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elfsOne of the underappreciated classics of web design is Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. McCloud taught those who were paying attention that the art of drawing the eye from page to page and moment to moment in a comic book is a dialogue in which the creator has an immense responsibility, and that responsibility is exactly the same for a web designer as it is for a comic artist. McCloud's analysis of transition and gutter are as importarnt to those of us who develop websites as it is to the guys over at Marvel and DC.
McCloud's second book, Reinventing Comics, was a much more speculative look at the future of comics, especially focusing on webcomics. While there are a few webcomics that really followed McCloud's advice (most famously, Electric Sheep and the famous Apocamon series), the direction most webcomics have taken have been far more traditional, and the impact of Reinventing Comics was not nearly as significant as that of Understanding Comics.
McCloud has hit the shelves with a third book, Making Comics. This book is likely to be as significant as Understanding Comics was and in much the same way.
In the first book, McCloud introduced us to the notion that comics were juxtaposed pictures or other images in a deliberate sequence. By that notion, many websites are comics: thumbnailed down, a good website for accomplishing a task becomes a storyboard. He introduced us to ideas of concrete vs. abstract presentation, qualities of line and frame, life between the frames, and planning for transitions, moments, scenes, and actions. In the third book, McCloud revisits this territory and introduces us to the choices we have to make: what image, from what angle, in what frame, with what words, in what sequence, to achive what goal. A huge portion of the book is dedicated to drawing people, and how facial expressions and body language all lead up to exposing the character's inner life. The art is the same servicable style McCloud used in the previous two, and he has an impressive array of contributors helping him on this third volume.
If you draw comics at all, you simply must have Making Comics. Even if you've been doing it for years, McCloud will help you think about what you're doing and give you a vocabulary for describing it to others. And if you make websites and have wondered if you should use a border or not, or apply a theme, McCloud will help you frame the question far better than you can today.
McCloud's second book, Reinventing Comics, was a much more speculative look at the future of comics, especially focusing on webcomics. While there are a few webcomics that really followed McCloud's advice (most famously, Electric Sheep and the famous Apocamon series), the direction most webcomics have taken have been far more traditional, and the impact of Reinventing Comics was not nearly as significant as that of Understanding Comics.
McCloud has hit the shelves with a third book, Making Comics. This book is likely to be as significant as Understanding Comics was and in much the same way.
In the first book, McCloud introduced us to the notion that comics were juxtaposed pictures or other images in a deliberate sequence. By that notion, many websites are comics: thumbnailed down, a good website for accomplishing a task becomes a storyboard. He introduced us to ideas of concrete vs. abstract presentation, qualities of line and frame, life between the frames, and planning for transitions, moments, scenes, and actions. In the third book, McCloud revisits this territory and introduces us to the choices we have to make: what image, from what angle, in what frame, with what words, in what sequence, to achive what goal. A huge portion of the book is dedicated to drawing people, and how facial expressions and body language all lead up to exposing the character's inner life. The art is the same servicable style McCloud used in the previous two, and he has an impressive array of contributors helping him on this third volume.
If you draw comics at all, you simply must have Making Comics. Even if you've been doing it for years, McCloud will help you think about what you're doing and give you a vocabulary for describing it to others. And if you make websites and have wondered if you should use a border or not, or apply a theme, McCloud will help you frame the question far better than you can today.
