Finally, this blog is at an end. I have learnt a lot through reading this book, as it has really given me an in depth understanding on the comic world and all the conventions behind it. The world of comics is not seen as very serious or important in society, and the people they attract are continuously being stereotyped into being nerds or geeks. The people who are not so much into them don’t understand just how much more they are, that it is literally a whole new way of seeing things. Not many people realize that comics are in our everyday lives, from the day we are born, but I have. Everything you see on television, all originated from early conventions of cave paintings and hieroglyphs. These in turn link to comics, which links to stop motion, which links to early animations. Everything we do in general result to some forms of communication.
Through reading this book, I’ve learnt and come to realized that everyone out there has something to say to the world, and everything created has some connections to communication between one person and another. You see, art is a strange thing. It plays with the mind, making people think. Many people don’t understand a painting with a few swirls and lines on a canvas, but it is still considered art. The way I see it, the artist of the painting is trying to communicate across to his/her audience his feelings or what mood he is in, his emotions and thoughts, rather than something literal that makes sense to the eye. Art is something you have to sit back and think about, it is the next step to expression and impressionism. Not many people understand this, and so it doesn’t make any sense to them. But as I’ve learnt previously, and what I’ve picked up after reading this book is that you have to be open minded to accept and understand art, because it is not what is in front of you that matters, it is what is beneath the paint.
A point McCloud also mentions is how there is an invisible wall between everyone, as each and every one of us think in a different manner, and have different ideas. I have my own thoughts to this, but I’ve never thought about it that way before. It’s good to open up to the different ideas throughout the book, as this has broadened my understanding of McCloud’s philosophies. The invisible wall metaphor he uses really helped me to understand topic a lot more. It is only likely that we develop new ways of breaking this invisible wall every day. The power to understand has pushed society on to developing into one that relies on new technology and other forms…all to make it easier to communicate to each other. I’ve also learnt about many other things that revolve around comics such as closure, something I’d never really noticed, and probably something that occurs in our everyday lives. I’ve come to understand time and space in much more depth and what is required of an artist if he/she wants to succeed in the comic world. It is much more than I’d expect. What I think I like the best about this book is how McCloud has been able to win over my interests once again in comics. With this new knowledge and understandings of comics, I’m sure I’ll be reading and seeing them much more differently than how I use to.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Chapter 9- Putting it all together
In the Final chapter, McCloud summarizes the points in which he talked about in each previous chapter. Referring back to the beginning chapters brought back memories and really helped me in understanding comics in his point of view. In some chapters, I was a little confused as to whether McCloud knew what he was talking about…or perhaps I just didn’t quite understand his point, but in the final chapter it all became much clearer to me. I find it very surprising that someone such as McCloud has done this study on comics—for 15 years!!! And counting. Wouldn’t it ever get boring? I’ve always liked comics, reading web comics, and manga books…but they have always been just comics to me. I found them interesting because they seemed to express meaning and the storyline much better than perhaps having to watch a movie which has been previously based on a novel or story. This is just like reading a novel. When a new movie that is originally based on a novel, comes out (e.g. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Spiderwick chronicles), it is very rare for the movie to be made better than the novel! This is because to power of words gives us much more space for our imagination to wonder, where as watching a movie, we are seeing the whole story’s perspective in the eyes of the director. Everyone has a different approach and develops different images in their minds when reading the books, and so the director’s images may never match up to another individual’s idea.
Novels and Comics both have their advantages and disadvantages. Novels have the advantage of allowing readers to involve themselves within and really use their imagination- closure, where as comics have the advantage of describing things not only in written form but also visually, bringing them to the next level. The saying that ‘a pictures speaks a thousand words’ is very true, but to me, that only applies to a still image, not a movie. A comic only shows still images, along with some dialogue. The pictures within a comic strip speak a thousand words in its own ways. Like in chapter 6 where McCloud explains how words can balance pictures out and how pictures can balance words out. This applies with comics and how they are structured to allow readers to become so engrossed within the story. To me, comic artists have that one level higher advantage over novel writers. They can express their stories in much more depth visually with images and ideas that have formed within their heads throughout the creation of the comic. This way, readers can really involve themselves within the story line, having less chance of deviating from the original story, which is what many writers aim to achieve.
