Response to Understanding Comics

The first couples of chapters in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, gave a good insight to comics as an art form that I have never really thought of before. Just like McCloud explained in the first chapter, comic have not been given an equal amount of attention as a legitimate art form. He claims that they are too often viewed with a "narrow perspective" forcing them to keep within the realm of entertainment and not art. McCloud explains that after he gave comics another chance, he began to perceive the artistic aesthetic that lies within them. For example, in the second chapter McCloud mention comics as using "icons" in which readers can relate the narrative in the comic to the world around them, as well as project their own identity to as well. McCloud uses Rene Magritte's (who happens to be one of my favorite artists) painting "The Treachery of Images" to explain the various meanings which each image can represent depending on the individual. Comic incorporate well-known images and icons to serve as indicators of our own world as well as take on the meanings which we apply to them, in a way that is different than the somewhat static characteristics of art forms such as painting.