Reading Response 4 (McCloud)

McCloud – “Vocabulary of Comics”

Summary

In his article, “Vocabulary of Comics,” McCloud attempts to show the meaning behind icons of different kinds to show the correlation between them and why we connect with images the less detailed and more abstract (i.e. a cartoon).He eventually comes to the point of universality inherent to cartoons; cartoons describe a large sample of people because of their lack of details. We, while children, connect to cartoons because they are simplified and easier to interpret, as well as being what our mental image of own features are.

Synthesis

This article isn’t like any of the other readings we’ve done so far. It isn’t showing us a different way to change our writing style or analyzing conversation. It isn’t even in an “article format,” being written as a comic to help emphasize the point being made about icons and images. The only thing that is similar is that it is an analysis of a concept; it just isn’t one that has to do with writing.

Pre-reading

1. My favorite cartoon was when I was younger was Scooby-Doo. I related to all of the characters as a group, because they were normal kids, all of them friends and from different “cliques” and they had a good time, which I had as a kid. They also liked to go out and solve mysteries, which I thought was really cool. Because they were not portrayed as adults, I connected as one kid to another and it made me think that it was possible for me to solve mysteries and be as cool as them.

2. There are patterns in the lights and ceiling tiles that resemble a human face, as well as in parts of the carpet. The only similarity is just the placement of two objects as eyes and another as a mouth below them. I can see them without the face, if you look at only one part at a time, or in short intervals. The longer you look at it, the more it looks like a face.

QD

1. Adults still like the simplicity of cartoons because it reminds them of fond memories of their childhood, as well as allowing them an escape from the hardships and responsibilities of adulthood. There should not be an age when cartoons are inappropriate, because it gives everyone a universal humor and joy, and it may just help keep some adults a little younger. McCloud would agree, because even adults would benefit from cartoons simplifying some complex ideas for them. Hence why there are political cartoons.

2. McCloud used the comic book format so he could show the contrast between the two images, so that the reader’s interpretation of his language wouldn’t get between the point he was trying to make, so he took the reader’s interpretation out of the picture (pun intended). His point could have been garbled in translation if he had tried to describe the differences in writing, so some people wouldn’t have understood what he was trying to argue.

A&E

2. McCloud contends that we are more likely to see ourselves in generic, cartoonish images that don’t accurately resemble ourselves, because we rarely see our own face, only through mirrors. This then means that we spend a majority of our time seeing everyone else, so our own features tend to blur together. I have never looked at a photo of someone and identified with them, unless it was a family member.

3. Some adults “grow out” of watching cartoon, or say they do, because they feel that it is part of the role of an adult to scorn anything from their childhood, as cartoons are viewed as childish in nature. Some feel that the oversimplification is below their “intellect” and others have simply developed a new, more “refined” sense of humor. The truth that they encounter icons and cartoons every day is passed over by them, because they see it as an inevitable encounter, something that they can’t avoid. They’ve “grown out” of the choice to watch cartoons.

4. McCloud’s concept of the mask would affect my perception of myself, but not that of others, because when you wear a mask, your surroundings don’t change, you do. Without my mask, my perceptions of my surroundings would be the same, though their perception of me might be different, because they haven’t changed any, my mental image of myself has.

Thoughts

This is probably my favorite reading so far, simply because it was different. The others are scholarly articles whose concepts were a little beyond what I’m used to reading, but I can relate to cartoons, and it made the concept a lot easier to understand. In was a nice change from the same old, same old.