Novels and Comics both have their advantages and disadvantages. Novels have the advantage of allowing readers to involve themselves within and really use their imagination- closure, where as comics have the advantage of describing things not only in written form but also visually, bringing them to the next level. The saying that ‘a pictures speaks a thousand words’ is very true, but to me, that only applies to a still image, not a movie. A comic only shows still images, along with some dialogue. The pictures within a comic strip speak a thousand words in its own ways. Like in chapter 6 where McCloud explains how words can balance pictures out and how pictures can balance words out. This applies with comics and how they are structured to allow readers to become so engrossed within the story. To me, comic artists have that one level higher advantage over novel writers. They can express their stories in much more depth visually with images and ideas that have formed within their heads throughout the creation of the comic. This way, readers can really involve themselves within the story line, having less chance of deviating from the original story, which is what many writers aim to achieve.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
chapter 8- A word about colour.
Colour plays a huge role in the comic world. When colour was first introduced into comics, it has a massive impact on many. The comics were stylized in a way so that they would match the primary flat colours in which they held within the bold black line work. It was not until later on that artists began using a broader spectrum of colour, mixing and matching, using tones to create depth and moods within the art work. Artists then tried to apply these new tones and shades to they comic strips, but obviously, this didn’t work as the line work was still the same as the old ones, accustoming only the bold flat primary colours.
Colour has given the comic world a sense of depth and symbolism. McCloud uses the examples of super heroes such as Batman and the Hulk. Batman’s original comical colours are dark blue, yellow and grey, and the Hulks colours are lime green and dark purple. Because we’ve seen these characters and their colours so often, the colours have become a symbol to the characters. Now when we see the colours green and purple, we can make that direct connection to the Hulk. This can also be seen in many other comic character-hero or villain, such as spiderman, superman, Flash etc. Colour has been used effectively not only in comics and art, but in things such as company logos, flags, sports, signs etc. chicken treats colours are yellow and red. Flags of every country symbolize the country, and those colours in turn have become the representation of those countries. Sports and gaming also use colour to separate one team from the other- e.g. The West Coast Eagles being gold and blue, and the Fremantle Dockers being of green, red and purple. Road signs are also very important, and are in everyone’s everyday lives. The red light system- green being good to go, amber meaning prepare to stop and red meaning stop, are all recognized by everyone. Other colours such as yellow for road signs- being bright and reflective attract attention to drivers and allow them to be warned in advance. This is one way how colour has influenced our perceptions of comics and art in general. Colour also creates a sense of atmosphere and mood to the picture. Dark colours and hues can be perceived as evil, sad, misery, gloomy etc; where as bright cheerful colours can be perceived as happy, relaxing, vibrant, refreshing etc. This chapter is very much similar and is based around the same concept as chapter 5- Living in Line, where McCloud shows us how different lines can represent/mean/emphasis different meanings/moods/styles.
(LOL above)
Throughout our last assignment/task in Xavier’s drawing class we were required to create 10 characters, and finalize a final fight scene of some sort where you would include your villain and a hero. Out of the 10 characters I chose 2 that looked both evil. This was so that I could purposely challenge myself in trying to find the two very different colour combinations for each character, so that I can portray one noticeable as the hero and the other noticeable as the villain. I wanted to test out that colour can really make the difference. As written in chapter 8, McCloud states that “adding colours objectifies the subject”. By adding colour, the picture automatically gains a new dimension…an object or scene that black and white lines just don’t quite have the fullest potential of achieving. As a viewer, we then become more aware of the physical form of the object rather than the flat black and white lines. Adding colour to my fight scene really made a difference, there is now a new dimension expressed through the colours used, and the colours I’d chosen represents one evil and good, hopefully contrasting against each other and being obvious.
. Throughout the process of choosing colour combinations for my characters, I had to think of all the different colours that resembled different meanings and moods. I ended up choosing blue and gold for my hero, as they are strong contrasting heroic colours that can emphasis that he is in fact the hero! For the villain I chose purple and green, both colours that represent vile, evil and sinister.
