use them, not just in ... Read More
Rating:  -
As previous reviewers have mentioned, Scott McCloud is passionate about comics; part of the purpose of writing the book, it seems is to justify the argument that comics are indeed art. I found this a moot point, although his evidence was interesting. Another reason behind the book, it seems, is to explain the message behind comics: the epistomological leaps we take when we read them, the artisitic decisions made when they are created, and the evolution the art form has taken. This was not only the strongest and most interesting part of the book, but also much less preachy.
I enjoy comics, from 19th century broadsheets to the Sunday funnies and the occasional graphic novel. Until now, however, I never really thought about the conscientious decisions the artist makes between realism and meaning when drawing them. Similarly, I had never critically thought about the fundamental differences between Asian (especially Manga) comics and Western comics. McCloud has shed much light on these topics, and explains these differences and decisions clearly, without pretense.
Avid readers of comics, aspiring comic artists and purists may find McCloud a bit pedantic - for the novice such as myself, I was fascinated, as a whole new world has been opened to me through his explaination. Why the four stars then? I took a star for his argument about comics as "art". I suppose there are those who believe comics are not art (or are "low" art at the most); while I disagree ... Read More
Rating: -
You don't wanna miss this lesson guys. Mccloud just forgo himself. A must-have book for all comic readers.
Rating: -
This is an important book that everyone should read. I would give it twenty stars if I could.
I've long been interested in both art and comic books (I have collected them for over 50 years). While the library shelves are full of wonderful books that explain what traditional artists are trying to do and why they succeed, I've often found the books to be pretty boring. In recent years, such books have gotten bogged down into abstruse language that is much less appealing than the art which is the subject.
But in those years, I've never seen anything that was very helpful in discussing the rules of comic art, except some books about pop art when that was popular that examined how the pop art was different from comic art. Naturally, I was blown away when I found that Understanding Comics is a far more comprehensive, thoughtful, and accessible book about interaction with art than I have ever read. Although the subject is ostensibly comic strips and comic books, it's clear to me that that Mr. McCloud has a deep and powerful understanding of all art. Some of his conceptual displays of where different forms of art fall in different dimensions of choice (degree of realism, abstraction, and message) are unbelievably powerful.
I hope that some art historian will stumble on this book and recast the history of art to explain and relate different styles to one another using this book's methods. There would be a lot more art lovers if that were the case.
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