Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993)

Written by: Scott McCloud

I’ve never been a big comics fan. I don’t know why, but there it is. I’ve never read an entire issue of any comic. (I don’t really count the one issue of Ren & Stimpy that I have. It’s a novelty that I didn’t indulge in again.)

Then I started watching a lot of comic book movies. For some reason, I love the shit out of those. The Spiderman Movies are among my favorites ever. But I still haven’t gotten into comics.

But there’s one thing that I HAVE gotten into…and it’s even dorkier: I’ve read an entire series of manga. I know, it’s a comic. No getting around that. But, for me it’s different. Not just because it’s Kenshin, but because it’s something foreign to most people. When you say, “I read manga.” many people don’t know what you’re talking about.

Anyway, a friend of mine suggested that I read Understanding Comics so that I get some kind of insight into the world of comics.

Scott McCloud had been theorizing on comics for years. Finally, in 1993, he wrote a book about his theories. And, true to his idea that comics can do anything, he wrote his textbook in comics form.

He tells of the first comics (when language and pictures were one and the same in ancient times) to the psychadelia of R. Crumb to the most modern (at the time) expressionistic and experimental comics (Art Spiegelman’s Prisoner On The Hell Planet). He makes a case that the comics are an art form that have been denied their place in history for far too long. Comics are a very complex form of storytelling that helps to motivate the mind in ways that pictures and words alone can’t do.

Now, I don’t fully agree with him on everything. He kind of makes it seem as if comics are the ultimate art and that nothing else can touch it. I don’t know about that. I would put a Picasso or a Dickens above Spider-Man any day. But I do see his point. And it made me want to investigate comics a lot more than I ever have. Maybe check out Maus or Bone and see what all the fuss is about.

Hell, if textbooks had been written like this when I was in school I would have studied (and retained) a LOT more than I did. So there’s a testament to comics’ power.

If you have never given comics a chance, check this book out. It’s well worth the time. And, hey! It’s a comic book! It doesn’t take long to read, so you’re not using too much time on it.