Colour has given the comic world a sense of depth and symbolism. McCloud uses the examples of super heroes such as Batman and the Hulk. Batman’s original comical colours are dark blue, yellow and grey, and the Hulks colours are lime green and dark purple. Because we’ve seen these characters and their colours so often, the colours have become a symbol to the characters. Now when we see the colours green and purple, we can make that direct connection to the Hulk. This can also be seen in many other comic character-hero or villain, such as spiderman, superman, Flash etc. Colour has been used effectively not only in comics and art, but in things such as company logos, flags, sports, signs etc. chicken treats colours are yellow and red. Flags of every country symbolize the country, and those colours in turn have become the representation of those countries. Sports and gaming also use colour to separate one team from the other- e.g. The West Coast Eagles being gold and blue, and the Fremantle Dockers being of green, red and purple. Road signs are also very important, and are in everyone’s everyday lives. The red light system- green being good to go, amber meaning prepare to stop and red meaning stop, are all recognized by everyone. Other colours such as yellow for road signs- being bright and reflective attract attention to drivers and allow them to be warned in advance. This is one way how colour has influenced our perceptions of comics and art in general. Colour also creates a sense of atmosphere and mood to the picture. Dark colours and hues can be perceived as evil, sad, misery, gloomy etc; where as bright cheerful colours can be perceived as happy, relaxing, vibrant, refreshing etc. This chapter is very much similar and is based around the same concept as chapter 5- Living in Line, where McCloud shows us how different lines can represent/mean/emphasis different meanings/moods/styles.
(LOL above)Throughout our last assignment/task in Xavier’s drawing class we were required to create 10 characters, and finalize a final fight scene of some sort where you would include your villain and a hero. Out of the 10 characters I chose 2 that looked both evil. This was so that I could purposely challenge myself in trying to find the two very different colour combinations for each character, so that I can portray one noticeable as the hero and the other noticeable as the villain. I wanted to test out that colour can really make the difference. As written in chapter 8, McCloud states that “adding colours objectifies the subject”. By adding colour, the picture automatically gains a new dimension…an object or scene that black and white lines just don’t quite have the fullest potential of achieving. As a viewer, we then become more aware of the physical form of the object rather than the flat black and white lines. Adding colour to my fight scene really made a difference, there is now a new dimension expressed through the colours used, and the colours I’d chosen represents one evil and good, hopefully contrasting against each other and being obvious.
. Throughout the process of choosing colour combinations for my characters, I had to think of all the different colours that resembled different meanings and moods. I ended up choosing blue and gold for my hero, as they are strong contrasting heroic colours that can emphasis that he is in fact the hero! For the villain I chose purple and green, both colours that represent vile, evil and sinister.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
chapter 7- the six steps
As far as what McCloud says, I can agree with what he has to say about how "any artist creating any work in any medium will always follow these six steps whether they realize it or not". The six steps being
1-idea/purpose
2-form
3- idiom
4-structure
5-craft
6- surface
As an artist myself, I never thought about these six steps being relevant to my work before. It never really occurred to me that there were even steps in creating art! I thought about it and applied these steps to my regular working plans, and I can see how they would apply perfectly. I’ve realized that whenever I sit down to draw, I need a vague idea on my head...or a purpose as to why I'm drawing this something. The way I compose my pictures purely depend on all of the above--what I’m drawing, what genre and so on. Form, structure, idea…they are all rushing through my head as I create me piece. It never occurred to me however that I have been unconsciously following these 6 steps. Even just thinking about it, I can see how it applies to me greatly as I believe it may apply to any other artist. I've realized that with all the art pieces that I have completed and have been a success, I've unconsciously followed the steps, knowing exactly what I wanted as a final image. Where as, looking at my unfinished pieces...I can now see how I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to portray and how I managed to miss some critical steps along the way. In that situation, I often loose interest in what I’m drawing because perhaps I don't have an idea, or a structure.
So as McCloud uses the metaphor of the shinny apple compared to the old wrinkly one, I can see what he is trying to explain through my personal experiences. There is no point working towards a polished surface, using short cuts along the way--where you’ve missed out some essential planning stages. If you ever finish it, the final product will always be lacking something, whether it is form or shape or perspectives etc. How I see life altogether is that we shouldn't be taking shortcuts unless we've been through the long way. Taking shortcuts to begin with, strips us of our ability to learn for ourselves the hard way, and even though it maybe easier and less time consuming, it may always backfire and come back to you in the future. This is how I kind of see the difference of university and Tafe as being. In Tafe, students are taught how to use the programs, what to do in certain situations…students are spoon fed throughout the years, where as in university, it is more based around the students figuring things out themselves. A lot more independency is required, as lecturers don’t teach students as much, and expect them to figure things out themselves. Personally I see this as a good thing, as we as students are learning from our own mistakes first hand, and solving them. You learn best from your mistakes and that’s how knowledge sticks. Tafe may be a lot easier in terms of being taught everything, but the students aren’t necessarily learning from their mistakes.
