Making Comics With Scott McCloud

A while ago I went on a sort of shopping spree at the bookstore. Somewhere between grabbing The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and picking up volumes 10 and 11 of Fullmetal Alchemist I spied a book with the word “Comics” and the name “Scott McCloud” and snatched it up without a second thought.

Now, I will admit to never actually having read any of McCloud’s comics, and yet I recognize him not only as the brilliant mind behind the 24 Hour Comic but also as a comic guru of sorts. His level of enthusiasm for the artform is contagious and his books are both fun and informative. Some of his quirky ideas have been criticized or even considered crazy, it’s definitely nice to hear more than the same old same old from cartooning books.

It was a couple of years ago that someone on deviantART (it may have even been dA’s resident evil clown Lolly, if I recall, but I’m unsure) that someone recommended McCloud’s 1993 hit Understanding Comics to me. I had certainly heard his name before, and I was already familiar with the concept of the 24 Hour Comic and so I decided to check it out.

Now I’ve had many Cartooning books over the years. From books by Bruce Blitz and Christopher Hart (his books before the inept and repugnant Manga Mania series) to the Graphic-Sha How to Draw Manga collection. But Understanding Comics was something quite different, it didn’t want to teach you how to draw but why to draw as well as how to get what you wanted from your work and from your readers. It discussed how and why the very flow and idea of comics works the way it does, what effect it has on people, and how that knowledge can work to your advantage. Best of all the entire book was written like a comic book itself!

I was awestruck by McCloud’s observations of the artform, some of which reflected thoughts I myself have had but was unable to articulate. Others in a way I never thought to look at it before. I knew he had another book, Reinventing Comics, and when I grabbed that book off the shelf during my aforementioned shopping spree I thought that’s what I got.

Apparently not!

It seems just last year McCloud wrote a new book called Making Comics, and hell it was far more useful than what I thought I had gotten. It’s again written like a comic book itself, and it again isn’t so much how-to-draw as giving you a series of techniques that can be easily applied to your own style. McCloud, or at least his little cartoon representation, however, continually reassures the readers that there is no right or wrong way to draw comics and no one needs to follow his “nerdy categorizations”. But he maintained his book was meant to be a road map and a guide during those times an artist feels lost, and it does happen to everyone.

He manages to cover everything you could think of, anything you’d want to know, and probably some stuff you never even thought of or didn’t know you wanted to know. From scene transitions to facial expressions from body language to choice of words.

But knowing the audience I’m likely to get at this site, don’t think he’s Western-toon-centric in his observations. Moreso than in Understanding Comics, McCloud has exhaustive notes, sections and even a chapter on manga (making it a point that he only uses the term to describe Japanese comics and in no way defines manga and comics as two different things), how and why manga is different from American, European and other Western comics and why it’s a good idea for artists who aren’t going for the manga look to still apply some of the principals of Japanese comics to their work. McCloud fully acknowledges the East/West divide among Cartoonists who draw in general Western styles and Cartoonists who adopt the Japanese school of thought on comics, but he’s someone who greatly admires manga without drawing it himself.

All and all I very much enjoyed this book, and it helped ease a few things in my frazzled mind. At the same time it’s nice to have some assurance from a professional who’s so passionate about the artform. Assurance that the way you’re going is fine, and there is no right and wrong, and innovation is the key to everything no matter what style you decide to take up, or what style you decide works best for you.

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