- Publisher
- Harper Perennial
- Published
- 1994
- Shelf
- art: Criticism
- ISBN
- 9780060976255
Criticism
Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud
A theory of visual storytelling, told in comics, about what happens in the gap between one panel and the next.
Why read it
McCloud's subject is closure: the reader supplies the action between frames, and the whole medium runs on work the audience does unpaid. That idea reaches far past comics into storyboards, interface flows and any sequence where you decide what to leave out. His chapter on abstraction and why a simple face holds more identification than a detailed one is required reading for anyone drawing an icon.
Why own it
It demonstrates its own argument on every page, which no summary can do. And it is the rare piece of theory people finish.
Who it is for
Anyone designing a sequence, a storyboard or a character, and anyone who thinks comics are for children.
Reading order
Book 4 of 5 in the art reading order. See all 5
Read nextArt & FearDavid Bayles & Ted OrlandEnd with Bayles and Orland, two working artists, on why people stop making things and how to keep going.Read before thisInteraction of Color
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