What I don't agree however is what McCloud says about the whole "life revolves around survival and sex", and relating that to comics and art. The statement I agree with, but not if it is being put in context with art. I believe that everyone has a different definition to ART in general, and the metaphor McCloud uses is not the best metaphor to use in terms of art. It is true however that everyone is artistic in their own way...musically, visually, creatively etc. But how does that relate to 'sex and survival' in the first place. I personally didn’t understand fully where McCloud was going with the metaphor, but I guess it’s not right to judge peoples perceptions and ideas as everyone’s theories are different!
1-idea/purpose
2-form
3- idiom
4-structure
5-craft
6- surface
As an artist myself, I never thought about these six steps being relevant to my work before. It never really occurred to me that there were even steps in creating art! I thought about it and applied these steps to my regular working plans, and I can see how they would apply perfectly. I’ve realized that whenever I sit down to draw, I need a vague idea on my head...or a purpose as to why I'm drawing this something. The way I compose my pictures purely depend on all of the above--what I’m drawing, what genre and so on. Form, structure, idea…they are all rushing through my head as I create me piece. It never occurred to me however that I have been unconsciously following these 6 steps. Even just thinking about it, I can see how it applies to me greatly as I believe it may apply to any other artist. I've realized that with all the art pieces that I have completed and have been a success, I've unconsciously followed the steps, knowing exactly what I wanted as a final image. Where as, looking at my unfinished pieces...I can now see how I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to portray and how I managed to miss some critical steps along the way. In that situation, I often loose interest in what I’m drawing because perhaps I don't have an idea, or a structure.
So as McCloud uses the metaphor of the shinny apple compared to the old wrinkly one, I can see what he is trying to explain through my personal experiences. There is no point working towards a polished surface, using short cuts along the way--where you’ve missed out some essential planning stages. If you ever finish it, the final product will always be lacking something, whether it is form or shape or perspectives etc. How I see life altogether is that we shouldn't be taking shortcuts unless we've been through the long way. Taking shortcuts to begin with, strips us of our ability to learn for ourselves the hard way, and even though it maybe easier and less time consuming, it may always backfire and come back to you in the future. This is how I kind of see the difference of university and Tafe as being. In Tafe, students are taught how to use the programs, what to do in certain situations…students are spoon fed throughout the years, where as in university, it is more based around the students figuring things out themselves. A lot more independency is required, as lecturers don’t teach students as much, and expect them to figure things out themselves. Personally I see this as a good thing, as we as students are learning from our own mistakes first hand, and solving them. You learn best from your mistakes and that’s how knowledge sticks. Tafe may be a lot easier in terms of being taught everything, but the students aren’t necessarily learning from their mistakes.
What I don't agree however is what McCloud says about the whole "life revolves around survival and sex", and relating that to comics and art. The statement I agree with, but not if it is being put in context with art. I believe that everyone has a different definition to ART in general, and the metaphor McCloud uses is not the best metaphor to use in terms of art. It is true however that everyone is artistic in their own way...musically, visually, creatively etc. But how does that relate to 'sex and survival' in the first place. I personally didn’t understand fully where McCloud was going with the metaphor, but I guess it’s not right to judge peoples perceptions and ideas as everyone’s theories are different!
chapter s6x--"show and tell"
In this chapter, we are shown how and where the symbols of words originated from. McCloud refers back to his 'iconic abstraction chart', where he places picture and words together next to each other in historys pages. this shows how back in the times of cave paintings and egyptian hyrogliphics, words were pretty much made out of a picture...or symbol that looked like or reperesented the word. Back when i studied chinses, i was very interested in how the individual characters came to be. They all began with a symbol that looked like the thing itself. One of my favourite examples is this one.
木 mù stands for “a tree” in Chinese, and it is very obvious as a pictogram, a picture of a tree.
By drawing two trees, we get 林 lín, which means forest. 林 Lín is also a Chinese surname. Adding one more tree makes a 森 林 sēnlin, meaning an even bigger forest! 森 sēn also describes something dark and gloomy, like how a dense forest can be like.
Here we see the beauty of using pictographs – they are understandable universally and the tehcnique of multiplying and combining different can create many extended meanings.
As we combine a picture of a person, 人 rén, with a tree, 木mù ，we end up with 休 xīu. --meaning 'A man leaning on a tree' - he is having a rest, 休 xīu!
