CCT 300: Critical Analysis of Media

+CCT 300: Critical Analysis of MediaClass 4: Representation in Comics: McCloud’s Take

+Administration

Next week: Thanksgiving (no class – Monday December 3 is end of term as a result.)

Last class before comic analysis assignment due – ask questions now!

Final exam: Wed, Dec. 12th, 5-7pm, IB120 (room subject to change, check before.)

Cell phone policy – don’t become a statistic!

+A quick first note…

Avoid “McCloud says A. Here’s an example of A.” So what? A recipe for a low B at best (worse if you get it wrong.)

Consider your comic as a designed text – everything is there for a reason.

Your own perspective on why is acceptable – outside research not explicitly necessary – but does it ever really hurt?

Analysis done by application of all rules = rambling and superficial – pick the highlights of McCloud most relevant to your own work

Feel free to critique McCloud – this book is nearly 20 years old, things have changed.

+Comics as Sequential Art

Historical emergence as“bastard child” of word and picture duality

An analysis of the history of sequential art and it’s relation to other similar media

(This usually isn’t a great way to start your paper – why?)

+Picture/Reality/Meaning

Picture plane – representations of iconography, text and realism

A nice breakdown of potential options with a great (and quite historical) selection of cases

Again - simply noting that your comic exists in X space is OK, but why or to what good effect is more interesting

+Comics as Art Form (Six Steps)

An interesting concept with considerable depth

Most people’s initial impression is surface – and many artists start there and work backwards (e.g., tracing and imitation to a better appreciation of the craft)

Exceptional work engages new ideas, new forms, expands genres, plays with structures in an innovative way

Hard to use for this assignment – why?

+Representation in Comics

Moment

Frame

Image

Word

Flow (McCloud’s 2006 work, Making Comics, re-presenting Understanding Comics well…)

+Moment

Comics must represent transition among time visually

Comics must guide the reader’s sense of closure (i.e., leave the reader to fill in the gaps of the story…)

Saturation vs. interpretation similar to McLuhan’s notion of hot vs. cool media - comics generally as cool medium

+Types of Moment Change

Moment-to-Moment

Action-to-Action

Subject-to-Subject

Scene-to-Scene

Aspect-to-Aspect

Non-Sequitur

+Differences in Representing Moment

North American/European comics vs. Japanese - content analysis shows different ratios of moment transition

Experimental comics also break with “standard” North American ratios

Closure differs with each approach, as does the amount of moment transition

+Frame

Comics focus reader’s attention on particular elements, creating sense of place, position, focus

Similar to other visual media (e.g., film, photography) - panels as designed, not accidental.

Even more so in comics– the frame is malleable, can expand, be misshaped, disappear entirely

+Framing elements

“Camera” angleLighting (or lack thereof)Closeups vs. wide shotsDistance and perspectiveSymmetry and centeringThe “gutter” – presence/absence, shape,

colour affect both what is seen and transitions

+Image

Comics as iconic, symbolic medium

Often comics deliberately leave details vague to encourage reader participation in closure – e.g., our ability to see human faces everywhere

+Image elements

Level of detail - photorealism vs. iconography and effects of each

The role of icon in comics - simple comics often evoke interesting emotions (e.g., Peanuts)

Relation between background and foreground characters - (e.g., iconic characters and realistic background, e.g., Hergé’s Tintin)

Expression (especially facial expression) and body language

Sound as imageRole of colour – colour as symbol and accent

+Word

Comics mix visual and literal forms, arguably more so than other visual media

A picture might equal 1000 words, but words can quickly contextualize and represent pictures in various ways

Words as sound effects – representation of aural channel in literal form

+Word/image interplay

Word specific Image specificDuo specificAdditive/intersectingInterdependentParallelMontage

+Flow

Comics as sequential art - sequence of images becomes important in representation of time (e.g., photo of family gathering and reaction example)

Moment, frame, image, word choice work together to create (or sabotage) flow

How much of flow to show? Example of multi-panel comics on drunk driving - different stories are told, even with same beginning/ending points

+Flow concerns

Cultural norms (e.g., North American/European - left to right – manga flows differ, require instructions for non-regular readers)

Pace of transitions - Japanese comics and graphic novels spend more time for fuller exposition and slower moment changes

Breaking norms (experimental comics)Extent to which creator guides flow - hot vs.

cool again

+Comic Analysis: xkcd

http://www.xkcd.com Simple style, but subtlety complex – not “just” stick

figures Occasionally plays with webcomic convention Occasionally very serious:

Money (http://xkcd.com/980/) Fukushima (http://xkcd.com/radiation/)

What If? – new series

+In-class Assignment

Apply one of McCloud’s principles to an XKCD comic of your choice (point form notes fine.)