The history of chinese characters is very much the same as egyptian hyrogliphics or aztec carvings. And over many centuaries, these sumbols evolved and changed into what we now see as the modern characters. For example, in the chart below-- the first row of characters says 'person', or 'human'. IT started off with a simple few lines that looked like a human standing up. Over the many hundreds of years, it has developed to mans likings into its modern form at the end of the row. Just looking at this chart makes me wonder how long it would have taken man to develope these characters into what they are knowns as today...how many chinese characters are there all together? ALOT!... and...how many different languages are there in the world ? :S..... and to think about just how many different symbols and generations passed that this process would have taken intrigues me!...after all every language has its deep histories and all would have surely come from a process much like this on.
chinese characters are intersting in the way that they can be made up of many different charaters put together, like playing pictionary perhaps, where you are required to draw pictures that mean certain things when put together. the image above shows the multiple different symbols in ancient chinses characters put together to form the word 'law'. The image below shows how a cluster of words related to the word "garden", put together forms the word garden. The word "garden" would have evolved from a symbol much different from its modern form like every other word. Yet each of the characters used within this word would have their own history line of different symbols once again to develop into what they are today. I find this concept very interesting as there is so much more behind just this one language..'chinses'...yet there are hundreds of other languages using different techniques and developements! Ahhh its crazzyy...
木 mù stands for “a tree” in Chinese, and it is very obvious as a pictogram, a picture of a tree.
By drawing two trees, we get 林 lín, which means forest. 林 Lín is also a Chinese surname. Adding one more tree makes a 森 林 sēnlin, meaning an even bigger forest! 森 sēn also describes something dark and gloomy, like how a dense forest can be like.
Here we see the beauty of using pictographs – they are understandable universally and the tehcnique of multiplying and combining different can create many extended meanings.
As we combine a picture of a person, 人 rén, with a tree, 木mù ，we end up with 休 xīu. --meaning 'A man leaning on a tree' - he is having a rest, 休 xīu!
The history of chinese characters is very much the same as egyptian hyrogliphics or aztec carvings. And over many centuaries, these sumbols evolved and changed into what we now see as the modern characters. For example, in the chart below-- the first row of characters says 'person', or 'human'. IT started off with a simple few lines that looked like a human standing up. Over the many hundreds of years, it has developed to mans likings into its modern form at the end of the row. Just looking at this chart makes me wonder how long it would have taken man to develope these characters into what they are knowns as today...how many chinese characters are there all together? ALOT!... and...how many different languages are there in the world ? :S..... and to think about just how many different symbols and generations passed that this process would have taken intrigues me!...after all every language has its deep histories and all would have surely come from a process much like this on.
chinese characters are intersting in the way that they can be made up of many different charaters put together, like playing pictionary perhaps, where you are required to draw pictures that mean certain things when put together. the image above shows the multiple different symbols in ancient chinses characters put together to form the word 'law'. The image below shows how a cluster of words related to the word "garden", put together forms the word garden. The word "garden" would have evolved from a symbol much different from its modern form like every other word. Yet each of the characters used within this word would have their own history line of different symbols once again to develop into what they are today. I find this concept very interesting as there is so much more behind just this one language..'chinses'...yet there are hundreds of other languages using different techniques and developements! Ahhh its crazzyy...
Back to the book...Chapter six refers to the equalities of word and picture. McCloud states that words can balance pictures out and that pictures can balance words out. I agree with this statement as to me, it is impressively true to my understandings. When McCloud shows us how he can draw the whole scenes out with a caption given to him, and write captions with only an image given to him...i thaught about "guess the captions"--the game commonly seen in the game and comic section of newspapers. It is all very simular--how there are compotitions held where we are given a single image and we have to match it with a single caption which we think is suitable to balance the picture out. With an image given to us, we are then able to explore as far as we want with words to tying the meanings together. This works the same way with say-pictionary- where we are given a word and have the freedom of drawing what ever we like to depict this word.
chapter 5
When you think about it, how can lines show us emotions and feelings. how can simple lines 'unite' our 5 senses? In chapter 5. called "Living in line", McCloud explains how lines can portray any kind of feeling, emotion, or idea. A line can be soft and mellow--depicting gentleness, serenity, peacefulness...or it can be harsh, thick and bold-- depicting anger, loudness and madness. McCloud uses examples such as the famous painting "The Scream", by Edvard Munch. Munch uses long curved jaggered lines, to express the movement and flow of the painting. The screaming figure is surrounded by lines that flow around it, in the same upwards movement so show this fluent flow through the painting.
The author also refers to Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait and Wassily Kandinsky'd paintings. all three artists have very different lines styles and this effects the different moods and feelings being expressed. As and example, look at Walt Disneys animations. They all have villians and heros, and through their linework, it is easy to destinguish evil from good. I watched Aladdin recently, and found that the artists have drawn the good guys-- Aladdin, jasmine, the dad etc with smooth and rounded curved lines. This emphasises the fact that they are the good guys, expressing warmth and happiness to the viewers. But once Jafar comes on screen, all the lines used to depict him and his surroundings are sharp edged and ridged. Jafars face and clothes are drawn with hard, angular and sharp lines. This emphasises anger and evilness, and it is obvious that Jafar is the villian within the story. I can see how this technique is very effective and influences us veiwers greatly in how we perseive the characters.
Aladdin and Genie--soft smooth linework
contrasting linework between Aladdin and Jafar
Jafar--linework all sharp and harsh, his face is very slick and...evil.
Through lines, artists have developed different ways of showing the unseen elements within reality. Things such as smell lines, movement lines, air movement...to anger and stess lines, lines that show emotions and feelings. In the comic strips of "Garfield", I like how the artist has found ways of showing certain invisible forms. In the comic strip below, we can see how the artist has used the symbols of water droplets to emphasis sweat beads jumping off the characters stressed faces. These sweat beads are obviously not there , as sweat doesnt just fall off you like that, but they are there, and they sybolise sweat beads, and everyone kows that. There are also small lines around the faces when the characters move their heads very quickly. This shows movement...but it is invisible and the lines wont obviously be hter in real life. I find that this is a very effective and efficient way of showing something that is quite difficult to show through a picture...through lines in general.
McCloud also talks about how in different cultures and societies, different symbols have developed and evolved for the same ideas and meanings. Looking at Japanese manga for example, the Japanese artists have developed hundreds of different symbols to depict different moods and facial expressions. Using different strokes and shapes, the artists are still however able to depict and portray the same emotions as any other styled arists would be able to depict.
As an artist myself i know how important 'Lines' in general are to portraying moods and expressions in artworks. With simply a few lines, a whole story can be told through the way they are drawn...through shape, angle, tecture, movement and flow, heaviness, intricasy and so on... I think that the points that McCloud has mentioned throughout this chapter pretty much covers the effectiveness and the importance on linework.
The author also refers to Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait and Wassily Kandinsky'd paintings. all three artists have very different lines styles and this effects the different moods and feelings being expressed. As and example, look at Walt Disneys animations. They all have villians and heros, and through their linework, it is easy to destinguish evil from good. I watched Aladdin recently, and found that the artists have drawn the good guys-- Aladdin, jasmine, the dad etc with smooth and rounded curved lines. This emphasises the fact that they are the good guys, expressing warmth and happiness to the viewers. But once Jafar comes on screen, all the lines used to depict him and his surroundings are sharp edged and ridged. Jafars face and clothes are drawn with hard, angular and sharp lines. This emphasises anger and evilness, and it is obvious that Jafar is the villian within the story. I can see how this technique is very effective and influences us veiwers greatly in how we perseive the characters.
Aladdin and Genie--soft smooth linework
contrasting linework between Aladdin and Jafar
Jafar--linework all sharp and harsh, his face is very slick and...evil.Through lines, artists have developed different ways of showing the unseen elements within reality. Things such as smell lines, movement lines, air movement...to anger and stess lines, lines that show emotions and feelings. In the comic strips of "Garfield", I like how the artist has found ways of showing certain invisible forms. In the comic strip below, we can see how the artist has used the symbols of water droplets to emphasis sweat beads jumping off the characters stressed faces. These sweat beads are obviously not there , as sweat doesnt just fall off you like that, but they are there, and they sybolise sweat beads, and everyone kows that. There are also small lines around the faces when the characters move their heads very quickly. This shows movement...but it is invisible and the lines wont obviously be hter in real life. I find that this is a very effective and efficient way of showing something that is quite difficult to show through a picture...through lines in general.
McCloud also talks about how in different cultures and societies, different symbols have developed and evolved for the same ideas and meanings. Looking at Japanese manga for example, the Japanese artists have developed hundreds of different symbols to depict different moods and facial expressions. Using different strokes and shapes, the artists are still however able to depict and portray the same emotions as any other styled arists would be able to depict.
As an artist myself i know how important 'Lines' in general are to portraying moods and expressions in artworks. With simply a few lines, a whole story can be told through the way they are drawn...through shape, angle, tecture, movement and flow, heaviness, intricasy and so on... I think that the points that McCloud has mentioned throughout this chapter pretty much covers the effectiveness and the importance on linework.
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